Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to follow my colleague from St. John's East and appreciate very much his words today.
This is a very emotional speech for me. Two years ago yesterday, I had the honour of being elected in a by-election to serve the communities of Victoria and Oak Bay. It is, as every member in this place would know, a very proud day when one first comes to this place and speaks for one's community in this chamber.
Today is a proud day as well, because I am so proud that this House appears to be coming together with compassion, reflecting the compassion of this great country in doing the right thing at last for some 100 people, now 95, who are the victims of this terrible tragedy that occurred in 1961 or thereabouts when a drug called thalidomide was first approved for use by pregnant women to treat nausea and the like.
I have never been more proud to stand up here knowing, at least from rumours in the newspapers, that all parties in this place will be giving support to this resolution that the NDP brought forward for its opposition day motion.
We all have our personal stories about this tragedy. The Prime Minister alluded to it yesterday in question period, growing up in the sixties and knowing children who were victims of thalidomide. The mother of a friend of mind was offered this drug and chose not to take it, and he looks back every day with gratitude for the fact that she made that choice. He is living in Calgary today, and I spoke with him this morning about it in a very emotional way.
I want to pay tribute to a number of people. I want to pay tribute first to Natalie Dash and Barry Campbell, who are with Campbell Strategies in Toronto. They called me a few months ago—there were 98 thalidomide survivors on that day—and said we had to do something. They were working pro bono to assist the Thalidomide Victims Association of Canada, and they asked if I could help.
My colleague, the member for Vancouver East, is the health critic for the official opposition, and she took it upon herself to do what was required to make this an opposition day motion. I am so proud that the members opposite appear to be in agreement that full support for the thalidomide survivors should be provided. It is a measure of the compassion of this country that 95 people remaining today will be able to live the last years of their lives in dignity.
Many have spoken before about the situation facing the thalidomide survivors. The press conference this week with those people was so moving, and I want to pay tribute to the enormous courage of the people who were present, particularly Mercedes Benegbi, who is the president and CEO of that organization. She showed courage in coming before the Canadian people with all of the cameras on and all of the media there and telling the stories of the poverty in which victims now live, the fact that they cannot get around on their own, and that they are crying out for some sort of assistance. I am so proud of this place, because it appears we are poised to finally do what should have been done so many years ago.
The victims do not have the ability to use their limbs and care for themselves. As has been said, often they were born without legs or, in the case of Marie Olney, one of the victims who lives in Calgary, with only 15-centimetre-long arms and only three fingers. Many have serious internal organ damage. They have been relying all these years on their friends and families. However, that will not happen much longer, because time goes on. Their parents have passed away or are in homes, and the victims are now asking how they will get by.
Most of the victims live in abject poverty. Anyone who read the article that The Globe and Mail published last weekend and saw the abject poverty in which they currently live would be moved, as we all are, by their stories. Some of them have damage to their spines and their joints, and that severely limits their mobility. They do not often have the ability to maintain employment, and they depend on others for basic human tasks. In that context, they come to the people of Canada, they come to the Government of Canada asking for help, because they need help. The 95 of them who are left are crying out for some sort of assistance.
Yes, there was a payment made back in the 1990s, a one-time payment. There was no apology, but an acceptance: that would be it for these people. They have come back to say it was not enough, they cannot live, they need ongoing financial support, a pension to live on, and they need to be able to get by in the last years of their lives if they are to live in dignity. That is what they have asked for, and we ought to address that as an urgent matter in this place.
I am thrilled to be here today with the hope that this opposition day motion will receive the unanimous support of the House.