Madam Speaker, I failed to find a question in the venomous history lesson that we heard, one-sided and often less than completely factual. I am watching my language to stop you from having to rule on a point of order.
To say that there would be risk taken, that the federal government is protecting itself rather than protecting Canadians, the assumption of which is of no surprise, is disingenuous. We have the best blood supply in the world. We do the utmost. We work with all provinces and everybody involved to ensure that we have the best.
When was this problem? I was not in the House when the problem occurred. This party formed the government in 1993. The problem with the blood supply was probably before or around that time. The party, for which she only has the courage to use half the name, was probably involved at the time. I do not say that it was protecting itself rather than the public. I think it did the best it could with the information it had at the time. I do not believe that one member of the House, now or past, would put Canadians at risk in such a way.
Now the fund is an interesting concept. The fund does not belong to the federal government. The federal government does not have the power. It is a trust fund administered by the court and handled by a trustee. It probably has an actuarial surplus. I was a member of the committee, like the member. We unanimously voted, in light of a probable surplus in the fund, that we consider widening the scope of compensation.
She says that the government has done nothing. We have spent over $525 million providing services to people outside of the 1986-90 window. We made sure that the provinces had the capability. We made sure that the research was being done to avoid the problem. We made sure the communities were there. Luckily there has been some improvement in medicine and improvement in the way these people are being treated and surviving. There have been fewer victims than was forecasted at the time.
The minister agrees with the committee, as he agrees with the members of caucus and the Prime Minister. He said during his campaign that we must review that situation. He announced today, with our full support, that he was looking at the options for compensation. I am quite confident that we will see that in the short term.