Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, the member for Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, for his question. He shared earlier that he had friends as well who have been affected by thalidomide.
He is right that we all like to live with certainty. Uncertainty creates anxiety, and living with uncertainty all one's life about one's future and future prospects increases anxiety.
I will share one more quote that I had prepared for my speech. It is about job security. It says:
I have had to change jobs at work because of this change [shoulder surgery]. At the rate I am going I will not be able to work within a short amount of time.
This person is trying to work, doing the best they can to contribute to our economy and contribute to the betterment of their lives as well as the lives of the people around them, but because of the impediment the disability has created and because thalidomide was in their systems as a fetus, they are now having to deal with the possibility of employment loss, which means they may not have been able to contribute much to their Canada pension plan and that they also may not have an employer pension program.
We need to make sure that we as a society are looking out for our mistake. I was not even born when this mistake happened, but I take ownership for it because we as a society need to be that way.
We are blessed that Dr. Frances Kelsey is a Canadian, but the Americans are far more blessed than we were, because as a scientist working for the FDA, she prevented that drug from being approved in the U.S. The Americans are far more blessed than we are, because they do not have to deal with it.
However, we as a society have a responsibility to the innocent victims of this drug. We need to make sure that their future security is looked after. There are not a lot of victims. There are fewer than 100 people.