Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight to speak on the hepatitis C compensation package.
The position the government has taken on this package to compensate hepatitis C victims is untenable. It is untenable simply because it leaves too many innocent victims out.
The compensation package as supported by Ottawa, by the federal government, compensates only those victims between 1986 and 1990. That is wrong. I am glad and I am sure all members of the House are to see that these victims are being compensated. The tragedy in that package is that the victims prior to 1986 are not being compensated, nor are the innocent victims after 1990. What I am telling the House is that position is untenable and the Canadian people are making that known from coast to coast.
Canada is a pretty generous country. We are ranked number one in the world by the United Nations. There is no way the Canadian people are going to allow a package that screens out, that discriminates between innocent victims. They want all victims compensated.
The Prime Minister presented a new twist to the compensation package the other day. I am reading directly from the Ottawa Citizen , today's edition, the Prime Minister talking about the compensation package. He is linking drug abusers and AIDS victims into the package. The Prime Minister stated:
What about those who have used needles, who are those who have a problem with...transmitted by sex, and after that, the others?
The Prime Minister does not get the message. We are talking about innocent victims who received tainted blood through our health system. There is something wrong when that happens. I think all of us agree on that. When the Prime Minister clouds the issue there is something wrong with his thinking. What we are talking about is compensation for innocent victims.
We need some movement on this file by the health minister. I have been asking him since the Krever report was released back in November 1997 to act unilaterally, to act alone, as a federal government should, on this issue. At the end of the day we have only one federal health minister and he and no one else is responsible. He is solely responsible for the safety of Canada's blood supply system. It is as simple as that.
We are asking for compensation for all the victims of hepatitis C outside that package already announced. We want the victims prior to 1986 covered and we want all victims after 1990 covered.