Question Period Note: Addressing Diabetes in Canada

• Diabetes is a serious chronic disease, and one of the most common chronic diseases affecting people in Canada. Diabetes poses many challenges for those living with the disease, their families, and communities, and has various implications for health systems. It is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attack, stroke and lower limb amputation.

• In October 2022, the Framework for Diabetes in Canada was released, marking an important milestone to better support Canadians.
• Through Budget 2021 we committed $20 million to research through the Juvenille Diabetes Research Foundation and Canadian Institutes for Health Research (JDRF-CIHR) Partnership to Defeat Diabetes, including $15 million matched by JDRF.
• On February 29, 2024, the Government introduced new legislation (Bill C-64), that lays a path towards the first phase of national universal pharmacare in Canada. This includes a fund to help Canadians manage and monitor their diabetes and administer their medication.
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• Through Budget 2021, we are investing $25 million over five years in research, surveillance and prevention.
• In November 2023, we announced the Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Challenge semi-finalists.
• We continue to invest $20 million annually in community-based health promotion projects that help prevent chronic diseases, including diabetes.
• Bill C-64, An Act respecting pharmacare outlines the Government of Canada’s plan to ensure universal, single-payer coverage for a range of contraception and diabetes medications.

The Government of Canada continues to advance work on diabetes since the release of the Framework for Diabetes in Canada in October 2022. The Framework provides common policy direction to help align efforts and to support improved access to prevention and treatment for all types of diabetes to ensure better health outcomes.

PHAC supports community-based initiatives to improve healthy behaviours and address health inequalities among priority populations at greater risk of developing chronic diseases. PHAC’s Healthy Canadians and Communities Fund invests approximately $20 million annually to support projects that focus on behavioural risk factors.

On November 1, 2023, the Minister of Health announced 20 semi-finalists selected to receive a $35,000 prize for proposing the most promising concept as part of the first-stage of the Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Challenge.

In June 2023, PHAC announced $998,450 in funding over three years for Diabetes Canada to advance the Framework for Diabetes in Canada, working with key partners to develop an inventory of successful diabetes initiatives to support their subsequent dissemination and adoption.

An Indigenous-led engagement process that will help identify priorities and ways forward to address diabetes among Indigenous Peoples is underway with Indigenous organizations. The process is being coordinated by the National Indigenous Diabetes Association.

The Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) is supporting diabetes research to improve primary prevention, develop effective treatments and ultimately cure all types of diabetes. From 2018-19 to 2022-23, CIHR invested over $248 million in research related to diabetes. Through Budget 2021, CIHR received $20M, $15M of which was matched by JDRF, to support diabetes research through CIHR’s 100 Years of Insulin: Accelerating Canadian Discoveries to Defeat Diabetes initiative.

Bill C-64, An Act respecting pharmacare, is an important step forward to improve health equity, affordability, and outcomes and has the potential of long-term savings to the health care system.

• Diabetes is a serious, lifelong condition characterized by the body's inability to produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces.
• Approximately 3.7 million people in Canada are living with the disease and more than 200,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.
• There are three main types of diabetes: type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes. Other types are uncommon. Type 2 diabetes accounts for approximately 90% of diabetes cases in adults in Canada. A variety of factors influence the development of type 2 diabetes, including age, genetics, modifiable lifestyle risk factors, and intersecting social, economic, and environmental determinants of health.
• The onset of type 2 diabetes can be prevented or delayed by reducing the major modifiable risk factors, such as unhealthy diets and physical inactivity, as well as addressing the determinants of health that influence one’s ability to take action on these modifiable risk factors.
• Some people in Canada, such as First Nations and Métis people, people of African descent, and South and East Asian descent, and people with lower income and education levels have higher rates of type 2 diabetes compared to the general population.