Madam Chair, I was listening to the hon. member's comments, wide-ranging as they were.
The simplest answer on agent orange is that it took place decades ago and was not dealt with by previous governments. Most of the records, most of the files, most of the information was not there. When this government decided it was time to do something, the best it could do, the fairest thing it could do, was provide compensation based on the information that was available.
A lot of people did not have enough information to be included in the process, and that is why the review went on much longer than was first anticipated. The deadline was extended for well over a year, so that others could make sure that they got best information they could from the records.
There is all kinds of information, and we will continue to look at it. But the main reason these people were left out was that it was not dealt with for such a long time. The best that could be done was to provide a compensation package based on the documents that were available. That was the best possible answer to help those people at the time.
By the way, like many other decisions, this is the only government that provided a compensation package.