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Victims of the hepatitis C tainted blood scandal of the 1990s will be compensated from a surplus of more than $200 million, now that an Ontario court has rejected Canada’s efforts to claw it back.
The excess money is part of a $1-billion trust created to settle a class action launched in 1998 against the Canadian Red Cross, which then administered blood banks, and the federal government and provinces. It is meant to compensate people infected between 1986 and 1990, when there was a lab test that could have prevented it.
The year before the lawsuit began, a Royal Commission led to the creation of Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Québec, at arm’s-length from government.