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?