Deborah Grey

[Hepatitis C, April 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is not our view on this. The government House Leader, in the 1993 red book, included these words: “Parties in this House must have ample opportunity to place before parliament their alternatives for free and open debate and decision without artificial applications of non-confidence doctrine”. He went on to say that opposition motions should not be treated as confidence motions unless they were explicitly advised of such.

Again I want to ask the government to do the right thing and answer this question. If the official opposition is not treating this as a confidence motion why should the government?

[Hepatitis C, April 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, that is simply nonsense.

The Liberal member for Cambridge has said that he would vote with the victims on this matter, not against the government, and he is absolutely right.

I give the Prime Minister and all of his MPs my personal pledge that the official opposition will not treat this as a confidence motion. In fact the opposite is true. We will congratulate the government and say that it is doing what is right, that is the issue of compensating victims. That is what we care about.

I ask if the official opposition is not treating this as a confidence motion why should the government.

[Hepatitis C, April 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, some issues are just too big for partisan politics. Moral questions are bigger than any party. They are bigger than any prime minister. Questions like abortion, capital punishment or euthanasia. The question of abandoning hepatitis C victims falls into this exact same category.

I want to ask a question of the government, not as one MP to another but as one human being to another. Let me ask the Minister of Health why the government will not let its MPs vote according to their conscience on this motion of compensation.

[Young Offenders Act, April 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, victims of crime and young people themselves are saying that it is just not good enough to repeat “in a timely fashion” and “let me be clear”.

Let me be clear. The minister says that young offender reforms are her number one priority. I shudder to think what numbers two, three and four are.

I will ask the minister again. Why does she not just admit what the obvious is? She is in way over her head.

[Young Offenders Act, April 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we have asked the justice minister literally dozens of times when she is going to make serious changes to the Young Offenders Act. She just giggles and keeps repeating “in a timely fashion”. Timely? It has been 10 months since the minister made the announcement and now her officials tell us it is going to be at least another six months before something happens. The minister is an utter failure. Why does she not admit she is not up to the job?

[Hepatitis C, April 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, that is nonsense. The principle that was in effect then was that there was no screening available and they still got that. That compensation was fair and we agree with that. We were glad that the government finally came through with that.

The minister talks about setting the record the straight. I want to set the record straight here today and say that this government is wrong. They know there are problems in its own backbenches. The governments of the provinces are now starting to come onside and say there is something wrong here and they need to have another look at it.

There is no shame in saying “Maybe we made a mistake and we were wrong”. The decision to abandon these thousands of victims is wrong and the Prime Minister knows it.

[Hepatitis C, April 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, this is about negligence and responsibility. Many Canadians got AIDS from Canada's tainted blood system. Those victims were all compensated, even those who contracted AIDS before there was a screening test available.

The Prime Minister agreed with AIDS compensation then and it is still being paid out. In fact, the Liberals demanded that compensation for all of them. However, now he refuses to show hepatitis C victims the same compassion.

When did the Prime Minister lose his ability to tell right from wrong?

[Hepatitis C, April 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I think it might be wise for the health minister to think through the implications for the victims who are suffering today.

For those who were infected it does not matter whether they were infected in 1985 or 1986. All they know is that they have the disease and that they are suffering. What difference does that make? It is still wrong. These people are still suffering.

The Prime Minister is morally responsible because it was a government regulated blood system that wrongfully infected all these people, regardless of when it happened.

Why is the Prime Minister allowing his health minister to have a two tier system set up for this problem?

[Hepatitis C, April 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the government used to use a high sounding phrase, that is it talked about universality. The Prime Minister used to say that he did not think it was right to have a two tier system in the country, but it has all changed now.

He has told the health minister that there is just not enough room in the lifeboats for everybody with hepatitis C. Only some of those who were infected will get any sort of compensation. The rest of them will suffer with nothing.

Why does the Prime Minister think there should be a two tier system in this instance?

[Hepatitis C, March 31st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I will give you an example of what is the right thing to do.

The governments of Ontario and Alberta said they were wrong and and listened to their conscience by compensating the Dionne quintuplets and the victims of sterilization. They were not ashamed to stand up and say “Sorry, we made a mistake”.

When is the Prime Minister going to stop listening to this cold lawyer in the health department and follow his heart and compensate all victims?