Madam Speaker, like the member for Yellowhead, I am shocked at the response by Liberal members to our constructive suggestion to continue sitting until this matter is resolved, a matter that has been outstanding for seven years, during which period of time at least 400 victims of hepatitis C have died without any kind of compensation from the government.
I say shame on the Liberals for not allowing further debate on this constructive report by the Standing Committee on Health, which was adopted by all members of the committee, including the Liberal members. Now, suddenly, they find they cannot live up to their commitment yet again. They have once more told the victims of hepatitis C, “Sorry, no can do”.
I want to remind all members of the House that the same reasons for wanting to see compensation back in 1998 hold true today. They are summarized, as said so well by Dr. Michèle Brill-Edwards at the time, “Compensation for all hepatitis C blood injured Canadians is medically sound, legally compelling, necessitated largely by federal regulatory failure, financially sound, not a threat to medicare funding, not a precedent, politically transparent, socially just and endorsed by Justice Krever”.
We are simply asking the government, the health minister and all members of the Liberal Party in the chamber today, who stood in the House last night and said over and over again how compassionate they were and made a commitment to follow through on this issue, to finally follow through on their words, to show real compassion and do exactly what Justice Krever has asked us all to do, which is to show that the compassion of a society is judged by the measures it takes to reduce the impact of tragedy on its members.
We ask the government to show that compassion by ensuring that we do everything we can to reduce the negative impact of a decision taken by those who were negligent in their duty many years ago and to show that we are making a just response to a tragic period in our Canadian history.