Mr. Chair, the government of the day appoints that council. The minister should look at some of those political appointments that were made, because truly they do not reflect the wishes of Atlantic Canada. There is a level of unfairness in that funding, aside from what the minister has pointed out.
There is one other point I want to bring up tonight. It was spelled out in today's Ottawa Citizen . Our health critic, the member for Charleswood--St. James--Assiniboia, really went after the minister a couple of days ago on the hep C payment issue. The government has been very negligent on that, in fixing those dates where many of the victims were obviously left outside of the original package, the only package that we know. When the minister responded he basically suggested that our health critic lacked compassion and was trying to use the victims of hepatitis C to score political points. That is way over the line.
I believe that the House and the member, particularly this side of the House, is entitled to an apology from the minister for making those kinds of callous remarks, especially to an individual and a party that have worked so hard for some fairness and sensibility on that whole funding issue.
If members recall, I was the first member of Parliament in the House in 1998 who suggested full compensation, followed by the critic for the Reform Party at that time, Grant Hill. We have a record of standing in the House and demanding fair and compassionate treatment. Why would the minister use that kind of language when referring to our health critic yesterday in this place?