(source: Postmedia News) Cancer has become the leading cause of death in every province in Canada for the first time, but doctors say it's nothing new.

Cancer accounted for 30 per cent of all deaths in the country in 2008, Statistics Canada said Tuesday. The second-biggest killer was heart disease, at 21 per cent.

That means the two conditions accounted for more than half of the 238,617 deaths in the country that year.

"This is actually something that we've seen as early as 2005, when we noticed that cancer was the leading cause of death surpassing cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases and other causes of death nationally," said Dr. Prithwish De, epidemiologist for the Canadian Cancer Society.

De said the top four cancers affecting Canadians are lung, colon, breast and prostate.

"Over time, we've seen lung cancer death in men declining, but the decline has not happened for women yet," said De.

"The decline in smoking among women only happened during the mid-1980s . . . because of that lag, we see the decline in mortality among women happening later than men," he adds.

Prior to 2008, cancer already had been the leading cause of death in every province except Prince Edward Island.

The next leading causes of death were: stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, accidents (unintentional injuries), diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, influenza and pneumonia, kidney disease and suicide.

These 10 leading causes accounted for 77 per cent of all deaths in 2008.

Congenital abnormalities were the leading cause of death for infants younger than one; accidents were the deadliest for people age one to 34; cancer for those age 35 to 84; and heart disease for those age 85 and older.

De said cancer often plagues the elderly and with Canada's aging population, we will see new cancer cases and cancer-related deaths.

"Rates of cancer haven't changed that much (and) mortality rates have gone down over time," said De.

De estimates that two out of five Canadians will develop cancer in their lifetime and one in four will die of cancer.

For young adults ages 15 to 24, the Top 3 causes of death in order were: accidents, suicide and homicide.

Suicide took a larger toll on Canadians in 2008, with 3,705 people killing themselves — an increase of three per cent over the previous year. Of these, 2,777 were men.