Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this very tragic issue. I sat in utter amazement during question period today as I listened to members of the government stand up time after time and put their largest possible smokescreen forward to try to divert attention away from the fact that we are dealing with the government's failure to ensure that people who were getting blood transfusions were getting safe blood transfusions. That is what we are dealing with here. The government failed. It failed in the regulatory process to ensure that the health of Canadians was put first.
Government members have said there is nothing we could do about it. Prior to 1986 we had no means of testing. We did not know. Therefore how could we be responsible?
That statement, that premise, is an absolute lie. I know it. The Liberal government knows it. The Canadian people know it and most certainly the victims of the tainted blood know it themselves. They are having to live with it day after day.
How can this government, if it has one ounce of conscience, say it will take responsibility for those infected after 1986 but not those before? There is not one substantial piece of rationale behind that decision that anyone in the world could ever determine.
Once again the government has clearly displayed that it is morally bankrupt, that it would prefer to talk in legal terms, like the Minister of Health is so good at, and talk in dollars and cents and try to hide behind some decision it came to with the ministers of health of the different provinces. It thinks this somehow is the most important part of this discussion. It totally forgets that the most important part of this discussion is the people who were infected with hep C, the victims. They are the most important part of this discussion.
Why can the government not understand this? The government members do understand it. They know it. They know that the victims are the most important part of this whole issue but they will not recognize it because it is going to cost them money, because they say they have come to some agreement.
This is a very sad day for Canadians. It is a sad day when victims of hepatitis C who were infected prior to 1986 have to watch the Minister of Health, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister say that prior to 1986 it is not their fault and therefore cannot be held responsible. They have to watch the government leaders stand up one after another and tell what they know is an absolute lie. Everyone knows that.
These are the facts. In 1981 the Red Cross rejected a recommendation from its own people to implement surrogate tests, the ALT test and in 1994 the anti-HBc test. A 1995 study revealed that their combined use would have lowered the incidence of post-transfusion hepatitis C by as much as 85%. In 1986 the Red Cross was aware this testing was being used but did not implement it in Canada. As early as 1978 the Red Cross was aware that non-A and non-B hepatitis was getting into the blood supply. It is unfortunate that Red Cross officials did not appreciate the significance and the long term implications but they knew it was happening. How can the government deny responsibility?
During this debate we can talk about the impact on the victims and about the moral bankruptcy of the Liberal government. I will address something the Liberal government has the audacity to stand behind. It has tried to cloud this issue by saying that it is simply a non-confidence ploy of the opposition parties to try to bring down the government. It has said that it cannot allow its own Liberal backbench members to vote the wishes of their constituents or of their consciences because this must be treated as a non-confidence motion.
I quote from something referring to opposition supply motions being treated by the government as non-confidence motions: “This completely unnecessary and incorrect interpretation of the rules serves only to create greater frustration and partisanship and it is urgent that the standing orders be further amended to clarify that no opposition motion may be considered a matter of no confidence unless it specifically and explicitly indicates that it is intended to condemn the government”.
Nowhere in the motion of today is it specifically indicated that this motion is intended to condemn the government. This motion urges the government to respect the report of the Krever commission. That is a wonderful statement. It came from the Liberal plan for the House of Commons and electoral reform entitled “Reviving Parliamentary Democracy”. Liberal members will want to know who was among the signatories to this report, the person who is now their own House leader. At that time he was the assistant House leader.
Government members have the audacity to say that this is a non-confidence motion of some sort and that their members must vote with the government on it when in this report, which they prepared themselves and which their current House leader worked on and was an author to, condemned that very line of thought they are putting forward now. Not only is this government morally bankrupt by the way it is handling this case but its members by their statements today have displayed the highest form of hypocrisy I have ever seen in my life.
Only one thing can be done on this issue. This government must recognize the victims and award full compensation to all victims of hepatitis C, not only those it has put into this convenient little window.
I end my presentation today by appealing to the Liberal backbenchers to appeal to their hearts and their conscience that they would know the right thing to do when this issues comes up for a vote.
