Bill Blaikie

[Supply, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Chair, I offered the minister the opportunity to make a pre-emptive strike on the budget and he turned it down, but pre-emptive strikes are popular in other forms of geopolitical activity so I thought that maybe within the Liberal Party that might have been appropriate as well.

I wonder if the minister could tell us whether, since becoming the Minister of Health, he has made himself aware of all the various problems that have arisen around the Virginia Fontaine centre in Manitoba. I actually was the first one to raise this on the floor of the House of Commons a number of years ago.

Many things have happened, but it seems to me that this is a case which has had many, many ramifications. I wonder whether the minister is in a position to say whether he is just going to allow this thing to drag on in a piecemeal fashion or whether he is prepared to hold the kind of inquiry, public, judicial or otherwise, that would be necessary to finally determine exactly what all went wrong and how something run by Health Canada could be so badly mismanaged.

[Supply, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Chair, it is not a question of negotiation. It is a question of the federal government making it clear that it would be willing to put more money on the table if that is what it takes to solve the problem and meet all the needs that are identified. The minister said this is a question that can be answered, but then he went on not to answer it. If it can be answered, perhaps he could give it another try.

I want to ask the minister a second question. Of course he can respond to my commentary on his first answer and I realize that. It has to do with something that the member for Hochelaga also brought up and it has to do with the national strategy against diabetes.

The Canadian Diabetes Association was on the Hill today meeting with members of Parliament. The NDP caucus had a meeting with its representatives. I am sure they met with other members. They are concerned that the funding for the national diabetes strategy as it is now constituted will run out on March 31, 2005.

The minister said he hopes to maybe integrate a national diabetes strategy into the 10 year health accord, but if that did not happen, he would be concerned that the money not run out. I am wondering why he does not just get up and say that if it does not get integrated into the 10 year health accord, there will be $50 million which the Canadian Diabetes Association is looking for, not for itself but for Health Canada. The association is not asking that the $50 million be given to it. It is saying to give Health Canada $50 million to implement this particular strategy.

Can the minister make that commitment this evening?

[Supply, November 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Chair, I will try to keep my questions brief so that the minister can answer.

First, with respect to the questions that he has already been asked about the hep C announcement today, the minister quite rightly pointed out how difficult this issue is with lawyers, class action suits, et cetera. Would he not agree that things would be less difficult if the government would say at the same time as it said what it said today that it would be willing to put more money on the table should it be required in order to meet the needs of all the victims who exist outside that window? That would certainly make things a lot less difficult.

[Assistance to Hepatitis C Victims, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Chair, what I am trying to do tonight is get beyond that. I am not naive, and I do not think anyone else on this side of the House is. We know it is not signed, sealed, and delivered. But to the extent that we want it to be signed, sealed, and delivered, we would like to nurture the momentum and support the minister to the extent that we feel he truly wants to make this happen. If he is not levelling with the House and if he is not levelling with the victims, then we will have lots of time to beat him up over that. Unfortunately, that would not be all that helpful to the victims, and I hope we don't have to go there.

We have the unanimous motion from the committee, and we may even have a unanimous motion from the House before the end of the week. This is not something the minister is going to do out of the goodness of his heart, even though he may feel that way. This is something the government better bloody well do, because the House of Commons is going to speak forcefully, as the health committee already has, and the House of Commons is going to do so very shortly, instructing the government that this is what the elected representatives of the people want the government to do.

[Assistance to Hepatitis C Victims, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Chair, I was the first to use this metaphor in the House when the Minister of Health was not performing, as well as he is tonight, in question period. It must be something about this setting. This is what we had in mind when we designed this so that we could have a more meaningful exchange than is sometimes possible on the floor of the House during question period. I remember saying that I was beginning to understand why we did not get anything when we traded him to the Liberals, but he has a chance to redeem himself. Certainly, this issue presents him with that opportunity.

To the member who asked the question, I did not suggest that there was not a sense of compassion on that side. I suggested that sense of compassion was repressed by the authority of the prime minister of the day. There was a great sense of injustice that had been done to hepatitis C victims. There was the need to do right by them, and not just those who were in the 1986-1990 category, but also those who found themselves outside that.

Quite the contrary. I was not trying to suggest that there was not that emotion or that attitude. What I did suggest, and the record is conclusive on this, was that the government of the day, for whatever reason, hardened its heart and asked its own members of Parliament to vote as if their hearts had been hardened also. Here we are today doing something that actually could have been done a long time ago.

[Assistance to Hepatitis C Victims, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Chair, perhaps I could begin by saying that I think it is a measure of our level of concern and commitment about this issue that, while the rest of the world is riveted on what is happening in the United States, we are here in the House of Commons debating compensation for hepatitis C victims.

Before I continue, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster.

What the minister has said tonight is welcomed. It shows progress and an openness in dealing with this issue which was not there in the previous Parliament. It would be sufficient in a way if it were just related to the surplus in the fund and the fact that the government is now able to contemplate compensating more people because the initial numbers were either mistaken or exaggerated, however one wants to describe them. However, I also think there is a real willingness on the part of the minister and I hope ultimately the cabinet and the government to see this as something which is the right thing to do in any event.

The real test of that will be if everything goes as we would hope and there is a need for more funds than are in the current fund to compensate all those who may yet come forward once compensation is made available for those outside the 1986-1990 period. It seems to me that the test, ultimately, for the government is whether this is being done 100% on principle or to some degree because there is this extra money, it makes sense and it is morally admirable to use it for these purposes rather than to have it go unused.

We certainly see a difference in the context. I remember, as some hon. members will, the day we had the vote, and it was a matter of confidence. We had a vote on an opposition day motion today and the government lost the motion, but it was not a matter of confidence. It was a matter of the House expressing its will on a particular matter. However, the prime minister of that day said no, that it was not just a matter of the House expressing its will. He said that it was a matter of confidence, and he made Liberal members of Parliament vote against their consciences on this.

There is no point in beating up the current Minister of Health about this, but that is what we experienced in a previous Parliament. I think he might have taken this into account when he decided whether he would engage in a new political incarnation, but that is another matter.

In any event, we have a new Parliament. The government has a chance to prove that it really is different than the last Parliament. We already see signs of that. We see Liberals freed from the authority of Jean Chrétien on this issue. In committee, we were able to have a unanimous vote recommending that the government compensate victims of hepatitis C beyond that 1986-1990 window. I hope we will see the same kind of freedom to do what perhaps many Liberals have always wanted to do. Certainly we knew that at the time. There were people who were tremendously stressed out by the fact they had to vote against their conscience.

I think this is a sign of things to come in this Parliament. Hopefully, we have a new regime. I have lots of problems with the new regime, but it is at least different in a positive way on this score. There are different numbers and a different balance of power in Parliament. As I said earlier today at the press conference we had about this, I hope hepatitis C victims can become one of the first groups of people to benefit from the new dynamic of this minority Parliament.

I hope the Minister of Health will take the advice of my colleague from the Bloc to heart. If he cannot get it to cabinet before Christmas, he should get a recommendation so we can, if possible, move that June 2005 date up. It would be great to have unanimity among the plaintiffs for all groups and the government, go to court with a unanimous recommendation and on that basis move that date up to see if we cannot get things happening faster for these people because they have waited long enough.

[Assistance to Hepatitis C Victims, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Chair, the minister seemed to indicate, and I was somewhat distressed, that he was going to have to wait until June 2005 for something to happen.

I wonder about two things. Is that a correct impression that I gathered, that the government does not intend to act until it receives the report in June 2005? It seems to me that time is of the essence for a lot of these people. They need to be compensated now because they are suffering now. They need care now. They need to offset the effects of their illness now, and so the sooner the better.

The minister said that it would be up to the courts to determine the surplus and the existing beneficiaries. Can the government not make a recommendation? Why can the minister not say tonight that this is what the government wants and it will do everything in its power? If that means recommending to the existing beneficiaries that they cooperate, we are going to make that recommendation. That is what we are going to say.

It seems to me that would give people more of an assurance if the minister could express that will to make it happen and then whatever has to be done, to make it happen. However, knowing that the will is there in the first place in a categorical way would be very helpful, it seems to me, for a lot of people.

[Health, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.

The Minister of Health will know that there is a consensus among all the opposition parties with regard to compensating all the victims of hep C.

Would the minister tell us what the position is of the government now? Will the government save the House a whole lot of time and just agree now to do the right thing and compensate all the victims of hep C?

[Supply, October 21st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member to take note of the fact that the main political thing here is we are not against an increase in defence spending, if it is money spent on the kind of vision, so to speak, that I laid out in part in my speech. I laid it out only in part because I did not have the time to deliver the entire vision.

What is significant is we are saying that we are part of the consensus that something has been underfunded, that something needs to be addressed in terms of the Canadian armed forces. I have no illusions, and people in my political universe should not have any illusions about this. If we were to create the kind of Canadian armed forces that the NDP wants and put them at the service of the goals that the NDP has in mind, this would not necessarily be cheap. This could actually be very expensive.

What I am trying to do is transcend the old debate between this party wanting to spend less, and that party wanting to spend more. I am trying to get beyond that debate, which has kind of an obvious partisan dimension to it, in which we both appeal to our traditional constituencies. I want to get beyond that debate and ask what it is that we want our Canadian armed forces to do.

It may well be that even though the hon. member and I have a different view of things, both views will require more money if they are going to be done properly.

[Supply, October 21st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member is missing the point. One of the things we have been calling for, and I think his own party has been calling for, is a full scale policy review on the part of the government, presumably with public input, although it appears that his party is against public input when it comes to national missile defence. In our view anyway, it would be putting the cart before the horse to say how much we think it will cost before we know exactly what it is we will do.

We are engaged in an internal review ourselves as a party. We think the country should be engaged in a similar review. If the Conservative Party knows already what it wants to spend without having engaged in that kind of review, then good for it. However, we feel that this is the kind of thing that can only be arrived at when we have a much more specific notion of what it is the government is proposing to do and therefore what we might propose as an alternative.