Mr. Speaker, first of all, I have met often in the past with victims and their representatives.
Second, Health Canada some months ago sent its own representative to Ireland to look at the facts of that system. The facts are that about 1,800 victims so far have been compensated. We are covering 22,000 victims.
In Ireland the infection stemmed, for the most part, from a 1977 tainted blood supply brought about by the failure of the government to screen donors properly. The government itself distributed the tainted product which infected 1,500 expectant mothers.
We in this country have taken the same approach—