Mr. Speaker, Joanne McCallum from Colchester county, Nova Scotia contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion in 1986. Incredibly her daughter Michelle also received contaminated blood from a transfusion and has now passed away.
Joanne has applied for compensation under the terms of the settlement agreement. Although she is devastated physically, emotionally and financially, she is subjected repeatedly to irrelevant questions, treated to bad attitudes and confronted with problems when she applies for help to get through the red tape. In response I contacted the Minister of Health and asked him to intervene but he referred me back to the source of the frustrations in the first place.
If the government can send our soldiers to war, if it can create new taxes and create new laws that allow arrest without warrant, surely it can help find a way for Joanne McCallum to get through this red tape. I ask the Minister of Health to put the full weight of his office behind this effort and follow it through until it is completed successfully.