Mr. Speaker, I want to take up where the hon. member left off with the themes of generosity and fairness.
I think he will be among the first to recognize that prior to the actions of the federal government and the minister, there was a reluctance to apply either one of those two terms to the entire process as seen through the eyes of the victims, those he quite rightly calls the innocent victims of a terrible tragedy in Canadian blood history.
He would also at the same time acknowledge that the federal government has acted with great generosity. It has acted with a great sense of fairness. It has acted with great deliberateness in bringing all of the partners together to the table.
He well knows that a mere one year ago these concepts were not even on the table. There was no discussion of compensation. The only issue was how well all the governments of Canada would disseminate information that would allow victims to deal with their sickness, with their disease in relative comfort.
We are now looking at a package arrived at, cobbled together by all the governments, the territories, the provinces and the federal government on, number one, a package of compensation. Equally important and perhaps even more so in the eyes of many is that there is an entire package for additional services for those who have been smitten by this disease.
Most of us have been taken up with the issue of compensating one group as opposed to another but there has never been a distinction on the part of the federal government. The idea was that it would act on behalf of all our citizens.
With due regard to the issue that the opposition have raised up until this point which is the question of avoidability, if governments could have acted differently and did not do so, then there should be compensation. But in all cases there should be at least a series of measures in place to allow people to live their lives as normally as possible under the circumstances.