Mr. Speaker, the discussion about a date is causing some confusion. It is not an arbitrary date. It is not a whimsical date. It is a date everybody is looking at.
We are talking about a period in which something was generally available, a mechanism was generally available and people could have done something and did not do it. It is important to understand that. We are talking about something that all interveners have suggested, that somebody else is responsible for a condition which is regrettable and tragic. Everyone acknowledges that but the moment that we recognize that the fault is inherent we have to point the finger. The finger was pointed specifically by those who have investigated the situation as starting about 1986.
If the member opposite wants to as well discredit other previous speakers, for example the member for Macleod who talked about tests being available in the seventies in which he as a responsible medical practitioner engaged, and he wants to refer to that as a point of reference, that is fine. Let him as well address some of the issues that flow from that.
I think it is important to underscore that this is not an untenable position. It is a position that everyone has agreed has some basis in reason and rationality. For him to engage in hindsight and the accuracy of the hindsight about tests being available, I ask him to think again about whether they were generally acceptable and whether there was action on them.
The reason the 1986 date was fixed, and it was not arbitrary, is authorities recognized that something could have been done then and was not done.