Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to address this topic today.
As a new member of Parliament, I learn something new every day. Some days are very sad, when we see how the government treats people afflicted with hepatitis C.
I never thought that we would be debating for days and months simply to bring justice to people across the country who are sick. We really have to ask ourselves where this country is at. We cannot always say we are proud of our country, because so long as we have governments like this one, there will be days we are ashamed of what it does.
As a member, I am embarrassed to admit my association with the House. Canadians often do not make a distinction and lump us all together. But I think it important today to clear that up and try to explain to those listening who the people are that are prepared to make this country's citizens suffer. Obviously we are talking about the Liberals. They are the ones who have made things difficult and are refusing to recognize that there are indeed people who are very ill and that some have even died.
They refuse to accept that they have a responsibility. Yet clearly they do. That is why we are introducing another motion today to continue debate on this topic, in an attempt to obtain justice.
Often, those watching us on television wonder, during the debate, what the topic is. For their benefit, I am going to read the motion:
That this House urge the government to press for the invitation of representatives of the Hepatitis C Society of Canada to the upcoming meeting of federal, provincial and territorial Health Ministers in order to provide advice on how to address the financial needs of all those who contracted Hepatitis C from the federally regulated blood system.
I think that the important thing to remember is that it was federally regulated. This means that the government has a very great responsibility in this matter. We are facing a crisis today. It is a crisis for those who are ill, for families who have lost loved ones, for children who are suffering. We are here, in good health, debating on their behalf, but imagine the situation in which they find themselves today.
Why are we introducing this motion today? Because the initial agreement satisfied no one. The victims were not at the bargaining table to present their arguments and set the record straight. Nobody knows better than those living with hepatitis C what the illness is like. Even those of us taking part in the debate today to obtain justice for them cannot put ourselves in their shoes. We can only imagine what it is like, but it is very difficult.
As we saw this week, some provinces—Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia and even Manitoba—found their heart at one point. We must remember that, at one point, neither the provinces nor the federal government had a heart. They had only wallets. They had lost their hearts and were not looking beyond their billfolds. At some point it is time to put away the wallet and see that justice is done.
That is the problem in this country at the moment. The federal government often has heart when issues concern the country's multimillionaires and the banks. In such cases, the Minister of Finance has a heart, which goes out to the major corporations. I think it is time the Minister of Finance put his two feet flat on the ground and began to think about reality and the type of country he is creating today. He is building a country we are not proud of, and it is time he stopped. It is time the people in this country—it is the voters who will do it—put a stop to current policies, whereby the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
We are in opposition and we are doing the best we can. We have not done too badly in the past month, either. If we look how far we have come in this matter, we may be proud of ourselves. However, a number of Liberals must surely be hanging their heads pretty low, especially those who were elected on principles of defending the public and working on behalf of the poor. These same people support the government one vote at a time. Then they try to convince us that they voted according to their conscience. It frightens me even more when I hear them say they voted according to their conscience.
Last week, I brought some students down with me, and when they saw what was going on last week, when the government forced all its MPs to vote the same way, they said that the one thing they had learned during the week was that there is no democracy in this country. It is sad to see 16 or 17 year olds with such an attitude.
What is even sadder is that they are right to think this way. The federal government is the main regulatory authority where blood and blood products are concerned. It is, in large part, the one at fault. The provinces are already assuming the health care costs of all victims, regardless of the date they received the tainted blood, at an estimated $80,000 each.
With all the cuts the provinces have suffered at the hands of the federal government, $3.5 billion, they are still going to give money to the victims. They have already given $300 million, or $85,000 per victim, and some provinces are already prepared to do more than that.
Our government often claims it has no money for this country's sick, elderly and poor, and that we ought to be finally understanding this, since the situation has gone on for a number of years. On the other hand, the auditor general discovered a surplus of $2.5 billion, which was kept from the hepatitis C victims. This is a sad state of affairs.
In closing, I would like to say that today, at last, the government has decided to support our motion. I trust it will support it with its heart and is not just trying to redeem itself a bit in the eyes of the MPs it forced to vote against last week's motion. I trust that they will support the motion with their heart and not for political reasons, for I see a big difference between the two.