TORONTO -An Opposition bill that would deny a driver's licence or health card to anyone in Ontario who hasn't filled out a donor card is putting the thorny issue of organ donation under the microscope this week at the provincial legislature.
While advocates and health professionals await the release of a report commissioned by the province on how to boost organ donation, they're getting a chance to sound off on a backbencher's solution to the desperate need for organs in Ontario.
Conservative Frank Klees' bill - which will be discussed at a legislative committee Thursday - would require everyone renewing or applying for a driver's licence or health card in Ontario to declare their willingness to donate their organs, decline to donate them or say they haven't made up their mind yet.
If someone doesn't complete the organ donor questionnaire, Klees said the application would be rejected as incomplete.
"We're simply asking people to complete the full application," Klees said, adding anyone can say they are undecided. "It should be a no-brainer for people to simply say this is part of the application. This is not a major issue for someone unless they want to make it that."
The bill is unlikely to become law unless it is adopted by the government, but Klees said if it does pass through the legislature, it will increase organ donation.
The majority of people surveyed in opinion polls say they are willing to be organ donors, he said.
The key is making it easier for them to give that gift and get others thinking about the issue, Klees added.
"It may take two or three times before they actually focus in on this," Klees said. "But the very fact (is) they're confronted with it, it's in front of them and we're creating awareness and providing information."
Organ donation has been a hot-button topic at the Ontario legislature recently, with all three parties endorsing different ways of boosting donations.
Health Minister George Smitherman has received the panel's recommendations on organ donation and said he will release them in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, Smitherman has raised the possibility of following British Columbia's lead and compensating live donors for costs incurred by giving a kidney or part of their liver.
Frank Markel, president and CEO of the Trillium Gift of Life Network, said organ donation appears to be turning a corner. People are talking about the issue and donations reached a record high of 172 in 2006, he said.
While he said he's encouraged by that, Markel said someone on Ontario's waiting list still dies every three days.
Transplant technology has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years but organ donations haven't kept up, he said.
"We still have a long way to go," Markel said, adding he's anxious to see the panel's report when it becomes public. "There is no room for complacency here but I think we're going in the right direction."
New Democrat Peter Kormos said neither the Liberal government nor the Conservatives are courageous enough to take the necessary steps to help the 1,748 patients currently waiting for organs in Ontario.
Kormos, who has a bill before the legislature that would make everyone an automatic organ donor unless they opt out, said Klees' bill won't increase donations because it gives people an easy way out.
"It's just a modest variation of the current system and it's the current system that's failing people on that waiting list," he said. "What we need is a radical change in the culture around organ donation."
