Madam Speaker, how does the member who has just spoken feel about the fact that the government would rather give grants of millions of dollars to replace tobacco company sponsorship than compensate the victims of its own negligence?
House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2011, with 58% of the vote.
Supply April 23rd, 1998
Madam Speaker, how does the member who has just spoken feel about the fact that the government would rather give grants of millions of dollars to replace tobacco company sponsorship than compensate the victims of its own negligence?
Supply April 23rd, 1998
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If the member has a question he should get to the question instead of going into all this material he never got through before. If he can preface his remarks and get to his question, I think that is the point of the questions.
Supply April 23rd, 1998
In that case, it is the individual to whom I have just referred and to whom I cannot directly address the question. If he were infected with hepatitis C before 1986 would he accept being excluded from that compensation package?
The Liberals drone on about the should have, could have and would have. It is sickening. It is disgusting to hear that ring in our ears again and again, a track record like that. The minister's answers show that he cannot put himself in the shoes of those people. The minister needs to acknowledge that he has scarred the human side of what government is meant to be.
As Krever reports, the Red Cross was aware that non-A, non-B hepatitis was getting into the blood supply as early as 1978. The Red Cross rejected recommendations from its own people to implement surrogate tests in 1981, the ALT test that has already been referred to, and the 1984 anti-HBC test. A 1995 study in The Lancet , a prestigious and well respected medical journal, later revealed that the combined used of these two tests would have lowered the incidence of post-transfusion hep C by as much as 85%. From 1986 to 1990 the Red Cross was aware that the U.S. was using surrogate testing but did not implement or authorize its use in Canada.
The Prime Minister has admitted the government's direct liability yet he refuses to compensate. This reflects the continuing moral failure of this government. The health minister is the Prime Minister's hired gun, a lawyer using cold legal arguments to exclude victims who deserve compassion. The government meets flood and ice storm tragedies, “acts of God” for which it is not responsible. But this is the worst public health tragedy in Canadian history, for which the government is responsible, make no mistake.
The health minister says that he wants to keep the matter out of the courts but he is ready to drag up to 40,000 sick people into court. The heath minister is prepared to spend millions of tax dollars to battle victims in court which will force sick people to use their remaining strength and financial resources to fight for what is rightfully theirs. The health minister is hypocritical in compensating some hepatitis C victims while compensating all AIDS tainted blood victims.
Since 1992 the feds have spent more than $3 billion to help 40,000 fishermen who were thrown out of work, as they ought to, but the Liberals cannot bring themselves to help dying people, not people out of jobs. That is reason enough to help them. These are people not only out of jobs but out of their lives. They are dying people. When in opposition the Liberals called for compensation of all thalidomide victims, all HIV victims through tainted blood. Earlier the government compensated all who had urea formaldehyde foam insulation in their houses. Mr. Klein reversed his stand against compensating victims for sterilization programs in Alberta. Mr. Harris changed his mind with respect to Ontario's Dionne quintuplets. Why can the federal health minister not do the honourable thing, save face in some manner, do some supplementary program and compensate all victims?
After four years of public pressure, finally at long last Ireland did give generous compensation to its victims. But we have to wait four years in Canada, the supposed number one nation in the world, for that. It has already taken three years. How many more years will victims have to wait? If Ireland, a nation one-tenth the size of Canada, can afford to be generous to its victims, why cannot Canada?
The health minister says he wants to save the government money, but there are three class actions for $5 billion against him already and more to come. If he really wants to help taxpayers he will settle out of court. The health minister claims if we compensate hepatitis C victims we would have to settle others, like victims of faulty breast implants. But those companies have settled with 16,000 Canadian breast implant victims for $900 million. Each company owned up, faced responsibility and settled out of court. Why cannot the health minister do that?
Hepatitis C victims say the government's number of 40,000 is probably deliberately inflated. The Red Cross says half of that. What is the real number? There are number games being played to turn the Canadian public against the hepatitis C victims. Why is he doing that? The government should be giving compensation to all.
Supply April 23rd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, this Liberal government has consistently stated how proud it is that Canada is the number one country in the world, the best nation in which to live.
I would like in a rhetorical fashion to ask a question of the Minister of Health if he is watching on CPAC today. If he were one who contracted hepatitis C in Canada and watched all the other hepatitis C victims get fair and generous compensation, in other jurisdictions in the world as well, would he still believe in view of that comparison that Canada was the number one country in the world, the best nation in which to live?
I rise today to speak of the oppression and injustice and how these hepatitis C victims feel. They feel not like citizens of a first rate nation, the number one country in the world, but more like those of a third world country not having the compassion for innocent victims, especially when those innocent victims have been made so by the negligence of the government's regulators.
No doubt numerous letters, e-mails, correspondence and fax messages have been received by other members of parliament, as they have been by the Reform official opposition health critics. I would like to read into the record a couple of letters. I will read one in full and part of another. They simply reflect the outpouring of grief, the lament and great sense of injustice and oppression felt by these people who have contracted hepatitis C and those who contracted it before 1986.
This letter was addressed to me:
I am writing to beseech you to assist me in influencing the [health minister] to reconsider his position on the scandalous treatment of hepatitis C victims in his patently unfair compensation package.
I contracted hepatitis C while having a kidney removed in June of 1983. At that time, testing was indeed available for non-A, non-B hepatitis, testing which was not, however, being used in Canada. The date chosen, 1986, is entirely arbitrary. Germany began testing in 1981, the United States in 1986.
I find it rather interesting there was no new information, that nothing new entered the equation from 1981 to 1986 in terms of information that was not available in 1981. It is rather interesting as well that this government sometimes rants and rails at the American health care system yet chooses in this instance to take the lead from them. A very selective practice. The government is allowing the American practice in this case to dictate Canadian policy. There is no other good scientific reason for so doing. The letter continues:
As it usually happens, I was unaware of my disease until 1995, when my symptoms began to make themselves known and I was tested. Since then, my symptoms have increased dramatically, in spite of the many lifestyle changes I made in the hope of slowing down the progression of the disease.
I am now faced with the prospect of having to leave my beloved but challenging job as a result of my illness. I work at the University of Victoria, where there is no long term disability program, so I am faced with three months sick leave, then 15 weeks of medical unemployment insurance then—nothing!! The fear of how I will pay my bills is as stressful as the disease itself and I find myself becoming even sicker as a result of all the added stresses accompanying my inability to continue to work.
I will be attending the funeral on Tuesday, April 7, of Leslie Ashcroft, a close friend who died last Sunday of liver cancer. I know all too well what might await me as my disease progresses.
The ultimate irony of this for me is that the [health minister] proposes to spend my tax dollars to compensate victims who were infected in the `right' time frame whether they are sick or not. And I face the prospect of losing everything I have spent my life working for due to this same disease, contracted when there was testing which was not used, as I am now too ill to continue working and paying those taxes.
Please remember that, sick as many of us are, we can still vote and you can be sure we will not vote to re-elect a government that treated so many honest, hardworking Canadians in such an unconscionable manner lacking any compassion or, in fact, logic.
Where is the compassion of a government that deems that some victims `deserve' compensation and others do not? Why have those of us infected before 1986 been doomed to litigation and hardship as a result—
She concludes her letter with a plea and a heartfelt appeal to understand her situation and to do the right thing.
I also have a letter from a Canadian citizen, Vicki Anderson of Nanaimo, B.C. who was infected with hepatitis C through tainted blood. In her letter she asks whether the health minister would accept this compensation package if he were infected himself. It would be an interesting question if the minister were here on this occasion, but he is not. But if he were here and if he were one of those infected before 1986, would he accept being excluded from the compensation package?
Hepatitis C April 22nd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I guess that is his choice if he wants to go down with a dozen other people on this issue, but the Canadian public and hepatitis C victims are watching and waiting for the Liberal government to come up with some different lines than should have, could have and would have. It sounds like a cracked record.
Speaking of cracked records, I appeal to the minister. Why create unnecessary cracks and division within his own caucus and his own cabinet? Why will the health minister not do the right thing and go back to the drawing board to figure out how he can compensate all victims of hepatitis C? Then he could enjoy a good weekend with a clear conscience. Why wait for a vote on this Tuesday?
Hepatitis C April 22nd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, it is some consolation to be in collaboration with others to deny justice to victims in our country.
The Canadian public happens to disagree with the Minister of Health, as do all the opposition parties and his Liberal colleagues, and he knows it.
Hepatitis C victims were protesting on the lawn of Parliament Hill on Monday. Thousands of Canadians will be on their phones over the weekend asking their members of parliament to do the right thing.
Why does the health minister not hustle back to his office, work the phones and come up with a plan to compensate all hepatitis C victims before the vote next Tuesday? Why wait for the vote?
Hepatitis C April 21st, 1998
There is a big difference, Mr. Speaker, between accidents, negligence and what has occurred in this particular instance.
The Liberal Party presents itself as the party that promotes Canadian unity and sharing and community, but that is not the truth. At the very first sight of choppy waters it is pitting the majority of Canadians against hepatitis C victims.
Why is this government attempting to orchestrate a second assault on these victims by trying to turn their own friends and neighbours against them?
Hepatitis C April 21st, 1998
Mr. Speaker, a captain wanted to lighten his ship's load so on a stormy day he warned that the ship would sink unless some men were thrown overboard. Gripped with fear the crew turned on each other and as a result several were lost.
The health minister warns that compensating all hepatitis C victims will sink the entire medicare ship. He is deliberately creating fear in Canadians so they will be willing to sacrifice fellow Canadians who have hepatitis C. How can he use such an unethical public relations ploy? How can he sink so low?
Hepatitis C April 3rd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, it is a good thing the minister never read that article before the ice storm in January and the Red River flood.
The health minister says the government is not liable for infecting those victims before 1986. He believes it was an unforeseen tragedy. In the last budget the government set up a $3 billion contingency fund precisely for needs unforeseen by the government.
Why is this minister saying that his compensation plan is the best that can be done?
Hepatitis C April 3rd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, the health minister says he does not want the government's approach to compensation to set a legal precedent.
It is possible for the government to compensate hepatitis C victims infected before 1986 without admitting legal liability. To use a legal term, it can simply compensate ex gratia, out of grace.
Why is he inventing a doomsday scenario in order to avoid across the board compensation?