Mr. Speaker, the tainted blood scandal is not a closed file. This week the RCMP charged senior Health Canada bureaucrats with criminal negligence and more charges are possible.
To recap the events is instructive. HIV and hepatitis C infected many patients who required blood transfusions or blood products. The HIV patients were all compensated but the hepatitis C patients were compensated only between 1986 and 1990. The Krever report called for compensation for everyone infected and ill due to the failure of the federal watchdogs. Quebec and Ontario compensated everyone.
The federal government should also compensate every victim of hepatitis C from tainted blood who is ill. One patient who called me this week has $11 per month left after paying for her rent. She has to live with her son so that she can survive. She deserves compassion and not legalistic arguments.