Increase brain cancer funding
Petitioners ask Canada to increase brain‑cancer research funding, ensure national access to approved treatments, and speed approvals. The government responds… Health Canada cites expedited reviews, international collaboration including Project Orbis, regulatory modernization and CIHR funding.
Why we would sign this petition
- Increased research funding could accelerate development of new brain‑cancer treatments and potentially improve patient outcomes if it leads to effective therapies.
- Ensuring nationwide access would reduce geographic inequities so approved therapies reach patients in all provinces and territories.
- Speeding approvals and cutting red tape may give patients earlier access to promising treatments and encourage clinical innovation.
Why we wouldn’t sign this petition
- Raising federal funding competes with other budget priorities and would require trade‑offs in public spending.
- Health care delivery is provincially managed, so federal measures to ensure access may be limited or need complex intergovernmental agreements.
- Faster approvals can increase uncertainty about safety or effectiveness unless review standards and safeguards are maintained.
The summary and both sets of reasons are AI-generated from the petition and given equal weight. Claims are the petitioners’ own; consult the official record for the full text.
Official petition
Petition to the Government of Canada Whereas: An estimated twenty-seven Canadians are diagnosed with a brain tumour each day; Less than three in ten Canadians diagnosed with a primary malignant brain tumour survive five years after their diagnosis; Brain cancer research is critically underfunded in Canada; Canada is years behind the United States in approving new drugs and treatments, which could have an impact on thousands of brain cancer patients; Even when new brain cancer therapies are approved, they are not always made equally accessible to patients across the country; and There continues to be a shortage of brain cancer drugs in Canada, and some medications even become discontinued. We, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to: 1. Increase funding for brain cancer research; 2. Work with the provinces and territories to ensure that drugs, medical devices, and new therapies are accessible to brain cancer patients nation-wide; and 3. Remove unnecessary red tape so brain cancer drugs can be approved more quickly.
Government response
Response by the Minister of Health Signed by Maggie Chi Our government understands the importance of making sure patients have access to therapies that may help treat their conditions, such as brain cancers. Drugs are being developed that may alleviate or prevent some of the symptoms of such diseases, and, over time, these drugs may prove to be of significant clinical benefit with respect to improving survival of those suffering from these diseases. Under the Food and Drugs Act and its Regulations, all products sold or marketed in Canada that make a therapeutic claim need to be approved by Health Canada through a drug submission filed by a sponsor (e.g., a pharmaceutical company). Every drug submission is reviewed by Health Canada scientists to assess the product’s safety, efficacy and quality to determine whether the risks associated with the product are acceptable in light of its potential benefits. If they are, then the drug will be approved for sale in Canada. Health Canada’s review timelines are comparable with other international jurisdictions, including the United States’ Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency. The Guidance Document: The Management of Drug Submissions and Applications provides details on the process and timelines for the drug review process. It should be noted that, in the absence of a submission from a sponsor (i.e., pharmaceutical company), Health Canada cannot authorise a therapeutic product, regardless of whether the product is authorized elsewhere. The decision to submit a drug application for review is made by the sponsor. Health Canada has policies in place to help facilitate the authorization of promising new drugs in Canada. The Department’s Notice of Compliance with Conditions (NOC/c) policy facilitates access to new drugs to patients suffering from serious, life-threatening or severely debilitating diseases or conditions for which no drug is presently marketed in Canada or for which a significant increase in efficacy or a significant decrease in risk is demonstrated in relation to an existing drug marketed in Canada. A Notice of Compliance (i.e. authorization) issued under the NOC/c policy may be granted for a drug product with promising clinical benefit, provided that it possesses an acceptable safety profile based on a benefit/risk assessment and is found to be of high quality. Additionally, the Priority Review policy and guidance document enables an accelerated review target date of 180 days, instead of the standard 300 days, for drugs intended for the treatment, prevention or diagnosis of serious, life-threatening or severely debilitating illnesses or conditions. Health Canada has a long history of cooperation with international counterparts and organizations, ranging from informal information exchanges to multilateral harmonization initiatives. Specific to cancer drugs, Project Orbis is an initiative of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Oncology Center of Excellence that aims to give patients faster access to promising treatments across the globe. Health Canada has been a partner in Project Orbis since its inception in May 2019, which allows partners to work concurrently, share information, and/or communicate with each other as needed, while preserving regulatory authority for each jurisdiction. The collaborative effort of this project helps Health Canada bring new cancer treatments to Canadians more quickly by encouraging earlier filing of submissions with Health Canada and leading to a shorter review time compared to non-Orbis submissions. Our government also understands the importance of modernizing our regulatory frameworks to enable the authorization of promising new therapies and reduce regulatory barriers to innovation that could improve the health of patients in Canada. Health Canada is advancing a regulatory modernization plan that aims to provide greater regulatory flexibility in support of innovative research and health product development. This plan will help us to regulate the risks, benefits and uncertainties of more diverse and complex products, such as potential brain cancer drugs. In addition, on September 8, 2025, Health Canada published a report that includes actions the Department is taking towards modernizing regulatory processes to reduce red tape in the health products sector. These actions support the Government’s commitment to eliminating outdated or overly complicated rules and processes and streamlining the delivery of regulatory decisions. Specific to drugs, the Department has committed to increasing access through enhanced international collaboration, alignment, and reliance, simplifying the Food and Drug Regulations, addressing stakeholder-identified burdens to support faster approvals, and modernizing the framework for clinical trials. The Department will consult on initiatives and report on progress as it works towards implementing these commitments. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Canada's federal funding agency for health research, invested more than $1.1 billion in cancer research between 2019-20 and 2023-24. This includes an investment of over $76 million in cancers impacting the brain and nervous system. Some recent CIHR-supported research projects include the work of: • Dr. Daniel Schramek at Toronto’s Sinai Health System targeting low-grade gliomas, which are found in younger patients received $1.05 million over 5 years; • Dr. Daniela Quail at Montreal’s McGill University is researching immune-targeted therapies in glioblastoma treatment received $1.1 million over 5 years and; • Dr. Sheila Singh, a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Human Cancer Stem Cell Biology at McMaster University, is receiving $1.4 million over 7 years to advance her research program on brain tumours. Dr. Singh has already discovered a brain tumour-initiating cell that may drive the formation of brain tumours; she and her team are now working on research to target the BTIC with tailored drug and molecular therapies.