Mr. Speaker, the minister is very clever in his use of words. I guess that is the basis of my argument.
Only Liberals could applaud a statement like that. I said he was clever in his use of words and his use of language. The truth of the matter is the file has always been in the hands of the government. The government is the one that set the parameters of the program when it set up an artificial date to compensate victims from 1986-1990. That was deliberate on the part of the government.
The government chose to pick those dates and when it did that, it flew in the face of Justice Krever who said that all victims, regardless of when they contracted hepatitis C, should be compensated. The government knew that the $1.2 billion it set aside would never be used. In fact the legal, actuarial and administration fees have outstripped payment to the victims. Only a Liberal could agree to a program like that.
We are talking about fairness to all victims. For the minister to stand in his place and say that it is no longer in the hands of the government, it never left the hands of the government. It is in the driver's seat. That is why it was elected to form the government. Canadians had some level of confidence that it would do the right thing, but it has failed on this test time and again.
The minister was not in the House. He preceded you and I, Mr. Speaker. He took a little vacation and came back. He missed the intensity of the debate in the House in 1998, when the government had a chance to do the right thing. We brought in a motion to do exactly that, to compensate all victims. Guess what happened? The Liberal government, of which he is now a part, voted down compensation for all victims.
You will remember, Mr. Speaker, because you have a great memory for this place and I give you full credit. I always enjoy it when you are in the chair because you take such an interest in debates like this. The history of this place will show that Liberal members stood in their places and voted against that compensation package with tears in the their eyes. That is correct. In fact the Minister of Public Safety today is one of those members who stood in her place and was forced by the Prime Minister of Canada to vote down a compensation package for all victims. What does that tell us about the sincerity of the government to do the right thing?
Why does it not put its good will to the test. Why does it not come back to the House and have that same vote. Last night we had a take note debate. Where else in Canada would one have a take note debate? We come in and politely discussed something. However, all Liberal members should get up and be forced to vote on this issue, whether they agree to compensate all the victims or continue to carry on the way they have.
To add insult to injury there is almost as much money in the fund today as there was the day that the funding was announced. There is a reason for that. I remember Allan Rock at the time stood in his place and said that the government could not compensate them all simply because there were too many and that the government did not have the money to do it. That was his argument.
There are fewer victims than the government imagined there were at the time. On this side of the House, we were telling the government there were way fewer victims and that the money it had put aside would compensate all the victims. It chose not to compensate all victims.
I guess the question is why did the government do it, knowing full well there was more money in the fund to do it then? There is still the same amount of money in the fund. Why not compensate all the victims? This issue is still in the hands of the government. Why does the government not bring this to a vote in the House of Commons and have members stand in their place and make a decision, yes or no, to compensate all victims?