Mr. Speaker, bearing in mind the time constraints I will attempt to be brief, although once I am on my feet in the Chamber I sometimes find that a hard task.
Because I am speaking in support of this piece of legislation I do not think it is necessary for me to go over all the reasons why we should support it. Some of those have been enumerated by my colleague from the Bloc and my colleague from the Reform Party. Instead I will take the few moments I have to review perhaps the reasons why members of the government and members of the Conservative Party are not supporting this legislation and I think I can effectively raise some rebuttal to that.
We heard the parliamentary secretary say that at this point he cannot support labelling, and that is what we are talking about doing. We are not talking about pulling toys off shelves. We are not talking about banning them. We are talking about labelling them so that consumers who are parents buying for their children know what they are buying for those children and they can make the choice.
Members of the government have said that to date there is no conclusive evidence that it threatens the health of children, no specific cases having come forward, but that Health Canada is currently studying the situation. I think his exact words at one point were research is being done that will show the extent of the problem, not whether there is a problem but the extent of the problem. My colleague from the Conservative Party spoke against this bill because he says his party is also waiting to see if there is a significant risk.
We know in Europe these products have been taken off the shelves. We know there are studies in Denmark that indicate there is a risk. This debate is all too familiar. We have had this debate during question period every day for the last number of days the House has been sitting and I refer to the hepatitis C issue the Minister of Health has been grilled on. My hon. colleague from the Conservative Party arranged a press conference for those people who will not be compensated.
Why are some people not being compensated? The Minister of Health has said they were not testing at a particular point in time although we know and there is some evidence to suggest—and I am not going to get into that debate today, but the parallel is interesting—that Health Canada was aware that there was testing available for blood products before it was implemented in this country.
Today we have members of the Conservative Party, the Reform Party, the Bloc party and the New Democratic Party grilling the Minister of Health as to why people who became infected before that test was available or accepted by Health Canada were not compensated.
We know there is evidence in other countries that this product can be harmful to children but the government and Conservative Party want to wait until Health Canada does its own testing. Are members going to be in this House in 15 years grilling the Minister of Health about young children who today may become sick because we have not accepted the testing?
I will not use up all of the time because there are other points to be made. I encourage anyone watching this debate tonight, especially from Ontario since that is where many of the government members are from, to phone or write their member of parliament to indicate their concerns, especially parents of young children.