Mr. Speaker, I had the honour to talk to a number of the individuals directly affected, people who were subjected to this horrible drug and lived with the consequences all their lives. As well, I spoke with some of the people doing the legal work around this issue.
One of the questions I had as was why compensation had not been asked for in as direct a way as presented today. The response I received was that they had now organized as a group. There are 95 remaining victims. With aging presenting new problems, this is why they have come forward in a very focused effort to renegotiate compensation that was once offered back in the early 1990s, but has not been revisited since.
Now that we know aging is the specific problem, what concerns do we have that unforeseen problems may not be anticipated by the committee? How will we ensure that the committee goes forward on a consistent basis and not only generously addresses the issues in front of us now, but sets up a process by which new issues that emerge as this community ages are also dealt with?