Mr. Chair, as my hon. colleague was the NDP health critic during the time of that debate, does she remember Allan Rock, the minister of health at the time, saying “care, not cash”? Those words sounded great but the reality was that he put a restriction on the people who would receive the care between the years 1986 and 1990.
What we found out was that the money went to a firm called Crawford. Crawford is a firm made up of a bunch of lawyers, not a bunch of victims. These lawyers obviously charged for their time and some of them did extremely well and are still doing extremely well living off the avails of the funds that were meant to go to victims.
Does my hon. colleague, who is a well learned and respected member of the House of Commons, know why the government turned the money over to an independent agency instead of giving it to the victims? The money was turned over to an independent agency called Crawford, which is made up of a bunch of lawyers who skimmed off everything they could, and are still doing so, and whatever was left may have trickled down to the victims between 1986 and 1990. That was one of the most disgraceful episodes that we have ever had in the House of Commons.