Mr. Speaker, tonight I am on the hepatitis C issue again. It goes back to the original compensation package that was announced by the government some months ago.
Many of us are concerned about the package because it only includes those innocent victims from the years 1986 to 1990. I think that most Canadians expect more than that for a number of reasons. We have to realize that these are innocent victims of a tainted blood supply.
Going back to the original Krever inquiry and the report of Justice Krever, he states that all victims should be compensated regardless of the years when they were infected. That is only fair.
As I have mentioned in this House time and time again, Canada by far is the number one country in the world. We are rated as the best country in the world by the United Nations. We are a very fair and a very generous country. Most Canadians want to see that fairness and generosity expressed in that compensation package.
We have had some pretty heated discussions in this House on that compensation package. Up to now those victims prior to 1986 are not being compensated. We do not have any consideration being given to those victims after 1990. We are talking I suppose conservatively about a group of people which could be less than 20,000. The government has led us to believe that the number could be over 60,000.
Unfortunately, the government cannot substantiate that number. One would ask why it would use a number that cannot be substantiated. I think the reason the government did that is that it might go beyond the government's capacity to pay if the number was large enough. That is the sort of convoluted logic in my way of thinking. That is why the hepatitis C association tells us that yes, the government officials inflated the number making it appear as if it was beyond the capacity of the government to pay compensation to those victims. The number is far less than that. Some experts put the number down as low as 8,000 to 12,000 yet to be compensated.
The good news out of all of this to this point, if there is any good news at all, if there is a little comfort we can take in what has happened is that the provinces and the federal government are back at the negotiating table. They are back today as we speak.
I think there is a glimmer of hope that the federal government might come up with something for those victims left outside the package. At the end of the day, it is not the provinces, it is not the provincial health ministers that are responsible for the safety of Canada's blood supply system. Members know that the buck stops at the doorstep of the federal health minister. The federal health minister himself is responsible for the safety of Canada's blood supply system. He is back at the bargaining table with the provinces today.
I am hopeful that a package will be arrived at. We are looking for generosity on the part of the federal government on behalf of the Prime Minister and his government and we are hoping that is what happens in the next couple of days. We are hopeful that that will happen. What we want to see is simply compensation for all those innocent victims of a tainted blood supply system regardless of when they were infected.