QUESTION PERIOD — Health
Canadian Thalidomide Survivors Support Program
November 2, 2023
My question is for Senator Gold.
On October 26, 2022, more than 12 months ago, I asked you a question about Yves Bourque, a Canadian Paralympic athlete and a victim of thalidomide, who has been forced to deal with the extremely cumbersome, even inhumane, administration of the Canadian Thalidomide Survivors Support Program, a program that the government has entrusted to the firm Epiq.
Since then, my team and I have discussed Mr. Bourque’s case with the former minister of health, Jean-Yves Duclos, and his team, and more recently, with the team of his successor, Mark Holland. I was assured that follow-up had been done with Epiq, and the former minister even publicly stated that he had put pressure on Epiq to get things moving more quickly. However, nothing has changed.
Can the government assure us that additional measures will be taken to ensure that this program can be better administered immediately and to ensure accountability to address these unacceptable delays?
Thank you for your question. I’m disappointed to learn that no progress has been made on this file. Thalidomide had devastatingly tragic results for a whole generation of children. It is only by chance that I escaped it myself.
I need to consult the current minister to better understand the progress that, I hope, is being made. I’ll undertake to do that.
Could you also ask the minister to consider making public Epiq’s report and the government’s assessment of the quality of Epiq’s work? Of course the report will protect the confidentiality of thalidomide victims’ files.
Of course, I’ll add that to my list of questions for the minister.
