Madam Speaker, the member raises again a lot of points completely unrelated to the questions he put to the House. He put them on for adjournment proceedings because he was not comfortable with the full answer that he received at the time.
However, he has taken advantage of that to raise a whole bunch of other points which are completely unrelated to his question just as he did last week when I came back with the Prime Minister after signing the historic accord with the province of Nova Scotia to provide it with the capability to invest in goods and services necessary for the good life of those people.
One question he raised was with respect to the CDC and the Prime Minister. It is true that the member raised that question in the House. I have never questioned the Speaker's ruling, but the Speaker said that the question was out of order because the Prime Minister's participation as a board member of the Canada Development Corporation predated his arrival in Parliament and the functions which we are currently discussing. The Speaker did not permit an answer on that question because he ruled it out of order.
With respect to his question regarding whether there could be a conflict with respect to the Prime Minister and the CDC, I certainly would not want to answer that question because it predates the Prime Minister's arrival.
When the decision was made on how to compensate victims, the Prime Minister was not in his current function. A recommendation was made supported by all parties of the health committee indicating that we look at the question of an eventual actuarial surplus within the trust accounts in which the federal government had put in $900 million. This was in accordance with the wishes of three courts of three provinces along with the agreement of all the provinces and with the participation of the stakeholders. The trust account was managed by an independent body. If there is an actuarial surplus, that could be one area to look in order to compensate the victims in the window from 1986 to 1990. The health minister said that would be one option for funding that we would look at but he did not limit himself to that.
When that decision was taken, I was not in the House. I submit there is no discrimination question here. It is not the responsibility of the federal government or the provincial government to compensate people because they get ill. It is our responsibility to provide a good health care service.
The government made a good decision at the time working with the provinces to provide funding for those people because they suffered great hardship and the evidence was within that window. Other tests could have been used, so there could be a question of whether everybody exercised due diligence. However, that does not mean there was discrimination. I do not believe there was discrimination.
I can assure the member that it is the full intent of the Minister of Health to work diligently to provide compensation for the pre-1986 and post-1990 victims.