Posted: 17-Jul-2006 << BACK
Hep-C victims to get payout of $1-billion - Gloria Galloway Globe and Mail
OTTAWA The so-called "forgotten victims" of hepatitis C who contracted the disease through tainted blood but were never compensated by Ottawa are on the verge of finally receiving a payout from the federal government. Health Minister Tony Clement is expected to announce this month that the estimated 5,500 Canadians who contracted the disease before 1986 and after 1990 -- those who did not qualify for money provided by Ottawa eight years ago -- will at last be given the cash for which they have been fighting. Sources have told The Globe and Mail that the total package will be more than $1-billion.
The deal was to have been unveiled last Thursday, sources said, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper was travelling to Washington on that day and wanted to attend the announcement because he is proud that his government is doing what the previous Liberal government did not. One source said the new date of the announcement will be July 24, but another said the timing is still in flux.
"People are going to get treated equally. It's a compassionate response and I know that when they do the formal announcement, people are going to be very happy and people are going to get help," one source close to the government said.
The compensation will be distributed according to the toll taken by the disease, said the source, who refused to elaborate further. In 1998, the Liberals announced a $1.1-billion compensation package for people who were infected with the disease through tainted blood between 1986, when a surrogate test was developed that could have prevented a number of cases, and 1990, when the government argued its liability ended. There were fears that as many as 40,000 people might be identified as qualifying for the 1998 settlement, but only 4,000 victims were found -- a number that was bumped up to about 7,000, with payouts to estates and family members.
In April of last year, the Liberals reversed an eight-year stand against giving financial help to people who contracted the disease through tainted blood before 1986 or after 1990, by voting in favour of a bill introduced by Conservative MP Steven Fletcher. That bill asked the government to turn over a large surplus in the fund established to compensate the original group of victims -- an amount pegged at about $865-million at that time -- to those left out of the 1998 agreement. But the money was never paid. The Liberals argued that it would take time to determine who would qualify, and they said the amount of the surplus was questionable. In addition, they pointed out that the lawyers who settled the class-action lawsuits for those victims who contracted the disease between 1986 and 1990 are vigorously opposed to extending the compensation to others.
Mr. Fletcher would not confirm the pending announcement yesterday. But he said his government is determined to help those people who were infected with the disease through the blood supply but have never been compensated. "What I have said in the past, and what the Prime Minister has said on numerous occasions and this Health Minister has championed," said Mr. Fletcher, "is that compensation for the forgotten victims of hepatitis C should have happened a long time ago. "It hasn't happened, and this government is committed to doing everything possible to make it happen."
