Debates of Nov. 2nd, 2004

Assistance to Hepatitis C Victims

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Madam Chair, I want to thank the member again for his kind words. I appreciate working with him at the health committee.

He pointed out that we have unanimity of purpose. For political parties, not always unanimity of opinions on every point, but unanimity of purpose. On this purpose and this objective there has been no differentiation.

I ask the member to recognize, and I think it is important to do so, that it is easy to look at the past and people who are not here to defend themselves and to question their intent. But I think there is one element, and I do not think that he wants to mislead anybody but the way that he said it, it might be misleading to people who do not have all the facts, that has to be understood, and I believe the member understands that and knows that.

Since that fund was established those moneys are no longer under the control of the minister. The minister cannot access those funds. The minister must apply as one of the contributors. The federal government was one of the contributors to the funds, but the fund was held in trust for the people who had the claim before the federal government where we had to negotiate a friendly settlement.

Those funds were being managed and held in trust by them. We must have the agreement of three provincial courts before those funds can be released or used in another way other than for what the fund was established. For that to happen, we have to show that there is a surplus. The federal government cannot declare a surplus. The actuarial surplus will be pointed out to the court by actuaries. The court will agree that there is a surplus, presumably. Then we can make application. The minister has indicated the path he wishes to follow.

Would the member not agree that in his capacity that is the shortest possible method for the minister to access those funds?

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Chair, it is interesting when the member says we have no power to control what is actually in the courts. We had the power to limit it from 1986 to 1990 when we actually had the figures to know that it was the wrong decision at that time.

It actually scares me when my colleague suggests this because what he is really implying is that we could make a decision in this House and it would not mean anything. I believe that the decision should have been made not based on how much was left in the fund. The decision should have been made on what was the right thing to do for the victims of the day.

To say that we cannot access the funds is a shallow argument when one really looks at what the member is saying. That is like saying, “Oh, we have a little bit of gravy left over so we will apply it to try to ease our conscience”.

That is an inappropriate way to look at this. We had the figures back then. We need to do the right thing now. We needed to do it in the last government when there was a majority in government. The government had a majority in the House. It had total control of this. Nothing has changed from a year ago, as far as the fund goes. All that has changed is perhaps the pressure that has been applied to this issue at this present time.

Let us just make it happen now. Let us stop pointing figures and make it happen. We can get into a lot of the politics of it and I think the government of the day should wear some of the politics of it. That is fair enough. When one makes decisions, one has to live by those decisions and pay the price for them if they are the wrong decisions. I think that is fair. Let us move on this now. We have to do it and do it in an aggressive way.

I would like to challenge my colleague. Tomorrow he will have an opportunity to vote in this House and to put feet to his words if he really wants to compensate victims. So let us see that happen.

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, St. Croix—Belleisle, NB]

Madam Chair, I just want to make a comment on the member's remarks. The decision by the government of the day was a political one. The right thing to have done at that time was to follow Justice Krever's report and compensate all victims. A strategic decision was made on behalf of government to only compensate some victims. I would like to member to comment on that. That decision lays squarely at the doorstep of the government of the day.

The member is absolutely correct. Successive Liberal governments have had an opportunity over the years to reverse that decision. The actuarial report did not simply appear on the horizon. We knew about the numbers then. In fact I was health critic for my party at the time and I suggested then that the actuarial numbers were wrong. The number of victims was grossly overestimated. The government could have funded all the victims, as Justice Krever suggested, but it made a political decision not to do that.

Could the member to comment on that issue.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Madam Chair, my colleague is right. The numbers were obvious at the time. I think that will be an historical fact. It is not something we really need to debate. The political will was not there to do the right thing, and that also will be an historical fact.

Woe to us if that happens on our watch. We have an opportunity to change that. We need to do it. The fund is there, the money is there, the victims are still there and the opportunity to do the right thing is there. The minister says that it is complex and we have to think this and think that. However, it is not complex; it is very simple. We either do the right thing or we do not do the right thing.

When it comes to the actual numbers, as my colleague says that will go down as an historical fact. He is absolutely right. I encourage the House to soberly consider the opportunity that we have before us.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Madam Chair, I have been listening to the debate for the past two hours or so. I may be a bit naive, being new in this House and having trouble understanding certain things that are going on. We all seem to be in agreement that a serious injustice has been committed toward these fellow citizens who became the innocent victims of tainted blood. We all seem to agree that there have indeed been victims and we would like to provide some compensation. We are, however, having a hard time reaching agreement as to how to do that, and when. That is what I have trouble understanding.

It seems to me that, if the government is one of the bodies responsible for the funds, and the two others are representing the victims, an understanding ought to be reachable.

This is of major concern to me. I can sympathize with the victims and their families, because I have a hemophiliac son. So far, I have been fortunate not to suffer the torments some parents have suffered. I do, however, know the torment we parents feel knowing that our child can at any moment fall victim to hepatitis C, HIV or any other blood-borne disease. I understand very well that this is not easy.

As all those letters were read earlier, I could understand and feel the rage of the people who wrote them. I could also feel their despair. I believe the minister when he says he wants to correct the mistakes that were made. In my mind, when there is a desire to do something, when there is a will, there is a way. I think that the best way of achieving a solution is by taking on this challenge together. Earlier, my hon. colleague from Hochelaga asked the minister to meet the challenge of finding a solution by the recess, around December 17 or 18. For a new member and a new minister , I think this makes for a fine challenge. All of us in this House seem to agree that we want compensation to be provided to the victims of hepatitis C, especially since some of them have been suffering for than 20 years, since 1980 to 1983.

An hon. colleague referred earlier to similarities between this situation and that of veterans from the first and second world wars who had to wait for years for any compensation. My father was one of these veterans. My father was one of 14 survivors at Casa Berardi. I can attest to the fact that he fought for 20 years, just to get hearing aids, which he finally got two weeks before he died. I can appreciate how long it takes, how terribly long the battle can be. One must never give up and say it cannot be done.

We in this place have a duty to these victims. We must not wait for the victims to be on their death bed before giving them what they are owed. The right to quality of life, to maintain this quality of life and to maintain life is a basic right.

I think I will conclude on this, because I am getting very emotional. I hope that our colleagues in this House will accept the challenge of my colleague from Hochelaga and decide to compensate these victims by December 18.

[Paddy Torsney, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Madam Chair, I have had an opportunity to hear portions of the debate. I think it has been very helpful for colleagues.

Especially for the new members of the House of Commons, this is an opportunity to listen to what goes on here.

This is what happens when there are difficult issues for all of us to face.

I am a bit distressed when some of my colleagues would presume that members on this side of the House perhaps have cavalier attitude or that we are not compassionate toward the situation of those who are infected by hepatitis C. That is unfair and quite unhelpful.

Before I was elected as a member of Parliament, I had the great opportunity to do some work with the hemophiliacs association. I met with individuals who had been helped by the health care system, but also had harmed by it. Since being a member of Parliament, I have had the opportunity to meet with individuals. To suggest that any political party has a corner on the market of empathy and sympathy is really not helpful in this current environment.

I caution my colleague from the new Conservative Party to think about that and to respect the fact that people made what they believed, and continue to believe, were appropriate decisions at the time. However, we have new information and a different situation now. We now can look at what the compensation arrangements were by the provinces. We can look at the very different numbers that present themselves in terms of the compensation package versus what was thought at the time. We are not talking about a few people that we did not anticipate. We are talking about numbers that range from 20,000 plus to less than 4,000 now, so it is a very different situation.

Nonetheless, there was a compensation package put forward by the government. That compensation package for the group between 1986-1990 is the compensation package for those individuals. Therefore, there are some legal issues that need to be addressed. There also has been support for individuals who have been affected by hepatitis C, but we are understanding more and more about the nature of the care that they need.

Just this summer a constituent of mine, who I have worked with year in and year out on health care issues since I was elected 11 years ago, found out that through an operation prior to 1986 he had hepatitis C. We need to educate. Perhaps one of the opportunities in this debate is to say that if people had surgery in Canada prior to 1990, they should get checked to see if there is a possibility they were infected by the blood supply at the time. They should work with a doctor to ensure they get the best health care. They should work with the provinces to ensure that the supports for those who have hepatitis C and HIV- AIDS are there and that they are given the care they need. That is their right and it is our obligation as government to provide it.

The minister has articulated this evening some of the thinking that he has going forward. There is an opportunity to work with the actuaries to determine exactly what the surplus is, to ensure that we have fulfilled our legal obligations through the group that has been given some guarantees by the court and to work with the groups that are involved in this issue.

Perhaps, through this debate, I can encourage the minister and all my colleagues in the House to work with the groups that work with these individuals to find the solutions that will make the most meaningful difference to improve the quality of their lives and to support their loved ones.

Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to talk to a wonderful young man and his mom. His father had become sick as a teenager. He had strep throat which was not treated quickly enough. It damaged his kidneys and eventually his liver. Then he contracted hepatitis C through an operation. I apologize if I do not have the facts completely right, but I remember being struck by the fact that I have had strep throat several times and received care quickly. Yet the outcome for this other man was so completely different.

The implications from one support from the health care system to the next had just a completely devastating impact on him. That is nothing that anybody in any seat on any side of the House ever wants for a fellow Canadian. It is not what we desire. We want people to receive good health care. We want to make sure that we are delivering the supports.

The family asked me what the implications would be and what would happen next? They told me what it meant to them to be without their loved one in their lives. They wanted compensation and I supported their desire.

I encourage the government to find a solution quickly, to work with the actuaries perhaps even before June 2005, and to come up with solutions that will make a meaningful difference in the lives of the individuals who were affected.

However we are looking at very different numbers now that a series of provinces have provided compensation. The numbers that are needed from the federal government would be very different. We need to sit down together as governments and those who care about this issue and work out the support issues and discuss what else is needed in the health care system to help those who were infected by the blood supply that was our responsibility. We also need to support those who were affected by the illness through other actions and say that it is about supporting Canadians, about delivering health care and about making sure we are supporting people.

I appreciate the passion, the support and the empathy that the Minister of Health and many of my colleagues on this side of the House have. I hope the members on the opposite side appreciate where many of us are at and how much we want to make sure that we are providing support. However to demonize or to suggest that somebody has all the empathy in the world and the other guys do not is not really helpful. There are several members in the House now who I do not think have that position but there have been others throughout this debate who may have taken a different mode of operation.

However we do need to ensure that the moneys are there for the individuals who have been given guarantees. Sadly, there are many who are still finding out, not many in the sense that they will not be given compensation, but many in the sense that there are others who have not found out yet. We need to deal with this issue and we need to encourage and support the minister in finding a solution that meets the needs of all the individuals, and that will provide long term support for those who were infected when they were seeking the best help at the time. Clearly, people were let down and mistakes were made.

The other important thing through all of this is that constituents right across the country need to realize there have been changes. The price that has been paid by this community has not been lost on all of us who are involved in regulation. We understand that there was a need to make changes and Canada does have a new and better blood supply system. Health Canada particularly has new regulatory functions. There is a Canadian Patient Safety Institute and there is a new Canadian public health agency under construction. The significant changes in how we deliver health care and how we regulate the services within will make a difference for, frighteningly, the next illness that may cross our path.

We have learned from mistakes and we are willing to move forward. We have taken a leadership role in government and we are working to respect patient safety issues, to improve the quality of health care and to listen to the advice of governments, stakeholders and the public to ensure that we have effective strategies for all.

Finally, I encourage and support those who wish to find a solution to this situation but I ask all members to respect that in 1998 the situation looked very different than it looks now for at least some of us on this side and that we made our decisions with the best information that we had.

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, St. Croix—Belleisle, NB]

Madam Chair, I listened very carefully to the member for Burlington and agreed with much of what she had to say but I took exception when she pointed very directly at Conservatives and said that we were exercising a monopoly on compassion. If the member had been listening carefully, and I think the record will show this, none of that took place on this side of the House this evening, whether from a Bloc member, an NDP member or Conservative member. I think we have taken the high ground on this issue.

I can remember the votes that were taken in the House when members were forced by the government of the day to stand up and vote against compensating all victims. I know it was a tough vote for members on that side. As the House knows, I was here in the House at the time and some of the members broke down in tears during the vote. There were press reports on all of that. There was a lot of anguish on that side of the House and a lot of friction I suppose within the party at that particular time. We all understand that. However for the member to portray us as trying to point to the government as the bad guys and us as the good guys, that just did not happen on this side of the House.

One of the things that we do in opposition is we hold governments accountable. That is what we have to do in this place in question period and in normal debate. However in a take note debate like this, which is what it is, a debate, it is usually quite civil and the member for Burlington is usually quite civil. However I think she stepped over the line tonight in terms of sensitivity on the issue as it relates to the opposition. That is the point I wish to make.

[Paddy Torsney, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Madam Chair, perhaps the member himself has overstepped the line on sensitivity because I actually was not referring to him.

I did hear some of the comments and it was perceived by me, obviously inaccurately, that some members opposite may have tried to suggest that some members on this side were less than sensitive on these issues.

Let me address one particular issue. I have never been forced, nor have any of my colleagues been forced, to do anything. To suggest otherwise is a bit silly, in the same way that you saw earlier in the House, Madam Chair, that members on this side may have dissented while members opposite did not dissent from their particular party's perspective on issues.

I would suggest that throwing stones at others is really not helpful. We are trying to have debate. If the member opposite wants to assume that I was referring to him he can knock himself out, but I was thinking about another member who seemed to be getting a corner on the market.

I would suggest that many of us on this side have compassion and do care. I would encourage the member to recognize that, as I gather he has.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Chair, I believe it would not be disrespectful of the MPs on the government side to say that in 1998 when that vote was taken, it was a vote that lacked compassion. Refusing to vote in favour of expanding the compensation is a gesture that indicates a lack of compassion in the group. Were the members who, as individuals, voted in favour of the government position lacking in compassion? We are not here to accuse anyone. Clearly, however, the government position was not a generous position. It was extremely stingy and not historically defensible.

Things have not changed so much that we can change our opinion on the government's actions. It was stingy and it still is.

Now, I am ready to recognize that the new health minister may be able to convince his cabinet and caucus colleagues that it is time to have another look. However, I do not think we will be expected to improve our opinions on the government's actions in the past. It is not a barometer for compassion. That is not what we need to talk about; what we must do is recognize that limiting the compensation period to 1986-1990 was a mistake. I think that with the passage of time, we must all see that.

Once we have said that, of course, the future belongs to those who want to work to convince the government to expand compensation. I am very pleased to see that the hon. member for Burlington is one of those who want to work at correcting this terrible historical error. Our goal, here in the House, must not be to avoid recognizing that there was a mistake. Yes, there was a mistake. All the leaders recognize it.

I do not want to ask the hon. member for Burlington to rewrite history. She herself, of course, can show compassion. I ask her if she is still ready to rise in this House and recognize that her government's policy in 1998 was not generous; that it was stingy; and that it was a terrible historical error and must be corrected.

[Paddy Torsney, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Madam Speaker, let's look at the facts supported by some of the individuals who are much more involved in this issue than any of us in the House.

At the time we voted in the House it was believed that about 20,000 people would be eligible for the $1.2 billion that was set aside in the program. In the three years since the Red Cross settlement, 4,804 individuals were in that group. The numbers are 20% less than what people thought at the time. Some members opposite have said they knew there were different numbers. Look, it is the government's responsibility to be prudent and to make sure we are providing adequately.

The group of individuals is significantly smaller. The money that has been set aside has grown because the markets have done better than some people anticipated, compared to 1998.

Four provinces have set up their own compensation funds: Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, and British Columbia. That was not what this side of the House understood at the time. We are continuing to work with provincial governments. I encourage my provincial counterparts to tell us what they have done with the moneys that have been invested. We have to make sure that we are providing support to the individuals who have hepatitis C. We have to make sure that we are addressing their day to day issues and their health issues. We have to make sure that we are providing the best care, because that is what we are all interested in.

We on this side of the House worked with information we had at the time. We are certainly interested in supporting these individuals. There is no cut-off date for those in the 1986-to-1990 group. We do have a whole new set of hard numbers to deal with that are very different from what we prudently accounted for.

The Minister of Health, with every good reason, is looking at the situation. He is talking to the finance department. He has to talk to the group that is covered. It was their money that was set aside. He is working with individuals, some of whom I would recognize are in the House tonight--if I were allowed to recognize people who are in the chamber, other than the Speaker--people I have known for many years and who I continue to work with. We will continue to do that.

I encourage the minister and cabinet and House colleagues from all parties to continue to work to address these important issues. We have to make sure that we have the best health care system to meet the needs of all Canadians. We have to continue to be vigilant in making sure that no other group is affected in the same way. All members could agree on that as well. We have to make sure that our health care system, paid for by the government and all Canadians, is there to serve and to protect and to aid us rather than cause us harm. I think all members of the House could agree on that. I hope they will encourage the minister to work on a solution.

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, St. Croix—Belleisle, NB]

Madam Chair, I want to start out with a few facts on hepatitis C. They are very basic, but they describe what the affliction is and how many people are afflicted and some of the details we sometimes gloss over, assuming that everyone back home understands exactly what we are talking about.

Hepatitis C is a potentially fatal liver disease caused by a blood-borne virus. At present there is no vaccine against hepatitis C, nor is there a cure for the disease. I think that is important to emphasize, that there is no cure for hepatitis C.

In the 1980s and 1990s, thousands of Canadians contracted hepatitis C through tainted blood. One of the points I want to emphasize is that they contracted hepatitis C through tainted blood through no fault of their own. That is what I have to emphasize: through no fault of their own.

After Justice Krever did his inquiry, which was about a four-year inquiry into the tainted blood scandal and Canada's blood system, Justice Horace Krever recommended financial compensation for all victims of tainted blood. This is what Justice Krever said, and I am quoting from his report: “Compensating some needy sufferers and not others cannot, in my opinion, be justified.”

That is what this debate is all about tonight. The government had the opportunity back then to do the right thing, and they chose not to.

I want to emphasize the artificial dates the government put on their compensation package. The government said it would compensate some and not others. This is almost unbelievable, but this is what the Liberal government did at the time. They chose to compensate only those who contracted hepatitis C between 1986 and 1990.

If we think about those dates, as I know many members in this House and some people in the gallery are tonight, they really do not mean a lot, do they, unless a person happened to be one of those victims that fall outside of that artificial date line put on by the Government of Canada.

If we are talking 1986 to 1990, there were people who contracted hepatitis C on say December 31, 1985, and they were left outside the package. One day later--and this is an awful word to use and probably not the appropriate word--if you were fortunate enough to have contracted the disease one day later, on January 1, 1986, you would have been compensated. Fortunate is not the word, but I guess fortunate would be the word in terms of compensation.

So from the very get-go, there was something wrong with that formula. It would be between 1986 and 1990. Then if you had contracted hepatitis C on January 1, 1991, one day past the deadline, you were out of luck. What kind of a program and what kind of a compensation plan is that?

That is what Krever recommended in his report. After a four-year intensive study from coast to coast, speaking to all the experts, he is saying that compensating some and not all would be the wrong thing to do. Yet that is exactly what the government did do.

The member for Burlington talks about if we knew then what we know now we could have maybe done something different. Those are the questions that we asked on this side of the House at that time, with facts to back up our position. The hepatitis C people, Mike McCarthy and others--and there is a long list of them who came to the House to meet with us and with government officials as well--pointed out that those numbers the government is using in terms of those who were affected are completely wrong.

They are saying that the money they put aside for the victims would be enough to compensate all victims. We knew that then. We know it now. The government knew it then. Yet they chose not to do it.

I guess the question would be why? This was a pretty heated debate, and there are a few of us in the Chamber tonight who were here at the time. It's not as if we're the only ones who care. I do not want to be portrayed as the only member or the only party, because I think everyone in the House genuinely agreed that something fair had to be done. Why the government took that particular position we will never know. Maybe part of it was old fashioned political stubbornness: you make a decision and stick with it and damn the torpedos.

Anyway, I was the first member of Parliament in the House of Commons to bring this up in question period, after Krever released his report. I remember the day Krever released his report going over and doing a thing on the other side of the street at the National Press Club and so on. We quickly arrived at the conclusion that the government was wrong and that Krever was right and that all victims should have been compensated. It is not about who was first on board and who was second and who was third, but basically the opposition in the House of Commons drove that issue hard, day in and day out, here on the floor of the House.

I will read the motion that came to the floor of the House back on April 28, 1998. The opposition motion was defeated in the House by a vote of 155 to 40. The opposition motion read as follows:

That this House urges the government to act on the recommendation of Justice Horace Krever to compensate all victims who contracted Hepatitis C from tainted blood.

That was the motion, and the government voted it down. There is no question, sitting where we sit over here and watching government members, there were an awful lot, despite what the member for Burlington says, who really were not comfortable in voting against that motion.

At the time, the government did a full-court press to get all the government members here. I happened to be in Europe with the Minister of International Trade and the minister for international financial institutions, who is now the Minister of International Trade, and the call came in to get on the Challenger jet to come back for that vote, which we did. I can remember that night so plainly, because we got into Ottawa about 3:30 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon and came into the Chamber for the vote. Our meetings in Europe had not concluded because they were world trade meetings and very important to Canada. The opposition were taking a role in them as well. We came in and voted and got back on the plane and went back to Europe. That is how determined the government was to win that vote.

The now Minister of State for Public Health for the Government of Canada had one of the most difficult decisions of her life. She was one of those in the Liberal Party at the time, a backbencher at the time, who publicly wept because she was forced by the Prime Minister of Canada to vote against that package. That is not just a story that we are making up as we go along; it actually happened.

There are other members from over there as well. I am sure there are cabinet members. There are at least two cabinet members present tonight, one of whom was elected at the time. I am sure she had a lot of difficulty with that as well. It was a tough decision.

What we were saying was we knew the numbers. The hepatitis C people were dead on in terms of how many people were out there, how many people would have to be compensated, and how much it would cost the Government of Canada.

What we are saying is that the Government of Canada now has a surplus in the fund, not to mention the surplus that the Government of Canada enjoys today, which I will give them full credit for, of $9 billion. I see a few smiles coming across the aisle when I point that out, and rightfully so.

The fact of the matter is that the fund now has almost as much money in it as when it began, simply because there has been no payout from the fund in the numbers that the government suggested there would be. At the time and in this place, some government members were actually saying there could be 60,000 victims.

The number I guess that most of the experts fell down on was around 20,000 victims in the 1986 to 1990 group. We know now that there were only 5,000 victims in that category from 1986 to 1990 and there are around 6,000 victims in the pre-1986, post-1990 group.

There are more than enough funds available to do the job. We encourage the government to move on and forget about the mistakes of the past. On this side of the House, we are more than willing to let bygones be bygones. Let us just do the right thing. We on this side of the House want to do the right thing. We have been saying that now for the last number of years, so let us get on with the job and compensate all victims of hepatitis C.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Madam Speaker, I have a few comments to make. First, I was listening to the member's story about the European trip, the world trade trip where he was with the then Secretary of State for International Financial Institutions and they both came back to vote. I think that was bad planning on both sides. Only one should have come back or both should have stayed there. It would have been a balance.

The second point is on the member's reference to the numbers. He was in the House at the time and I was not. It is easy to be revisionist and point to the others and say that they made the mistakes. If the numbers prepared and presented by the experts were those numbers that were used, it would seem to me to be the reasonable numbers.

If it proved not to be correct for different reasons and we have a potential for a surplus, that is great. We can do something with that and go forward with another of Krever's recommendations, but we should not be of the opinion that the government did not respond to Krever.

Following the Krever inquiry Canada strengthened its practice on regulating the blood system. It invested additional resources. We now have stronger research, surveillance, inspection and regulatory practices. We have provided assistance to those living with hepatitis C and those who received tainted blood. I think a lot was done.

There was $500 million that was invested in research and the regulatory side as well as assisting the provinces. If we look at the monthly, or few months, or yearly charges, interferon at the time was $14,000. That would have been devastating to the provinces but with the assistance of the federal government we were able to give care to those people, if not cash, they got care.

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, St. Croix—Belleisle, NB]

Madam Chair, the member does make a good point. It is more than just compensation for victims, because the government did respond and the previous government responded as well, knowing full well there was a problem with the blood system. I think we should acknowledge that. It is a good point.

There is another point I want to emphasize, and I wanted to do this in my initial talk. What we often forget in this place is that former members who have left to go on with their lives are not here to take part in the debate, obviously. There is a former member I want to recognize, Grant Hill, who was the former health critic for our party and the party that preceded that and so on. He did a really good job on that. I might also talk of the member for Hochelaga. There is also the member for Winnipeg North. I want to say her name, but I cannot, however, I do not want the clerks or the people recording the debate to confuse the member with another member.

The health critics in this place worked together. It was just one of those magic moments in the House where opposition parties got together. It is something members on the other side cannot enjoy, because obviously it is a different set of circumstances altogether.

I would be remiss in not thanking Mr. Grant Hill, who is not here tonight, for the work he did on that. I can personally thank the members who are still here. Most of them are still in their respective critic roles or have moved on to another critic role, but they are members of the House. We have had frank and open discussions with members of the Liberal Party of Canada who are no longer here who had grave concerns about how this whole thing has unfolded as well.

Anyway, we do have the opportunity to move on and we are hoping that the government will. I accept the very generous remarks of the member. The fact is that sometimes all the good that we do gets lost in the bigger issue, but the bigger issue here obviously is an important one, compensation for all victims. Again, let us do the right thing.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Madam Chair, I would like the hon. member to comment on some of the costs of managing this particular fund. For example, the auditor is billing $5,000 a month. The trustee is billing over $10,000 a month. The investment manager, who is doing a great job, is billing almost $20,000 a month. The actuary is billing $5,500 a month. Hon. members will love this one: the administrator is billing over a quarter of a million dollars a month. In fact last year it was over $3 million for the year. Other people involved are also billing thousands of dollars a month.

Does the member have a comment on what seems to be extremely high billings for this fund?

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, St. Croix—Belleisle, NB]

Madam Chair, I would bet the member has a financial background, because those numbers are almost unbelievable, but they are true.

One of the interesting areas that we got into on this side of the House in questioning the government was the legal fees. In the first year of the fund, the legal fees actually surpassed the payout from the fund to the victims. That went on for a number of months.

It is just an example of how things can go horribly wrong when they are not clearly thought out. I believe that most of those fees could have been avoided if the government had done the right thing and simply moved on with compensating all victims. Anyway, that just shows us how outrageous a mistake in government can become if there is no one there to basically rein it in and take control of it.

That is what we are suggesting the government should do now. It should get on with compensating the victims and minimize those expenses. Those dollars should actually be going to the victims, not to the actuaries, not to the managers of the fund and not to the lawyers.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Madam Chair, this is a debate that, of course, as with some debates in the House, carries with it many emotional undertones. I would like to start by suggesting that I do not believe that any one of us in the House is devoid of compassion or a sense of understanding or feeling for people who have been affected by hepatitis C through no fault of their own. I want to take a moment to clarify some of the things that have been said here and to try to roll it together so that we see a clearer picture.

Hepatitis C is caught in very many different ways. One can get hepatitis C from intravenous drug use, from blood and body fluid transfers in other ways and of course from blood transfusions. What we are talking about here is a group of people who contracted hepatitis C from infected blood transfusions that were given to them and through no fault of their own they became ill with this disease. That is what we are focusing on at the moment, people who, through no fault of their own, contracted this disease that can be fatal.

To clarify this issue, I want to talk a bit about the fundamental difference between the groups. There are those who are now receiving compensation, the 1986 to 1990 group of people that we keep talking about. I think the reason those people were given compensation initially, and people have talked about the reasons this all happened, is that many of us believe and have believed that consistent with tort in medical law is the concept of fault.

If there was knowledge of a practice of medicine or some sort of infection at the time and we did not use that knowledge, or we allowed a patient to become ill as a result of it, that was fault. Therefore, that was negligence and there was compensation required for that kind of negligence. I think that was how the government saw this at the time.

In fact, between 1986 and 1990 there were tests being done. They were not specific for hepatitis C. We had not given the illness a name. We did not know what the virus was. I was a physician at the time and we used to call it non-A, non-B hepatitis because we did not know what it was, until about the mid-1990s when an absolute test was developed that could identify hepatitis C. From 1986 until then, there were what are known as surrogate tests. They identified a virus. We did not know exactly what the virus was, but we knew there was a virus.

Many countries of the world began using that surrogate, non-definitive test in that period of time, but Canada did not. Therefore, Canada was at fault. Canada was negligent, the blood system was negligent and those who delivered that system were negligent. That was clear. It was believed that as a result of that fault and negligence there should be compensation given to the people who during that time could have had those blood tests done and could have had blood given to them that had been appropriately tested.

Having said all of that, I think that is where we got to the point of the issue of compensation for this group. At the time many of us felt that even if compensation was given to a particular group, there are those who are still sick. Whether they were there pre-test or post-test, they are now ill. Many people have hepatitis C. Some do not have any symptoms yet, but many people do and have become quite ill. They have lost their homes and mortgages. They are required to take medication that could bankrupt them. Indeed, many of them did go bankrupt because of medication costs.

It was felt at the time by many of us on this side that we needed to look at providing assistance for the group not in the compensation window who were suffering, to have medication available, to provide care when they needed it and to provide treatment. Moneys were transferred to the provinces in order to do that because, as we heard earlier, the medication was extremely expensive. Many people were ill and so disabled that they could not work and they were unable to take care of themselves. Those are some of the things that one felt we could do. That was considered to be compassionate access.

Hindsight has always been twenty-twenty. People now realize that in fact there are many people within those groups who are not in the window, who have bankrupted themselves, who are living in absolute poverty and who have no ability to take care of themselves.

As we heard the minister say, this is the story of people's lives that have been destroyed. We need to look at what we do to be compassionate and to assist them with whatever their needs are, and not merely health care needs, or treatment, or long term or chronic care, but also to assist them out of poverty.

The question is not do we or do we not do it. The question is how do we do it and what vehicle do we use. Many people suggest we take the money that has not been used for the people within the window or who have received compensation and disburse it among the other groups. The point they are missing is that many people in the window group or who received compensation, may live for another 60 years. They currently may be well, but they may develop symptoms and move on to become quite morbid with a full disability 20 or 30 years from now. This money belongs to them by virtue of compensation. We cannot take that money, spend it and find 20 years from now that patients from that group require it.

Everyone is trying to be very accountable and careful with the fund that was set aside for this group. Therefore, we need to some things. Obviously, we need to require the agreement of those people in that group to allow us to disburse those moneys. We would also require the agreement of their lawyers. We would require the agreement of provinces and territories. It would require the agreement of the courts in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec that agreed to the settlement in 1999. We need to take four steps in order to disburse that money.

We have heard from the minister that we are exploring this because we think there is quite a large amount of money left. At the same time, we are still considering the fact that we need to find a way to ensure that those people pre-1986 and post-1990 are not allowed to live their lives in poverty and without any dignity or assistance. We are talking about how we get there, not whether we get there.

That is what is left to be debated and discussed by the minister and that is what will go to cabinet. I can assure members that the political will is there to meet the needs of the people whom I have met. I have patients, from the time I was practising medicine, who fall into the category of people who are currently destitute and have no ability to help themselves. What we do for them is absolutely important. How we do it, I would like to reiterate, is the point that we need to discuss.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would like to commend the hon. member for her knowledge on this issue and her compassion. I understand that she was in the medical profession prior to coming here.

The hon. member made comments that the government had transferred money to the provinces to aid these victims. With respect to the province of Ontario, its health minister, George Smitherman, announced that the money would be used for care that was already available for these victims. Is the member aware of that? In fact the lawyer for hepatitis C calls it theft. This money is not going to the victims. This money is being put into general health revenues and is not aiding the victims whatsoever.

The other comment that I think I heard the member say was that there were no adequate tests prior to 1986. Of course that is the key argument used by the government. There were tests available, as I am sure the member is aware. I have evidence that the Red Cross informed Health Canada that testing should be done as far back as 1981. Therefore, that is not the argument.

Does the member feel this money should be taken back from the provinces so the federal government can distribute it fairly to these victims. The provinces, not all of them, but certainly in the case of Ontario, are not using the money for these victims?

Finally, does the government not realize that this is not really about what we do with a potential surplus fund? It is about what we do with the victims. The government is responsible for this. Whether there is money in this fund or not, and indeed I believe there is more than enough, the government must come up with the money and solve this issue for all victims. It is the government's responsibility. It is the government's fault. The amount of money in the fund is not relevant. What is relevant is that all the victims are compensated now and not a year from now.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Chair, the hon. member asks some very important questions. The thing to remember is that at the time, the money which was given to provinces was specifically set aside for persons who were not in the 1986 to 1990 group. It was for care, medication or treatment.

We know the treatment was extremely expensive. We were looking at interferon at $5,000 a dose. Therefore, the provinces could not suddenly find the money for that, so the money was specifically transferred to provinces to give that medical care to all persons who had hepatitis C.

That money is not in question at the moment. If it was not used for that, then there is an accountability issue that we have to discuss, and provinces have to respond to it.

What we are talking about is the ability to assist people who are not in that window and who are suffering from poverty, or have lost their homes, or are extremely disabled and lost their ability to live from day to day, never mind if they are getting medication and care, we mind the disability to live life and to have a life. We have heard from everyone on this side of the House, especially the Minister of Health, that the government will do something about that.

Many people on the other side of the House have asked why we do not take the funds already there for a particular group and use them. We have said that this money is not given in a lump sum to the group. We cannot say to the 1986-1990 group that we will give them a lump of money and that will have to last them the rest of their lives. Many people in that group, who were apparently infected, are not sick yet, but could be. These people may live another 70 years or another 50 years. We need to at least make sure, when they do get ill, that the money is there for them.

Therefore, we need to discuss how we can help the persons who are in the pre-group and post-groups and how we do it. It is not whether we do it. It is how we do it and what means will we use to do it. I think the House has heard very clearly from this side that this will be done.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Chair, I have great respect for the hon. member from Vancouver. The reality is when Mr. Alan Rock set up this program, it was a program designed for lawyers, not for victims.

We all know Crawford. Try to get information out of Crawford who handled this fund. It is extremely difficult. It is exempt from freedom of information. Try to get information from Crawford about where the money is going.

The hon. member knows that many people outside the window have already died. She may recall a gentleman in my riding named Bruce DeVenne who has sent many e-mails to many members of Parliament. The money from the Canadian taxpayer was meant to go to the victims, not to the lawyers.

Of the money that was given to Crawford to handle the fund between 1986 and 1990, how much of that money went to lawyers and how much of that money went to victims?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Chair, I am unable to answer that question. I do not have that information. However, we can go back over the past and we can talk about what happened and what did not happen or we can deal with what we need to do now to immediately assist persons who are currently suffering and who are in need of assistance.

We should talk about that. We should not talk about whether we do it, or who did not do it the last time, or how many lawyers got money or how many angels danced on the head of pin. We should talk about whether we will be able to do this, how we will do it and then get on with it. I think that is what the member heard the minister say.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chair, with all due respect to the hon. member, it is important that we acknowledge the history surrounding this tragic episode in Canadian history. I do not think asking questions about why decisions were made by members of the government back seven years ago is angels dancing on the head of a pin. It is important to understand this issue in the context of how the decision was made and why it was made. In essence it was really not about affordability. It was not about whether we had the money to support all victims of tainted blood. It was about a government, at that time, that refused to accept responsibility for the culpability or the dereliction of duty found within its own ranks.

In my view, there is no question about the evidence being available that could have formed the basis for a much more rational decision-making process. That evidence was deliberately ignored. In the final analysis the government refused to accept responsibility for it and chose a roundabout way to try to address the issue. It chose a system that really created two new tiers, two sets of victims.

It is important not to diminish and dismiss these kinds of questions around the history of this event. As far as I can tell, and I have studied this issue inside and out, it points to inappropriate decision-making on the part of the government of the day and a failure to take responsibility for dereliction of duty.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Chair, the member obviously did not listen carefully to what I said at the beginning.

I am not diminishing or dismissing what has happened. I think the history of what went on and the history of the events is very clear to people like me. I was not in this House when the whole issue began to unfold with regard to hepatitis C. I was a practising physician at the time. I had many patients who were ill. We did not know what was wrong with them. We had no name for the illness. We called it, as I said earlier, non-A, non-B hepatitis, because we did not know what was causing it. There was not a precise test to diagnose it.

We knew it was a virus. When we knew there was a virus that was sort of indeterminate, we did not begin to test for that. Everyone has accepted that kind of responsibility. Other countries were testing. We have accepted that the United States was testing in 1986. In many instances the North American continent tends to have an equivalent level of care that we look at together. We did not follow that level of care. As a result of that, the government accepted fault, according to tort law. We discussed fault and because of fault in that window of opportunity, there was compensation given to a group of people who were harmed by that negligence. Therefore, it is not dereliction of duty and it is not running away from facts.

It is very easy to attribute reasons for why people do things when one is not in the head of the person who did it. I think that means that one presumes that group of people are in many ways dismissive and lacking in compassion. I would never be so bold as to presume that of anyone on this side of the House or across it.

Let us stick to the facts. Let us stick to what happened. Let us stick to what we know. I think at the time people felt that they were doing the right thing. They were accepting blame during a period of time when it was felt that there was negligence and there was compassionate access to care for those who did not fall in the window. Now what we are saying is it would seem there is money there. Let us talk about that money, let us take that money, it is in trust, and let us do what we need to do in the process to find out whether we can use that money.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chair, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to split my time with my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore.

I am anxious to participate in the debate because many of us, I among this group of parliamentarians, were here in the House when this issue emerged and was debated day in and day out. I rose just a moment ago to ask the Liberal member from British Columbia a question because I believe that the government of the day had a choice.

I am not here to criticize or to question the compassion of members across the way. I am here to say that the government of the day in 1997 and 1998 had a choice and it chose not to do the right thing, the morally responsible thing and to follow the public accountability path. It chose to ignore all reasoned approaches to this issue and selected compensation for a specific period of time for a very defined group of individuals, ignoring the fact that many people outside that window had also contracted hepatitis C through tainted blood, even though the tests and evidence were available to the government to make a better decision.

I think it is important in this debate to set the record straight and to simply point out, which is what we said at the time, that as early as 1991 a test was available to determine tainted blood, which the government knew about but chose to ignore the evidence that was mounting.

I raise that issue because as we get closer to a final resolution of this sorry chapter in our history, we can address it from the point of view of what is necessary on a principled basis and not what will be done because money is available.

The point all of us have been making in the House tonight, at least on the opposition benches, is that we must make a decision soon to compensate all victims of the hepatitis C tainted blood tragedy, regardless of how much money is left over to support the victims between the 1986 and 1990 period. That is the essence of the debate tonight.

I do not want to talk about who has more compassion in the House. I want all of us to remember what the victims have gone through over these years and what the champions of this fight have been through. We need to remember the battles of people like Joey Haché who was in this chamber time and time again in that 1997 to 1999 period fighting, speaking out, biking across the country, knocking on our doors, making speeches and reminding us of our obligations. He is still waiting for justice to this day.

It is also important to remember people like Mike McCarthy who has been the head of the Canadian Hemophilia Society for all this period and has never given up the battle in his search for justice.

Today we come together, not out of anger and not out of despair, but of remembering how we missed a responsibility many years ago and how today we have an obligation to finally meet the challenge and do what is right. If we do anything out of today's debate it should be to say, with one voice, that the government of the day must make a decision to compensate all the victims of the hepatitis C tainted blood scandal, regardless of when they were infected, as soon as possible, on a matter of principle, not on a matter of cost affordability or dollars available.

We in the House owe a debt of gratitude to all those people who have fought for this, who never gave up faith and who never stopped speaking out for justice so that we would not have a system of two tier compensation and so that those victims had the means by which they could afford the necessary medicines that they needed. Those are the people who want us to say with one voice that we accept our responsibilities as parliamentarians and that justice will finally be handed out to those who deserve this kind of response on the part of this highest court of the land.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

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.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chair, my colleague's question gets to the essence of the problem of the day, which was that the government of the day under Allan Rock refused to acknowledge its responsibilities for ensuring compensation for all victims who were affected by tainted blood through no fault of their own.

Rather than take responsibility for the fact that our health care system allowed this to happen, even when tests were available to identify the problem, the minister still refused to do the right thing. As a consolation prize, the government offered two things: a care not cash package and a fund to be allocated to certain groups and organizations to provide support to the victims of hepatitis C.

In the case of the care not cash package, many of the infected victims did not end up receiving the benefits from that program. To this day many in Canada have yet to receive a benefit commensurate with the kind of illness they are facing, the kind of medications required and the medical interventions that must happen. I would agree with my colleague that that was an ill-conceived scheme that did not even console those who were deeply affected by this tragedy.

The second program of providing supports for organizations to give self-help to the community also was of such a feeble amount that it hardly helped grassroots organizations anywhere across the country.

I just got off the phone with Susan Wish who is with the Hepatitis C Resource Centre in Manitoba. The centre has been struggling to provide a service to those in desperate need through volunteer labour and through constant efforts to raise money through donations. It has not been able to benefit from those federal dollars at any time over the last seven years.

The consolation prize that Allan Rock offered at the time was a feeble attempt to replace responsible action on the part of the government, and to this day we are paying for it.

Today we must focus on the need for the government to finally accept responsibility for compensating all the victims. With that comes the obligation to provide the necessary resources to access the health care system. In many cases it is alternative medicine that is not covered under our medicare system. We also must ensure that community based self-help groups that are there to ensure that people who have hepatitis C, which has destroying qualities in terms of a quality of life, have the help, the counselling and the supports they need to make it through an otherwise very difficult time in their lives.