Posted on 10/17/2004 8:33:10 AM PDT by Clive
It was one of the most shameful spectacles -- no, scratch that, it was the most shameful -- of the previous Liberal government.
It was April 28, 1998. One after another, Liberal MPs stood up in the House of Commons -- under strict order of their prime minister, Jean Chretien -- and voiced support for a heartless deal that left thousands of hepatitis C sufferers out in the cold.
The deal handed more than $1 billion to Canadians who contracted the fatal disease through tainted blood, but only those infected between 1986 and 1990 -- the narrow period for which the government admitted responsibility for the infected blood supply (though much evidence suggests it knew or ought to have known it was at risk as early as 1981).
But the pre-1986 and post-1990 victims were denied. Despite Justice Horace Krever's pronouncement after his in-depth public inquiry into the blood disaster that "compensating some needy sufferers but not others cannot, in my opinion, be justified," the Liberals did just that, creating two tiers of victims. To do otherwise would bankrupt medicare, they claimed.
So, on that fateful night, the trained Grit seals obeyed their master, some of them, like MP Carolyn Bennett, visibly weeping. They won a narrow majority vote, 154-140.
It was left to provinces like Ontario to do the right thing for the abandoned victims, which then premier Mike Harris did, authorizing $25,000 payouts.
$300-million fund
The feds later came up with something they called "care instead of cash," a $300-million fund -- to be distributed through the provinces -- to cover blood victims' drugs, treatments, disability payments, etc. It sounded generous.
But six years later, victims say not one penny of that money has flowed to help them and they've formally requested Auditor General Sheila Fraser investigate.
Shameful, again. But now, at long last, it appears the Liberals, in their now-weakened minority state, may have a change of heart.
Two weeks ago, federal health minister Ujjal Dosanjh said he would ask his provincial counterparts what became of the $300 million (which appears to have ended up in general provincial revenues) at their meeting this weekend.
And -- shocker! -- this past week, Dosanjh hinted that the feds are now "considering" extending compensation to the pre-1986/post-1990 victims after all.
It seems that, far from bankrupting the country, the first group of victims' compensation claims have been far less than the $1.1-billion fund allotted. The government's numbers, victims say, were wrong. While at one point it was estimated that as many as 80,000 people might have contracted Hep C from the bad blood supply, it now seems there were only about 4,000 people infected between 1986-90, and just under 6,000 outside of those dates.
But will Dosanjh's musings finally translate to justice for these horribly wronged people -- many of whom are literally dying for an answer? To be blunt, victims aren't counting on it.
"The opportunity for the federal government to show compassion for these victims went out the window six years ago when they abandoned them," says Mike McCarthy, a Hep C sufferer who contracted the disease in 1986 from blood traced to an Arkansas prison (an even more vile chapter in this fiasco that I can't begin to go into here). "Now we're looking for accountability."
Another vote
As McCarthy sees it, the best way to ensure that is to call for another crucial vote in the House of Commons.
Hep C victims want to see a motion put forward by the Opposition -- ideally, all three parties united against Martin's minority -- demanding the government confirm it will finally compensate all the tainted-blood victims, once and for all.
"It's a no-brainer," says McCarthy, who argues there is no risk that the fund would be exhausted (so far, individual payouts have been capped at $250,000), and even if there were, the government has a duty to assume that theoretical risk.
Politically speaking, of course, such a vote would give the Grits a golden opportunity to pose as the great compassionate compromisers, much as they did with the throne speech farce of their first week. Fine. This is far more important than politics.
Besides, in this case for once, politics is on the victims' side. The Liberals wouldn't dare repeat that horrible scene of 1998 ... Would they?
I am trying to rebuild my tainted blood ping list, so if anyone has names to add, please let me know.
Please add me.
Done. Thank you.
Liberals = Democrats; Mike Harris is the equivalent of a Republican, in Canada. It was the Repub who showed true compassion.
Please add me to your ping list, Clive. I've been watching this for a long time.
Of course that means their taxpayers.
Thanks for watchin out for the blood trail story..
Done. Thank you.
Run by a big money political contributor to Bill Clinton, and shut down by the Dept of Health; until three days later, due to pressure from Clinton, the blood collection started again.
Whence it was then sold to a Montreal blood broker who sold it to Connaught Laboratories who used it in the batch production of Factor 8 for haemophiliacs.
And Connaught failed to inquire as to the meaning of ADC on the label.
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