The thing that bothers me about this is that we are talking about a couple of dozen people. In the overall scheme of things, what financial impact will assisting them have on our country? Let's put into perspective the cost in order to make their lives a little bit easier for however long they have remaining. As I said in the House, it is a disgrace to think that we, as members of Parliament, in the greatest country in the world, can't collectively do something to assist a few of our fellow citizens who have suffered since birth as a result of a decision made by their country's federal health department.
Canada offered a compensation package in 1991. It included an in-person examination. Many people, such as Mr. Bolton, were either not aware of the 1991 package or, as in his case, their mothers never admitted to them that thalidomide was the problem. It was only after his mother passed away that he learned the truth from his aunts.
It is important to note that Canada is not alone in its compensation offerings. Countries such as Britain, Germany—where the drug originated—and Australia have also offered compensation packages to their victims. In Britain there was one offering, and then there was a second and greater offering after the victims realized that the first package wasn't enough to compensate them. Victims received the courtesy of an in-person examination.
For those who maybe don't understand thalidomide, let me use information from a website that was organized to provide such background to Canadians. This will explain the history and background to this issue.
Thalidomide was first marketed commercially in West Germany in 1954 by the drug company Chemie Grünenthal. There is some unproven evidence that it may have been developed during the Second World War by Nazi scientists. This stems from the fact that a known Nazi was hired by the drug company shortly before the release of thalidomide. It was available to patients in West Germany into the 1960s. Thalidomide was present in at least 46 countries under many different brand names. Thalidomide became available in simple tablet form in Canada in late 1959. It was given to many pregnant Canadian women to relieve morning sickness and to help them sleep.
Some of the forgotten survivors today were the result of the samples that were given to their mothers. This means that they could not come up with a prescription order even if the pharmacy records still existed. There is unconfirmed evidence that it may have been brought into Canada even earlier than this by doctors who had served in Korea and had come across the drug. It was licensed for prescription use in Canada on April 1, 1961. Although thalidomide was withdrawn from West Germany and the United Kingdom markets by December 2, 1961, it remained legally available in Canada until March 2, 1962, a full three months later. Incredibly, thalidomide was still available in some Canadian pharmacies until mid-May of 1962. Sample packs may have been given beyond this date.
Thalidomide was hailed as a wonder drug that provided a safe, sound sleep. Thalidomide was a sedative that was found to be effective when given to pregnant women to combat many of the symptoms associated with morning sickness. It was not realized that thalidomide molecules could cross the placental wall, affecting the fetus, until it was too late.
Thalidomide was a catastrophic drug with tragic side effects. Not only did a percentage of the population experience the effects of peripheral neuritis, a devastating and sometimes irreversible side effect, but thalidomide became notorious as the killer and disabler of thousands of babies.
When thalidomide was taken during pregnancy, particularly during a specific window of time in the first trimester, it caused startling birth malformations and death to babies. Any part of the fetus that was in development at the time of ingestion could be affected. For those babies who survived, birth defects included deafness, blindness, disfigurement, cleft palate, many other internal disabilities, and of course the disability most associated with thalidomide, phocomelia, as Mr. Bolton displays.
The numbers vary from source to source, as no proper census was ever taken, but it has been claimed that between 10,000 and 20,000 babies worldwide were born disabled as a consequence of the drug thalidomide. There are approximately 5,000 survivors alive today around the world. Never counted, and never to be known, was the number of babies miscarried or stillborn. Also never counted was the number of family members and parents who suffered over the years as they struggled with their conscience and the care of their affected children.
Around the world, in the late 1960s and into the early 1970s, the victims of the drug thalidomide, with their families, entered into class action legal suits or threatened actions against the various drug companies that manufactured and/or distributed the drug. They were eventually awarded settlements. In most countries, these settlements included monthly or annual payments based on the level of disability of the individual.
In Canada, the story was different. Canadian victims of the drug were forced to go it alone, family by family. No case ever reached a trial verdict. Rather, families were forced to settle out of court, with gag orders imposed on them not to discuss the amounts of their settlements.
It is startling to believe, but even today, as compensation is awarded to survivors, they are faced with gag orders on their compensation packages. The earlier gag order settlements resulted in a wide disparity in the compensation amounts, with settlements for individuals with the same levels of disability varying by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In 1987, the War Amputations of Canada established the thalidomide task force to seek compensation for Canadian-born thalidomide survivors from the Government of Canada. As Canada allowed the drug into Canadian markets when many warnings were already available about side effects associated with thalidomide, and as Canada left the drug on the market a full three months after the majority of the world had withdrawn the drug, it was felt and argued that the Government of Canada had a moral responsibility to ensure that thalidomide survivors were properly compensated.
In 1991, the Department of National Health and Welfare, now Health Canada, through what was called an “extraordinary assistance plan”, awarded small compassionate lump sum financial assistance grants to Canadian-born thalidomide survivors. The lump sum payment was offered ex gratia, meaning that Ottawa recognized no legal liability in offering the money. The payout amounted to $8.5 million, which worked out to about $52,000 to $82,000 per victim, depending on the degree of disability. These payments were quickly used by those individuals to cover some of the extraordinary costs of their disabilities, and for most survivors these monies are long gone.
Thalidomide survivors are now in their mid-fifties, and they are experiencing physical deterioration due to stress placed on their different body structures, further limiting their abilities and often resulting in new disabilities as a result of degeneration of joints and limbs. This is compounding the tragedy. The needs and problems of this unique population are many and overwhelming, and that is adding to their day-to-day struggle to adapt and survive.
That is the background that brings us to the government's compensation offer in 2015.
It should be noted that as result of different appeals in Britain, nearly 470,000 thalidomide survivors now receive annual payments of about $88,000 each, from both the British government and the thalidomide drug distributor. In Germany, where the drug was first marketed, the federal government gives its 2,700 survivors pensions that total up to $110,000 a year.
Here in Canada, as a result of the 2015 compensation package offer introduced by then-health minister Rona Ambrose, each thalidomide victim was to receive a lump sum payment of $125,000 and an annual tax-free pension of $25,000, $75,000, or $100,000, depending on the severity of their condition, for the rest of their lives. As well, survivors are able to access a special $500,000 medical assistance fund to defray the cost of mobility devices and other adaptive tools they may need.
The outstanding issue, of course, is “the forgotten survivors”, as they prefer to call themselves. They are a small group of people, probably fewer than two dozen from that period—I'm almost finished, Mr. Chairman—