The position
The argument was about where public responsibility ends. When governments settled with hepatitis C victims in the late 1990s, they compensated those infected between 1 January 1986 and 1 July 1990, the period in which, they argued, screening failures created legal liability. People infected before 1986 or after 1990 were left out of the principal compensation settlement.
Fletcher’s position, and that of the excluded victims, was that public responsibility should not end at that legal boundary. People infected through the same publicly regulated blood system suffered the same disease and should not be denied compensation solely because their transfusion fell outside the designated years. Although the date of infection differed, the excluded claimants alleged the same essential source of injury: hepatitis C contracted through blood or blood products supplied by the Canadian blood system.
What happened in Parliament
Fletcher carried the question through two stages. First, in the Standing Committee on Health, he moved the motion himself:
That the Committee report to the House, that it not only continues to urge the government to extend compensation to all those who contracted Hepatitis C from tainted blood, but that it call on the government to do so immediately, in recognition of the First Report of this Committee, the recommendations of the Krever Inquiry and the large surplus in the federal Hepatitis C compensation fund.
The committee adopted his motion 7 to 4 on 21 March and reported it to the House as its Seventh Report the next day.1 A committee report is not a decision of the whole House, so Fletcher then moved that the House concur in the Seventh Report, putting the recommendation to every member for a decision. The motion stood in his name, and an all-party agreement arranged the debate and deferred the recorded division to 20 April.2 That afternoon he set out the stakes:
Tonight the House will vote on my motion calling on the government to immediately compensate all those infected with hepatitis C through tainted blood, as recommended by the Krever inquiry.
That evening the House adopted the motion by recorded division (Division No. 66), 269 to nothing, the governing Liberals voting for it alongside every opposition party. The vote did not create a compensation program or bind the government, but it placed Parliament formally behind the excluded victims and left the governing party on record.2
Implementation still lagged. Seven months later, in a written question on 14 November 2005, Opposition House leader Jay Hill asked what the government had done to give effect to the 20 April decision. Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh replied that discussions with class counsel were continuing and that no compensation framework had yet been reached.3 The Martin government fell weeks later with the settlement still unfinished, so the eventual agreement was not a completed Liberal program simply inherited by the Conservatives.
The 1998 settlement and the excluded victims
The settlement followed the Krever inquiry into the tainted-blood tragedy, which reported in 1997.4 Agreed politically in 1998 and completed as a court-approved class-action settlement in 1999, it covered people infected through the blood system between 1 January 1986 and 1 July 1990, and Ottawa established a trust of roughly $1.2 billion. Separate funding, about $300 million over twenty years, went to the provinces for medical services for people infected outside that window, so the excluded victims were not left without any support. They were, however, shut out of the principal individual compensation settlement. An estimated 5,000 to 6,000 Canadians fell outside the window.5
How the question reopened
By late 2004 the politics had shifted. Actuarial evidence showed a substantial surplus in the original trust, more than its existing beneficiaries were expected to need, which weakened the fiscal argument against including the excluded victims.6 On 22 November 2004 the government announced its intention to enter discussions about compensation options for people infected before 1986 and after 1990. That was an opening rather than a commitment. The surplus helped reopen the question; the eventual settlement was, however, a separate agreement, not an enlargement of the original one.
The outcome
On 25 July 2006 Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced an agreement in principle providing about $1 billion for people infected before 1986 or after 1990, an estimated 5,500 people.7 Canada and class counsel completed the final settlement agreement on 15 December 2006, and the supervising courts in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec approved it in June 2007.8 It covered qualifying infections before 1 January 1986 and from 1 July 1990 to 28 September 1998, and was concluded without any admission of legal liability by the federal government. Compensation was not automatic: applicants had to meet the agreement’s eligibility and evidentiary requirements.
| Authorship | Moved the 21 March 2005 Health Committee motion calling for immediate compensation for all who contracted hepatitis C from tainted blood. After it carried 7 to 4 and was reported as the committee’s Seventh Report, Fletcher moved concurrence in the House, where it was adopted 269 to 0 on 20 April. |
|---|---|
| Parliamentary leadership | Carried the recommendation at both stages: the committee vote of 7 to 4 on 21 March and the recorded House vote of 269 to 0 on 20 April, the latter after an all-party agreement to hold the division. |
| Advocacy | Argued that compensation should extend to all qualifying people infected through the blood system, whatever the original window, and urged the government to act immediately. |
| Influence | The vote added formal parliamentary authority to a campaign already advanced by victims, advocacy organisations, lawyers and MPs from several parties. A material contribution, not the sole cause. |
| Result | The Conservative government announced an agreement in principle of about $1 billion in July 2006; a separate pre-1986/post-1990 settlement was completed in December 2006 and approved by the courts in June 2007. |
| Legacy | A successful early parliamentary intervention linking his health-policy record to equal treatment, government accountability, and compensation for people harmed through a publicly regulated system. |
Sources
- House of Commons, Standing Committee on Health, Meeting No. 27, 21 March 2005: motion moved by Steven Fletcher, adopted 7 to 4; reported to the House as the committee’s Seventh Report on 22 March 2005.
- House of Commons Debates (Hansard): 14 April 2005 (concurrence moved in Fletcher’s name, all-party deferral) and 20 April 2005 (Fletcher’s statement and Division No. 66 adopting the motion 269 to 0).
- Written Question Q-187, placed by Jay Hill, answered by Minister of Health Ujjal Dosanjh, House of Commons Debates, 14 November 2005.
- Commission of Inquiry on the Blood System in Canada (Krever Commission), final report, 1997.
- 1986-1990 Hepatitis C Settlement Agreement (political agreement 1998, court-approved 1999).
- “Hepatitis C compensation may be extended,” Canadian Medical Association Journal 172(1):25, 4 January 2005.
- “Prime Minister Harper announces agreement to compensate pre-1986/post-1990 hepatitis C victims,” Government of Canada, 25 July 2006.
- “Courts approve the pre-1986/post-1990 hepatitis C settlement agreement,” Government of Canada, 8 June 2007 (final agreement completed 15 December 2006).
These citations are as complete as the record now allows. More will be added as they are found, and these pages change as the facts do. Where a source is a recollection rather than a document, it is identified as such.