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The federal Liberal government is allowing hundreds of people who were infected with hepatitis C through tainted blood to go uncompensated even as it tries to recoup hundreds of millions of surplus dollars from a fund established for another set of victims of the same disease.
While thousands of those who contracted the hepatitis C virus (HCV) through blood transfusions have received money from the government, at least 300 of those who were infected before 1986 or after 1990, and who have been told they are eligible for compensation, have not been paid. That is because the billion-dollar fund established for that purpose in 2007 has run dry.
Meanwhile, government lawyers will be in a Toronto court next week to argue that an estimated $240-million that is sitting unused in a fund for those who were infected between 1986 and 1990 should be returned to federal coffers, a move that appears to break a Liberal campaign promise. The people who contracted the disease during that period have already received their money, but some say it was inadequate, and their lawyers will say the excess should be divided among their clients.