Mr. Speaker, sadly, again I want to bring to the attention of the House the deplorable situation of hepatitis C victims.
First, the government willfully chose to only acknowledge victims of hep C who fell into an arbitrary window of 1986 to 1990. It ignored the Krever inquiry recommendation that all blood injured people be compensated promptly and adequately.
In fact, over the past two years of negotiating the victims have received absolutely nothing, only their lawyers. Meanwhile the suffering continues.
The question of how children will be compensated in the future remains unanswered. Unfortunately, there will be many children who will meet the current criteria but who have not yet tested positive. Lawyers have said “don't worry”, but hep C sufferers and their families find little comfort in this.
Questions have also been raised regarding the accuracy of blood tracebacks. With Red Cross records prior to 1980 destroyed, how on earth are people able to get accurate records?
Furthermore, there are many unanswered questions surrounding the use of prison blood from both Canada and the U.S. in our blood supply system.
The health minister needs to be fully accountable for his government's actions. When is he going—