To recap: Rock began negotiations with the provinces some months ago urging compensation for all those infected by tainted blood. Under pressure from his cabinet colleagues, he later drew the line at 1986, the year tests that might have screened out the disease became widely available elsewhere, though they were not used in Canada until 1990. That was the substance of the original federal-provincial agreement, on which Rock declared firmly, "the file is closed." Harris, meanwhile, started by opposing compensation for anyone infected by tainted blood, eventually signed on to the federal-provincial position, then, after the ensuing public outcry, abruptly demanded that all victims be compensated – at federal expense – before finally coming to rest on his current position: that Ontario would put up some money of its own. Which led Rock to discover that the file was perhaps not so tightly shut as all that. I score that four backflips to three, advantage Harris.

Part of the confusion arises from the attempt to combine what are really several different issues into one, deceptively simple question: compensation, yes or no? Harris, in particular, has specialized in rhetorical equations of the "a hepatitis victim is a hepatitis victim" variety, as if to suggest that attempts to distinguish between cases were no more than legalistic nit-picking. "Do you believe," he asked the Prime Minister in an open letter this week, "that it is fair to treat someone infected on Dec. 31, 1985 differently than someone infected on Jan. 1, 1986?" But what is Harris saying? Sooner or later, advocates of compensation have to decide which argument to use: facts or principle. That is, were governments, as a matter of fact, at fault for the infections that occurred prior to 1986, and so, in the conventional sense of the word, liable for the victims' suffering? Or is the position of the government of Ontario, as a matter of principle, that the suffering of the victims is sufficient in its own right to establish a claim for compensation – that, in short, fault is irrelevant?

Much has been written of the errors and omissions that might have needlessly exposed recipients of blood transfusions to infection in the years before 1986. Victims' groups continue to insist that governments, had they acted sooner, could have prevented much of the epidemic. A lot of this is hindsight – scientists didn't even have a name for hepatitis C until 1989. But there's a simple way to resolve the issue: take it to court. That's what they're there for: to assess liability in complex cases like these where fault is not immediately evident.

The concept of liability is not some abstract legal principle, divorced from the realities of life. It is profoundly moral. The 1986 cut-off was not some arbitrary date governments picked out of thin air, nor was it based solely on calculations of cost. Rather, it reflected a reasoned assessment that that was the point at which the courts would find governments were liable: legally and morally. There is no conflict between the two. If they were wrong in that assessment, if in fact they were at fault before then, we'll find out soon enough.

That's if you think fault matters. The Harris position, on the other hand – and on this he differs even from the victims' groups – is that everyone who was infected with tainted blood should be compensated: regardless of whether anyone could have done anything to prevent it. This is not, as Harris's admirers would have it, to put compassion before cost. As a moral proposition, it is simply incoherent.

If everyone who was infected with the Hepatitis-C virus from the blood supply should be compensated, solely because they were infected, why should not everyone infected with the virus from any source? And if Hep-C, why not every other disease? Compensation advocates like to say that no precedent would be set – and besides, they will add in the next breath, the Mulroney government compensated everyone infected with the HIV virus.

But this only points to the disingenuousness of their position: if it's the right thing to do, it should be a precedent.

But it isn't right: it's wrong. Not wrong because it's costly, but wrong in principle: wrong because it makes a mockery of common law notions of liability, wrong because it makes impossible any consistent application of the ancient principle that responsibility for making amends lies with those who cause the harm, substituting in its place the whims of politics and the vagaries of chance.

To further complicate matters, not everyone infected with Hep-C comes down with the disease. So let's ask another question. Is Harris willing to argue that a person who is carrying the virus from tainted blood, but is otherwise perfectly healthy, should receive compensation, but a person who is dying from Hep-C from some other source should not?

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