True Patriot Love - Canada’s Cancer Crisis： Why Are We Still Falling Behind？

00:00:00.000 while the war in iran rolls on and why the news cycle rolls on daily in the world in our own

00:00:10.240 world here in canada there's also a reality that cancer is affecting thousands of canadians every

00:00:15.760 day and it's a battle that we continue to fight at the best we can thrilled to be joined us all by

00:00:21.120 paul micucci to talk about this and yes i mean there's so much going on in the world but as we

00:00:25.920 look at the april which is the start of cancer awareness month in canada there's a lot to digest

00:00:30.960 when it comes to cancer in this country yeah there is jim you know and uh we were uh watching and

00:00:36.160 looking at the stats the other day and and i said you know stop for a minute let's let's take a look

00:00:40.800 at terry fox yeah and you know what a what a hero and you know we remember terry fox and his run

00:00:48.320 across canada and you know the fundraising of his family and they've been celebrated in the last few

00:00:54.480 months about what happened to his life and what a hero he was in in in the cancer fight but you

00:01:01.200 know it's not over and and i think a lot of times we forget you know uh all the people that have

00:01:07.360 gone through it survived but also the high mortality rate and one of the things that you

00:01:13.760 know we've done a little research and we found that we still per hundred thousand uh lead all

00:01:21.040 countries in cancer as far as mortalities and that's something we can't forget and you know

00:01:28.540 given we are such an industrial country given that the fact that manufacturing in Canada especially

00:01:34.700 in Ontario and when you look at Ontario it is the number one leader in cancer mortality in Canada

00:01:40.760 is in Ontario followed by Quebec and then BC and then gets lower and lower and I think we have to

00:01:47.140 keep that in mind um and there's a lot to talk about in this show not only some good things

00:01:53.780 which i'd like to focus on but some things that i think now we need to step into and you know

00:01:59.340 come to grips with and say enough's enough we really need to you know uh get busy use mrna

00:02:07.280 technology to fix and jim you know you see it all the time you know the research that we do and the

00:02:13.620 yeoman's task and how far we've come i think as a country we um a world leader some princess

00:02:19.720 margaret has this famous for people in other parts of canada don't realize it princess margaret

00:02:24.480 hospital in downtown toronto they hold charity events bike rides and road hockey and they have

00:02:31.400 lotteries and stuff and they raise millions but they and i talked to the ceo a few years ago and

00:02:36.940 the amount of money that's poured into research what they said she explained it is they're much

00:02:42.200 better at a diagnosing your cancer and keeping you alive. And now it doesn't mean it's going to

00:02:47.480 be a cure, but the longer they keep you alive, the better chance you have of surviving it.

00:02:53.880 And Canada has become a world leader with the scientists and oncologists and researchers when

00:02:59.680 it comes to the field of cancer. It's still affecting everyone. My dad passed away from

00:03:04.320 cancer a few years ago. My buddy from hockey was complaining about back issues. He thought he had

00:03:09.400 a disc issue turned out he had a tumor and he's got cancer in different parts of his body it can

00:03:14.620 hit anyone at any time and it's still a big part of our health care and our lives in this country

00:03:19.340 yeah it's the it's the number one killer of canadians right now and you know we looked at

00:03:24.460 it and i i was shocked because we looked at the stats the other day uh basically as far as

00:03:30.680 mortalities go and it's 22% or 19,000 people in 2025, uh, pass away from lung and, uh,

00:03:41.780 bronch, uh, bronchitis cancer, right. Um, 72% is pink pancreatic cancer or 6,000, 6,300,

00:03:50.100 uh cool sorry colorectal yeah i always say it wrong uh 10 10.4 or 9 000 and breast cancer still

00:04:03.020 six which i was shocked 6.2 or 5 400 people um you know it's just unbelievable that we're still

00:04:12.100 at those rates and you know ontario as i mentioned earlier uh being you know the mortality rate just

00:04:19.400 not the incident rate the incident rate is five times but it's 22 000 people uh in quebec it's

00:04:26.720 32 000 people in ontario and 11 000 people in bc and then it goes down from there so it's

00:04:33.260 unbelievably staggering uh per capita numbers still in canada now there's two things in play

00:04:40.400 there you know as a country and as a society in canada we've gotten better i i recently did the

00:04:46.860 blood test for prostate yes so that's more effective uh i've had two uh colonoscopies

00:04:53.280 in my life and so that's a great way to make sure you're fine but i actually just read a story from

00:04:59.840 an emergency room doctor in canada said the problem is with so many canadians without a primary

00:05:05.740 caregiver primary doctor they're going to the hospital into the emergency room after something

00:05:12.920 started. And the earlier they detect stuff, I mean, right now the survival rate of cancer is

00:05:18.740 63%, 30 years ago is 55. But the problem is if you go to the emergency room complaining about

00:05:26.020 pain supports your body, cause he didn't have a doctor and they find out that the cancer's

00:05:31.140 already starting to spread. Sometimes it's too late, even with all the technology and the science

00:05:35.900 at their disposal. And that's, that's a challenge in the country. And that's one of the reasons to

00:05:41.240 push because if they have more family doctors and you're seeing a physician on a regular basis and

00:05:46.780 getting these screening tests which are not that difficult to do every few years to be tested then

00:05:52.640 they can know that you're okay yeah no it's true and you know you look at other countries Jim you

00:05:57.140 know we we were taking a look before the show and we were looking at the USA which still has a lower

00:06:04.600 per capita rate of cancer than us but uh hugely reliant on uh immunology therapy um pharma uh to

00:06:15.000 help uh keep people alive after they get cancer yes and extend their lifetime um germany uh japan

00:06:23.480 and uh south korea heavily reliant on ai now yeah so which is the future for a lot of people think

00:06:30.840 of medicine yeah which is which is amazing and you know in japan they're doing some amazing things

00:06:36.120 uh just with therapies that are proactive to your point they're trying to catch things faster

00:06:41.560 earlier and keep people alive and and i think you know when i looked at all the stats and i looked

00:06:47.640 at all the research coming on board uh it it popped out one place that surprised us was russia

00:06:55.320 and right now um pretty soon they're going to come up with a vaccine to take a take care of

00:07:03.400 cervical cancer and a few other cancers uh that'll help stop those diseases that cancer happening

00:07:11.240 and it's they plan on giving it free to the total population and i believe ontario just fast-tracked

00:07:19.080 six different treatments for six different types of cancer yes um so yeah that's changing on a

00:07:25.960 fairly rapid basis the access to different medicines different technology to help you

00:07:33.000 battle whatever disease you have yeah well we've jumped ahead you know uh testicular cancer

00:07:38.360 hodgkin's lymphoma melanoma you know pediatric leukemia those are all things that we've finally

00:07:47.960 decrease the mortality of these uh cancers and diseases they finally happening yeah but we're

00:07:54.200 still seeing the rates climbing and that's the astounding thing right now we're making some

00:07:59.480 astonishing breakthroughs but we're still got a ways to go it's true and it's it's it's medicine

00:08:06.120 paul but there's also some personal responsibility to everyday people are you physically active

00:08:13.560 what's your health fitness um what's your stress level there's so many different environmental

00:08:20.280 factors and lifestyle factors that fair or not could contribute you for cancer now some people

00:08:26.600 could live the most healthy active lifestyle possible and still get cancer because it's it's

00:08:32.120 it's a of a disease you never know but you could help your odds by living a little healthier maybe

00:08:38.040 drinking a little less maybe not vaping as much you know different things trying to learn to deal

00:08:43.320 with your stress because that all adds up to how your body reacts to things yeah uh so screening

00:08:50.680 you're just talking about some of the ways you can start and some countries now are making it

00:08:55.480 mandatory to go in for the whole country to do to attack certain cancers it starts off uh in

00:09:02.600 these campaigns where they get everyone to go in and check the main cancers that are killing

00:09:07.480 piss so you know breast cancer they ha you have to go in uh colorectal which we talked about you 1.00

00:09:12.920 have to go in and get that checked uh screening and blood test um so all those things kind of

00:09:18.280 are becoming uh more prevalent we've tried to do that by testing through getting mail it's

00:09:25.560 interesting though who's tracking and who's making sure that people are coming so as people are

00:09:31.160 coming to canada people are here right now oh i see are they you know and are why don't we start

00:09:37.000 actually these tests happening earlier why we start those like at 30 and 40 year old 40 year

00:09:43.960 olds hopping online and getting uh ready to be tested and getting people um even if the prevalence

00:09:51.720 is higher they are getting tested early and we're people are starting to know what's happening with

00:09:57.080 their bodies and they have a baseline poll so i had my first colonoscopy it was 50 or 51 i got a

00:10:02.280 a notification from the Ontario health board, from the Ontario government that you had to go

00:10:08.460 and booked it to my local hospital and I did it. But why not do it at 40? Why not start checking

00:10:15.600 different forms of cancer, your prostate in your 30s? Let's go 10 years earlier. And the doctor

00:10:22.900 may say to you, you know what? Everything's clean. We had a good baseline. I'll talk to you in five

00:10:27.200 years or 10 years. Don't worry about it. And then when they go back, they go, oh, hey, something's

00:10:32.080 changed. And they've proven time and time again with Canadian medicine and the world-class

00:10:37.480 oncologists, if they catch it early, you can survive it and they can beat it. But if they

00:10:44.840 don't catch it early enough, then the odds, it's like gambling, then your odds are getting thinner

00:10:49.360 and thinner. Well, and future, you know, years ago, Jim, what they did is they took all their

00:10:55.380 resources and they went into uh not prevention but they went in treatment right so you know uh

00:11:02.260 when my parents were got older you know they did both have cancer different forms of cancer uh they

00:11:08.820 dealt with it quite frankly they survived uh but they really found out late and they had to go and

00:11:15.060 they had to go get uh chemotherapy and they had to go different testing that takes a lot out of you

00:11:19.940 it lost it did and it changed the course of their life as they got older it changed their course now

00:11:26.340 it's just trying to find ways to be proactive and take some of the fun so you know it's interesting

00:11:30.900 i took a look and i i looked at some of the stats and annually we spend about 7.5 billion

00:11:39.700 on direct costs to patients for cancer i completely believe that absolutely i thought it was a lot and

00:11:45.700 And you and I talked about it before the show, and it's crazy what that costs, you know?

00:11:51.100 I mean, we're at 41 million people in the country now.

00:11:53.860 Yeah.

00:11:54.160 And you think about the different ages and different demographics of people, you know,

00:11:59.560 there's a lot more people over the age of 60 now than there was in Canada than there was 20 years ago.

00:12:04.000 Yeah.

00:12:04.300 So the odds are there's more cancer-related illnesses in the country because of the aging population, Paul.

00:12:09.960 Yeah.

00:12:10.380 No, I'm with you.

00:12:11.080 and and quite frankly research wise we're over 500 uh well half a billion dollars yeah right now

00:12:18.040 for basically funding uh research so we're moving very quickly but are we moving enough

00:12:25.880 to get in front of this disease so the question becomes now you know we've done a lot we've done

00:12:31.160 a lot to uh you know oncology we've done enough to figure out treatments uh for different cancers

00:12:38.920 but are we doing proactively to get that under control and that's where we've kind of

00:12:43.320 fallen behind some of the other countries some of the leaders and i think that's why our per capita

00:12:48.520 uh rates have not gone down enough right we're still close to uh 200 per 100 000 which is high

00:12:57.800 if you think about wow i keep going back to jack layton was like the healthiest older man in the

00:13:02.920 history of canada walked everywhere biked everywhere you'd see him skating on the radu

00:13:08.120 canal he and he got he ended up dying of prostate cancer yeah which you know you think yourself it

00:13:14.680 shouldn't like it shouldn't have you know of all people pst you know screening um you know checking

00:13:21.480 your prostate you know that's one thing quite frankly that for some reason and it's very

00:13:26.040 interesting and this is you know i'll be light on the the analysis of it but a lot of actually

00:13:32.360 physical tests of prostrates have gone and a lot of doctors don't do that anymore they just do

00:13:36.840 the blood uh psa tests and if your psa is fine yeah again you know those are things we should be

00:13:44.040 now we leave that to our uh gps to do it should be leaving it to gps or we should we be able to go

00:13:51.080 to somewhere where they look at the markers in your blood they look at your prostate they look

00:13:56.040 at breast cancer they look call rectal they looked all those things and they do a screening so is it

00:14:02.280 time given the rates to switch off and actually start to put together clinics where people just

00:14:08.440 focus on cancer and i you know we haven't talked about it but i really do think that maybe it's

00:14:13.800 time to to really create clinics and create places where canadians can go to and maybe they do an

00:14:19.960 annual checkup where they do five tests right so you go in it's almost like you're doing a cancer

00:14:25.320 tune-up they're doing um blood and urine and everything else analyzing with ai hey we've seen

00:14:31.320 some things in your dna and your markers we're going to check for this and this just to make

00:14:36.280 sure everything's okay now if you get a green light and everything thank you i would feel pretty

00:14:40.680 confident comfortable that i'm in good shape 46 of the con the cancers i mentioned at the beginning

00:14:46.760 of the show are what are the maturity uh mortality rates come from yeah so quite frankly you know

00:14:53.240 you're cutting out half of that chance i it's the science is ever evolving paul i i think

00:15:00.840 cancer it's changed over the years think about the human body what what canadians did for a living

00:15:07.720 and how they lived their lives at the like in the early 1900s a lot of people were doing physical

00:15:13.320 work yes you know with the diet was different there was no such thing as fast food you didn't

00:15:19.280 have as much chemicals and microplastics in your system as environments change and lifestyle

00:15:25.040 changes and the world changes. I think the types of cancer you might be exposed to or potentially

00:15:31.480 receiving or getting are changing all the time. And that's where medicine is constantly trying

00:15:36.460 to change and evolve with it. And that's where if AI can do something good using AI in a health

00:15:43.020 screening aspect, Paul, and realizing, oh, wait a second, so-and-so there's something wrong here.

00:15:48.740 We need to test for that. And then I think, I don't know how you would say no to that if you're

00:15:54.220 a person no well that that's what i mean if i have a dedicated clinic just to cancer a cancer

00:15:59.740 clinic yeah i quite frankly i would be paying money and maybe that's time for even you know i

00:16:04.300 know we we hate to say this um in canada because we we have our public health care system but maybe

00:16:10.220 we do need to branch out and maybe we need to have uh clinics that just are developed for cancer

00:16:17.740 you know it's interesting because i took a look at ai technologies and i spent a lot of time

00:16:23.100 during covid looking at mrna yes and you know a lot of us know about uh because it was something

00:16:29.740 we talked about during covet and it didn't catch on quite frankly the big pharma companies kind of

00:16:35.420 went another direction a lot of people especially out in bc at ubc we became the almost the

00:16:43.020 international leader at mra mrna um and and protein protein synthesis and how we were doing it and we

00:16:50.140 did a fantastic job we have some brilliant scientists and they're on the cusp of some uh

00:16:56.140 breakthrough technologies but even even having them and more latitude and more research right now

00:17:04.140 between ai mrna and going and tackling some of these diseases and you know if you get a disease

00:17:09.900 now um a friend of ours just came out of uh having thank goodness he had a tumor oh uh you know he

00:17:18.700 worked with us he's still working with us he's just getting over it oh yeah um but it's amazing

00:17:23.180 because now he went in and and the technology is robotic yes in surgery in tumors in the brain and

00:17:30.940 other places in the body so so it's less invasive less invasive it's it's right on spot there's not

00:17:38.300 as many errors yeah everything else so we're able to find tumors lesions and all those cancerous

00:17:44.700 things we're getting there yeah we're getting more faster and and and but you know it's getting ahead

00:17:50.380 of it and creating the mrna technology that actually is in front of us and starting to

00:17:56.860 the treatments and the the vaccines and things we can use right now to start to narrow down

00:18:04.460 you know let's say four main culprits of cancer let's get to three and let's get to two and let

00:18:10.380 let's start to set some benchmarks because you know we we've done a from uh terry fox onward

00:18:15.980 we've done a magnificent job we're i looked at the 24 numbers for fundraising canadians spend about

00:18:23.580 uh 200 million bucks donating money to cancer yeah it's a that's a staggering number

00:18:30.620 governments at 7.5 billion treatments billions of dollars we we we are spending the time effort

00:18:38.140 canadians get it they've been uh they've seen millions of people impacted in their life over

00:18:43.580 their lifetimes now it's time to say okay how do we kind of uh change that uh path and move towards

00:18:53.340 and start to catch some of these because i think well my first suggestion is when i every time i go

00:18:58.140 to the doctor they do a blood test and they check my cholesterol and because i have a history of

00:19:03.500 type two diabetes in my family they check for that why couldn't they take some of it

00:19:07.980 and put it in ai screening to see if there's any cancer precursors in your blood in your dna what

00:19:15.020 i mean if you're already giving blood to your checkup to make sure you don't have this and this

00:19:19.980 why don't we develop a way that so it's it's not costing you and i extra money but just part of

00:19:25.260 the lab work that you get and then the then from there like oh hey we saw something now do this

00:19:30.620 test nfc you know and do it along the way yeah so uh my wife and i actually a few years ago we

00:19:38.540 decided to do some private healthcare screening okay so we went and we spent a day um we went to

00:19:44.940 a private one of the private ones and it was expensive i'm not lying yeah but you know we

00:19:49.820 said to each other let's uh try it and let's see the difference in testing and it was night and day

00:19:57.020 so you know right now uh you know uh to go and get a an annual checkup is kind of rudimentary

00:20:05.720 you know we give blood uh blood pressure heart lungs right yeah you know in a half hour oh yeah

00:20:14.080 yeah right we're done and they ask you paul how you feel oh yeah okay okay thanks yeah you know

00:20:19.320 since covid no one really touches you they don't look for lesions they don't look anything you know

00:20:24.880 you barely take off your shirt so nothing happens and and that's what we do um but it's not enough

00:20:32.340 like it's not enough and it's gone to a point where uh i think we we dumbed the process down

00:20:38.540 too much and now right we got to figure out a way to reorient the process and get it to the

00:20:45.740 point where it really is a checkup not well let's use the technology so if the doctors are saying

00:20:51.520 I don't have enough time I'm overwhelmed there's not enough family doctors okay let's use the

00:20:57.140 technology that's growing weekly get that blood test screen it and use it and then build something

00:21:04.300 from there now you're talking Jim because you know you and I talked about this on another show

00:21:08.320 which is interesting we went we took a look at Quebec when they were coming out the new strategy

00:21:13.420 for healthcare yes i know that everyone hated i know uh the premier lego they all jumped all over

00:21:20.940 um and the and his career in politics and he did and uh i'm trying to think of the gentleman who

00:21:26.860 did the uh uh minister of health care oh yeah yeah he was a business person but you know what

00:21:35.020 he did have an idea and it was to put them in a group so what they did is they actually were

00:21:40.620 going to move people to specialists uh based on their age and their uh co-morbilities and other

00:21:49.420 issues and they were going to move them into a different set of health care providers including

00:21:54.060 doctors uh physicians uh anyone in the healthcare that would help whatever issues they had so they

00:22:01.180 were going to subdivide people uh so you might start off with your same doctor at the beginning

00:22:06.460 but over time based on whatever health issues you're dealing with you'd be moved to a new group

00:22:13.340 and that group was a bunch of people who fall into fell into a different category and i think

00:22:19.100 that itself is brilliant well okay think about this you're a 25 year old woman living somewhere

00:22:25.820 in canada you're active you got a job you probably play recreational tennis and other sports so

00:22:31.260 So you're fit that what you're the doctors looking for you would be so different than a 65, 70 year old woman who maybe has a joint issue or have had different health issues.

00:22:44.360 Of course, they'd be that's different medicine, wouldn't it be?

00:22:47.620 Oh, yeah, totally. Well, you know, it's interesting. This is and this is my logic and how I dealt with health care.

00:22:54.560 um what I did when I decided to get a family doctor I was single at the time um I went out

00:23:01.580 and I found a uh person a gentleman who is my age oh I grew up in a similar I grew up in Ontario

00:23:10.760 okay and I tried to get him as as my GP and then grow with him as you got older with him and what

00:23:17.240 I did is I said to him any test that you're getting as you get older just give me why not

00:23:21.980 Yeah. Good logic. I thought it was because I had had a older gentleman who is my doctor when I was younger. So he was on the way to retire. Everyone in my family had the same doctor. Wonderful guy. I loved him to death as a kid because he was, you know, he's like part of the family. And my dad, my mom, my sister, everyone knew.

00:23:45.880 the challenge was as i got older we were moving away he was going to my my sister you know had

00:23:52.300 different issues i had different issues my mom and dad were aging so he was no longer able to

00:23:57.980 help us and he retired then my sister my mom and dad went to the same lady who again was not my age 0.99

00:24:06.520 so and i'm a male and so i went to her a couple times and i sat down and wonderful lady uh different 1.00

00:24:14.880 age younger than i was at the time um and quite frankly we're having discussions but i didn't feel

00:24:20.720 that she was going to be able to uh i she knew what she was doing but it wasn't she wasn't going

00:24:26.240 to be giving me uh advice that i needed so i went and i found this gentleman now as we got go going

00:24:33.840 this is very interesting and i it just happened now as i'm turning 60 i found quite frankly that

00:24:41.600 we are moving off my doctor has quite a few health problems really yeah okay so he's struggling with

00:24:49.360 a lot of issues oh right now i'm not interested in those issues he hasn't shared with but i can

00:24:54.000 tell sort of when i see him you know he's got his own challenges you know and you can kind of see

00:24:59.440 that he's you know he's struggling right now so i haven't gone into the details of them i don't want

00:25:04.400 to it's his own personal challenges but you know as he goes off quite frankly he might be better to

00:25:10.960 to be with people that are and i'm not saying he has it that have diabetes there's people that

00:25:16.340 have or need a knee replacement or whatever it is a cholesterol yeah you know anything so whatever

00:25:23.500 he has he'd be better to go off and maybe he goes into that category of people that have those

00:25:28.720 challenges at his age yeah and isn't that a great way to do it i don't you know i like the idea i

00:25:35.500 The problem is with Canadian healthcare, Paul, we just don't have the resources to be that selective.

00:25:42.360 I'll admit the last three family doctors that I had were all women, and they were actually all really good.

00:25:47.740 And my current one, I've got no complaints.

00:25:50.360 The problem is it's like anything in life.

00:25:54.300 You can have 2,000 doctors.

00:25:56.520 They're not all going to be all-stars.

00:25:58.740 Some will be better than others.

00:26:00.320 Of course.

00:26:00.860 And you are lucky if you get a really good one.

00:26:03.420 And I think that's, we, you know, we expect so much out of our doctors and our healthcare

00:26:09.380 in Canada, and we're always going, we have the best healthcare.

00:26:12.460 We have free healthcare, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:26:14.500 But we have to understand they're human beings.

00:26:16.900 They're not always perfect.

00:26:18.180 They're not always right.

00:26:19.560 They could need help sometimes.

00:26:21.060 And this is where let's utilize the technology, the AI technology, take an extra blood test

00:26:27.100 or whatever they need or DNA test.

00:26:29.100 when you do a checkup and use the ai to see if there's something wrong it helps them diagnose

00:26:35.100 anything earlier and it helps you know that whether you have a problem or not so it's interesting i

00:26:40.040 went i went and took a look and i said what's happening in japan and south korea right now

00:26:44.740 five years survival for selected cancers in those countries they have a 70 percent uh survival rate

00:26:51.820 it's crazy how good they've gotten almost almost double what we have right now but very healthy

00:26:58.640 countries baseline healthy countries but they're also using the technology to help them through so

00:27:04.640 as their population is aging especially in japan oh yeah hugely age population well so here's the

00:27:11.520 interesting thing and i just had i just left the show on housing yes you know real estate chris

00:27:16.960 with chris yeah and we were having this conversation and we're talking about the

00:27:20.720 trends in real estate due to the aging population right so as much as as much as we can ignore it

00:27:27.760 and keep because of all the issues going on in healthcare and all the challenges right now

00:27:32.640 we can't ignore that 25 of our population is going to be over the age of 65 pretty soon

00:27:39.360 yeah right yeah so we're getting there so when we hit there quite frankly we're going to have

00:27:45.360 to specialize our the challenge jim we're arriving at just like this the show we had before we went

00:27:52.160 over the we went over uh the budget deficits by province in the show right they're big there's not

00:28:00.560 one province you can watch the show but on the the cole's notes i'll give it to you straight up yeah

00:28:06.480 there's not one province that doesn't have a deficit i believe that we are going to surpass

00:28:11.040 78 billion in our federal deficit this year for 2026 so it year end ends uh march 31st and with

00:28:19.120 everything going on in iran that's not going to help things not at all they're saying to us they're

00:28:24.080 telling us right now in provinces like ontario we can't sustain so they're saying they're giving us

00:28:30.400 the the the finance minister came out last month and he just said hey by the way i'm telling you

00:28:36.800 right up front i'm not going to sugarcoat it we cannot keep putting much as much money into

00:28:43.120 healthcare on an annual basis we don't have the money okay well two things if you live in ontario

00:28:50.640 you'd be like well if you spent less time hanging out with all the developers you might have more

00:28:55.120 money but the second thing is why not use the technology to stretch the money further why not

00:29:02.000 use ai why not use the the developing and emerging technology that seems to be changing on a regular

00:29:08.480 basis to stretch what if that's all that we have we'd have to make it go a lot further that's all

00:29:14.000 we have so that we have to make we have to find a way to make it stretch out you can you honestly

00:29:19.200 you can be a union you can be in healthcare you can be you know you can be anyone you want pretend

00:29:24.640 anyone you want yeah there's only so many dollars they get it they can't go any further they're done

00:29:29.920 yeah there's no magic uh federal government uh health care subsidy coming there's none there's

00:29:38.560 no transfer payments no province no province in canada right now is giving any transfer payments

00:29:46.400 positively to the federal government because they can't afford it it's gone they didn't yeah alberta

00:29:50.960 was the last one and alberta's gone into a negative deficit so there's no money coming

00:29:55.520 across to the federal government so there's no more health care subsidies coming so quite frankly

00:30:00.880 they're the provinces are starting to cut off and say we don't it's it that's all we got so if we

00:30:08.560 don't and you know i know we're going deep into the health no no but this is part of it but you

00:30:13.680 know you look at cancer and you think to yourself my goodness if the highest per capita rate of

00:30:19.120 cancer is happening in canada and we don't have any other than we're doing a great job at

00:30:25.600 you know donations we're doing a great job at research and development but we won't get there

00:30:31.760 then because if we run out of money and we have to decrease uh research and we have to decrease

00:30:37.280 that affects the health of all canadians it does so then how do you change the structure of health

00:30:44.000 care especially when it comes to cancers to go get it i think really it's now we have to go kind of

00:30:49.760 one by one and we need to prioritize different types of health care and say okay we're we take

00:30:55.040 mrna for an example if our ubc uh research that's happening right now is so far ahead of the rest of

00:31:03.840 the world we got to make sure we don't give it to someone else because as much as absolutely not as

00:31:08.800 much as russia just came out with this truthfully we're way ahead of russia like we've been way

00:31:13.760 ahead of russia on this for years so we have to protect it at all costs we didn't protect it it

00:31:19.200 got loose they took it out and they they tested it they're a little more liberal on how they do

00:31:23.680 their testing quite frankly you know they're more willing to take something to market with

00:31:28.240 less testing canada's a lot stricter and we're a lot stricter but quite frankly we're running

00:31:32.720 into the challenge of we only have so much money we are where we are and we need to kind of move

00:31:37.040 little faster now we need to get there and then reorganize our proactive proactive uh examination

00:31:45.440 of people try to keep people healthier so we don't run in and we don't get here where we're treating

00:31:50.560 it with years of uh drug and pharma and all the things that are costing us all this money to get

00:31:57.360 to and that's a shame because we are faced with it now we're not in that we're not in the we don't

00:32:03.120 have the luxury just like our last housing yes you know i just the reality is here right now

00:32:09.280 staring us in the face we're here right so you can say that i'm going to own a home and it's going to

00:32:14.240 go up six percent a year and that's going to happen that's not here anymore you can say that

00:32:20.080 i won't need more money for healthcare healthcare that's not here anymore right so my my thought

00:32:26.160 paul is and i to add on to what you're saying and this is the reality we're facing as canadians

00:32:31.680 let's start with a ground up holistic approach healthier lifestyle making sure we have access to

00:32:39.280 you know food affordable food and exercise make sure that when we're to go to the doctor and they

00:32:45.840 do the blood test they do another test to check for anything that may be potentially cancer related

00:32:52.640 if we're doing a test like that when we're doing our blood tests anyways wouldn't that help i mean

00:32:58.960 it takes just a few extra seconds then they're going to the lab anyways and then they see

00:33:04.000 something in your system to me that's where the the ai technology and the medical technology

00:33:09.600 they're like oh you need to do this now no no you need to do that now and then you're catching

00:33:14.320 stuff and maybe uh extending your life or maybe actually curing it all together yeah no i well

00:33:20.400 also and i agree with you you know we talked about earlier the fact that uh cancer and different

00:33:26.240 types of cancer uh leads to the fact that in certain provinces it's way higher than other

00:33:32.560 places now yes and certain countries too right well us yeah yeah per capita per capita but

00:33:38.480 you know if i live in ontario quebec and bc i have a higher now population's higher i get it right

00:33:44.400 now drill down and find out what these people do you know recently they just found out that

00:33:49.440 guys who cut granite are like getting cancer like no tomorrow oh really so if you're in the dust from

00:33:56.640 the rock yeah if you're getting it's brutal right huh so like we got to come up with something it's

00:34:01.760 it's not a it's not an unknown fact anymore you know we've we've done this on a number of fronts

00:34:06.400 where we just ignore quite frankly different industries saying well yeah that does cause

00:34:11.200 cancer because you're exposed to something that gets in your system yeah we know what those are

00:34:15.680 now yeah now now we either have to find uh new products to move to that aren't going to kill

00:34:21.360 people from a cancer that that we know is happening and we've known that you know i've been

00:34:26.560 ever since i've been a kid you know whether it's been uh uh you know insulation to anything asbestos

00:34:34.320 asbestos anything you want to talk about i remember when i was a kid you know guys you know working

00:34:39.600 with asbestos and wouldn't wear masks and didn't talk about uh you know for years you know i heard

00:34:45.200 stories of farmers mixing um they're pretty strong chemicals for fertilizer with the arm

00:34:51.200 in a big drum before they started spraying on the field yeah yeah that was common when i had my farm

00:34:56.080 crepes they you know we used to uh rent out uh land and i used to watch them uh mixing you know

00:35:02.720 the different chemicals to spread i'd be like oh my goodness and also on you know in construction

00:35:08.160 i've seen it since day one we know what it is now we just need to stop yeah we need to replace and

00:35:14.240 then move forward and i think that's you know something we need to move faster reality is we

00:35:20.800 can't afford to treat it or we need to you know stop ignore it but that we're coming to a point

00:35:27.040 where we don't have the capability that our treatment is getting too expensive i i i refuse

00:35:34.880 to believe a country like canada with the resources we have even though things are getting tight

00:35:40.240 financially that we can't come up with a logical solution at better detection and um better ways

00:35:48.660 of prevention and making sure people are educated that they're not exposing themselves to certain

00:35:53.940 certain things or have the right protection if they're going to be exposed to certain things

00:35:58.300 and then when they get tested when they go to a doctor they're checking for certain things

00:36:02.280 to make sure you don't have it or not because i'm i'm a big believer in the screening process paul

00:36:07.020 because if they find something or they think there's something about to happen they can deal

00:36:11.980 with it yeah no i'm with they've proven that in this country time and time again well yeah they

00:36:17.980 we have proven we can do it we we tend to get you know i was reading uh something just coming into

00:36:23.100 the show and it was someone who did a little bit of a swot analysis on on cancer and medicine in

00:36:28.620 canada and healthcare they said you know regional disparities and access to advanced treatments

00:36:34.060 funding constraints and rising demand by strain resources yeah those are the reasons those are

00:36:43.500 the threats we're going through and the weaknesses are wait times shortages in oncology and radiology

00:36:51.340 radiotherapy limited care capacity if you're in rural new brunswick you probably have to go to

00:36:56.620 st john or moncton for a specialist if you're in northern quebec or northern manitoba you have to

00:37:01.980 travel to a big city for a specialist but but how you know this is the crazy part how are we at the

00:37:07.340 point where these are still issues we we know yeah we know the mortality rates we know the incident

00:37:12.460 rates we know what 46 of the cancers that are killing people right now this is where you know

00:37:19.420 prioritizing what we're doing uh getting people in place figuring out where people can go to get

00:37:25.820 part of a group or part of a a whole network of people not only helping others that have it but

00:37:31.260 people who do have it and they can learn to move forward to me it seems it just seems strange that

00:37:36.300 we've isolated this to a province by province disease by disease and we haven't done that and

00:37:42.220 that's that's the sad part right now and i definitely don't want to pile on governments

00:37:46.540 because once upon a time they advertised and promoted cigarettes as being good for you yeah

00:37:51.740 yeah i remember and then they found out later that they were lying that it actually is not good for

00:37:55.980 you yes and you know you've heard different things about sugar too much sugar is bad for you

00:38:01.260 and they kept saying like they tried like so there's you know it's it's big business it's

00:38:06.780 companies you know trying to cook the books to like convince people that things are okay for you

00:38:11.980 you can eat this drink this smoke that and nothing will happen to you later that a lot in life then

00:38:16.700 you pay the price for it but we have you know and again same thing i'm not trying to but we have

00:38:21.900 ministers of healthcare yes you know basically we have one federally we have many provincial yes we

00:38:27.500 do yeah where are they where are they because they know you know they know the stats they know

00:38:32.700 when you look at the common diseases cancer all the things that are happening they where are they

00:38:38.060 what are they doing and what is the plan and how do they deal with because to me you know it's one

00:38:43.820 thing for the finance minister each of the finance ministers from each of the provinces come out and

00:38:48.700 say i'm running out of money okay now turn it over step up and get your minister of health care get

00:38:56.460 them to step up and say okay we got to retool this now and i know he didn't do it properly i know i

00:39:02.060 know when we bring up quebec people don't like the fact that quebec was the it was too heavy handed

00:39:07.500 but they're trying something he's trying something and his idea was you know and where he was stuck

00:39:13.900 i think where they got caught in the end was he just couldn't get you know two million or whatever

00:39:21.020 the number was it was a crazy number of people who couldn't get any doctors or any it's a big number

00:39:25.900 it was a big number and i don't remember the exact number but it was insane number of people could

00:39:30.380 not get any health care other than clinics and then what happened was over time they shut the

00:39:35.900 clinics down into almost private clinics and they couldn't even get to clinics right so here's a

00:39:40.540 problem in canada i think we should seriously look at paul this is the case right now if you're a

00:39:46.940 liberal member of parliament or ndp or conservative and you're the ruling party one of your mps is

00:39:55.340 appointed the minister of health now i could be appointed to minister health or you because that's

00:40:01.020 my portfolio why because it's so important in canada does the minister of health have to be

00:40:07.020 part of the government could we do something like some other countries and say you know it's okay to

00:40:13.260 be finance and transportation infrastructure but the minister of health is a former physician oh

00:40:19.260 yeah with experience in hospitals in health care it's separate from the government and deal is

00:40:26.140 dealt with hospitals and cancer rewards and emergency departments i think we're at a point

00:40:31.500 in the country we need a dedicated health care professional who because right now in a government

00:40:37.500 they do cabinet shuffles all the time so you might have a minister of health care for a year

00:40:41.500 year and a half then they're shuffled exactly that happens all the time exactly why not have

00:40:46.540 a a physician who's the minister of health who oversees health care in canada that would make

00:40:52.460 so much more sense in this country i agree i agree and you know what once we do that quite frankly

00:40:58.620 you know it has to be a longer term plan so it doesn't it's not a political appointment it's

00:41:04.420 like a five years you could straddle two two elections it's not a political appointment

00:41:08.200 because quite frankly we can't move money around we're getting to the point where moving money

00:41:13.140 around to support health care and regions by election or by areas to benefit right it's not

00:41:19.840 a good idea anymore because we know quite frankly as i mentioned earlier we know the places where

00:41:25.420 cancer has become the highest and we know where we need specialists and ecologists and hospitals

00:41:31.780 so if you have a neutral minister of health who that goes for a prolonged period that doesn't get

00:41:37.680 tied in no yeah yeah for it goes a 10 or an eight year term they're going to put a clinic in and

00:41:44.240 physicians in to parts of the country it doesn't matter what they're riding because they know they

00:41:49.100 need it there and then quite frankly jim let's set some targets yeah let's analyze how that person's

00:41:55.220 doing right so let's create let's spend some money pay that person to do it yeah target how

00:42:00.720 it's going talk to people about where they're at get feedback feedback and try to try to resolve

00:42:06.300 things rather than just you know doing it all of a sudden election comes they get wiped out

00:42:11.560 quite frankly new person's there everyone gives up hope it becomes really about a bunch of people

00:42:16.680 who are disjointed so you're tie off think about this paul you're a veteran doctor in a big canadian

00:42:21.840 city who's you know working those crazy shifts and all that who would you rather deal with as

00:42:28.260 the minister of health someone who got elected and that's their job it basically has people

00:42:33.300 handing them binders and information because they're learning the portfolio or someone that

00:42:37.860 was in the trenches with you for two or three decades and it's a former health care professional

00:42:42.360 i don't it's a no-brainer let the doctors vote right and let's the other thing right let's have

00:42:48.740 this person be at the end of their career right so let's pick a person who's you know they're done

00:42:54.220 they're not gonna they're not gonna have a caseload anymore they've got enough experience

00:42:59.380 they can understand the job they can understand all aspects of it they have enough background and

00:43:04.740 quite frankly they come in and that's the last eight years of their uh right profession until

00:43:10.020 they retire and then then that good you know they that's the way they you know do great things for

00:43:15.640 community and society before they go off and have their retirement and then they're able to take a

00:43:21.640 neutral view of the country in northern alberta we need this in central north brunswick we need

00:43:27.900 this in winnipeg we need that and look at every city in every part of the country and identify it

00:43:32.880 the cancer numbers are drastically different oh my goodness they go down right so you know you go

00:43:38.340 north they're zero right right you go the east coast they're low yeah right so you know you kind

00:43:44.840 you keep going you you come to the more industrial cities wham then they bounce up right well let's

00:43:50.700 get let's deal with it then yeah let's well i mean i i i think health care is such an important part

00:43:57.360 of canadian society now as alluded to you earlier by you paul that with such a huge amount of the

00:44:03.400 population 65 and over we're over 41 million as a country and it's instead of just appointing

00:44:10.220 someone oh so and so get elected they're the mp of this riding now you're the minister of health

00:44:14.880 i i mean it's time it is time in this country to look seriously at something like that especially

00:44:20.960 with our budget issues exactly yeah exactly they're not looking at it to get re-elected

00:44:25.960 they're looking at it to maximize whatever money they have to work with and and instead of i know

00:44:30.820 a lot of groups are unhappy and i you know lately in a lot of provinces she's like you know we're

00:44:35.520 unhappy if they're going to cut they can't do anything i get i get the complaint i get why

00:44:41.560 they're saying that but for people already in the industry for in the healthcare industry

00:44:46.680 you know and we're coming up to you mentioned april being cancer month yeah we're coming up to

00:44:52.140 it there's no more money to do it you can you can get people to donate a little more money but quite

00:44:57.060 frankly with everything going on with me you run out of that that clock is running out too right

00:45:03.840 unfortunately is running out so you know you have to you have to create it my my advice at this

00:45:10.280 point is to create a strategy to deal with the environment you're in right and that means change

00:45:14.860 this is what we have yeah this is what we have to deal with probably for the next few years

00:45:19.240 how can we maximize the money and get the most health care bang for the buck with the parameters

00:45:25.220 that we're working with because just holding your hand out asking for more the government's

00:45:29.740 say sir there's no more to give you yeah and they're not no and that's why we always talk

00:45:34.220 He's Paul. I'm Jim.

00:45:35.340 Thanks for watching.

True Patriot Love - March 11, 2026

Canada’s Cancer Crisis： Why Are We Still Falling Behind？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript