2012 protest in Thunder Bay against the closure of CBS’ plasma clinic. Health Canada claims — without any evidence — that self sustainability in blood products in impossible under a volunteer system, but we’ll never know if CBS continues to downsize its operations.
The Ontario Tories recently have appeared to be distancing themselves from some of the more unpopular positions adopted by the party under Tim Hudak.
Voting for second reading of an Act intended to close the door on paid collection of blood and blood components by the private sector, the Tories n one-the-less seem incapable of parking their ideology at the door as Bill 21 finds its way into committee.
For two days the committee is conducting hearings into the legislation, seeing a parade of mostly private sector lobbyists lined up on one side and mostly family and survivors of Canada’s last tainted blood scandal on the other. Each presentation was limited to five minutes, followed by three minutes for each party to ask questions. In the case of the Tories, that three minutes was frequently used to make their own case that somehow we can’t do anything in this province without the involvement of private corporations.
David Harvey, a lawyer who represented patient groups at the 1990s Krever Inquiry, made the point the legislative committee was trying to come to a decision in just two days of public hearings over an issue that took Justice Horace Krever four years to resolve. By contrast, the Krever Inquiry included 247 days of public hearings by 474 witnesses, testimony and submissions filling 50,000 pages and another 100,000 pages of exhibits. Even former Premier Mike Harris admitted the Krever report was “detailed, it was exhaustive and it was complete.”
Yet the Tories appear to be siding with the private lobbyists as they toy with the idea of reversing one of Krever’s key recommendations – that paid collection of blood and blood components be banned except in rare circumstances.
OPSEU Diablogue 