I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the sixth meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic. Today's meeting is taking place by videoconference. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, please activate your mic. When you are not speaking, leave your mic on mute. Of course, change the language when you change the language on the screen.  I would remind hon. members that if you want to speak English, you should be on the English channel; if you want to speak French, you should be on the French channel; and should you wish to alternate between the two languages, as I just did, you should change the channel to the language that you are speaking, each time you switch languages. In addition, please direct your remarks through the chair and speak slowly and clearly at all times to help our interpreters. Finally, for members who will be speaking, we strongly recommend that you use a headset. I recommend the headset for your fellow members, but also for the interpreters as it gets loud, up and down, and it squeaks. It really does make it difficult for them if you do not have the prescribed headsets. We'll go on to ministerial announcements. I understand that there are no ministerial announcements today, so we will proceed to presenting petitions, for a period not exceeding 15 minutes. I would like to remind members that any petition presented during a meeting of the special committee must have already been certified by the clerk of petitions. We will now proceed to presenting petitions.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. World Maternal Mental Health Day took place last week, and today I'd like to take a moment to present a very important petition on behalf of the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative. Whereas perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are the most common obstetrical complication, whereas in Canada and worldwide 20% of women and 10% of men suffer from a perinatal mental illness, resulting in an annual economic cost to Canada of approximately $11 billion, and whereas the U.K., Australia and parts of the U.S. have perinatal mental health strategies and screening guidelines in place and Canada does not, the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative is calling upon the House of Commons in Parliament assembled to create a national perinatal mental health strategy that will provide direction, policy and funding to develop specialized, comprehensive perinatal mental health care services, which include universal screening and timely access to treatment for all women and men during pregnancy and the postpartum period.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My petition relates to cystic fibrosis. If we were in the House now, as May is Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month, one of the days this month we would all be wearing yellow roses in sympathy and solidarity with those who suffer from what is the number one disease killer in Canada of young people. The petitioners have asked us to look at the situation with the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, which is scheduled to go through some important and potentially detrimental regulatory changes very soon. They ask that the amendments to the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board be rescinded, as these will restrict Canadians from receiving life-saving medications for cystic fibrosis and other illnesses, but in particular, a medicine called Trikafta, which can have the effect of treating cystic fibrosis in the case of 90% of cystic fibrosis sufferers. They ask the government to work with the provinces to find a strategy to jointly allow for the delivery of this life-saving medicine to Canadians across the country and to take a leadership role in negotiating a price for gene modulators throughout all the provinces of Canada.