Those few Liberal MPs who seemed ready to break ranks in support of an Opposition motion urging compensation for all those who contracted hepatitis C from infected blood – not just those infected after 1986 – have been whipped vigorously into line, following Jean Chretien's declaration that he regarded this as a "confidence" vote. And even if enough backbenchers were to call the PM's bluff, there is no prospect of the government calling an election on the issue. Even the Opposition doesn't want that.

No, the worst part of it is having to endure another lecture on political morality from John Nunziata. The Independent MP from York South- Weston, kicked out of caucus for voting against the budget in 1996 over the government's failure to abolish the GST, is once again parading about as the conscience of his former party. "Rank-and-file Liberal party members from across this country are phoning me and saying they are ashamed to be Liberals," Nunziata claims, urging the renegades to stand firm against the party whip. "All [they] have to say is 'I have a moral duty to represent my constituents. I want to do what's right and I'm prepared to suffer the consequences of doing what's right.' " Now, "moral duty" and John Nunziata are not terms that are easily reconciled. In the case of the GST, the Liberals' "moral duty," according to Nunziata, was to persist in the lie they had told during the 1993 election, that they could simply abolish – or, when pressed, replace – the GST. This was a little higher on the moral scale, perhaps, than the Prime Minister's position, which was that he had never promised to get rid of the tax – a lie about a lie.

But it hardly makes Nunziata into Sir Thomas More.

As for "the consequences," what consequences? The really neat thing about taking a "principled" stand in favour of scrapping the GST is that it also happens to be wildly popular.

Not only was Nunziata re-elected, but if anything his political fortunes improved: once a loud but lowly backbench peon, he became a folk hero.

The tainted blood issue offers much the same opportunity for painless martyrdom. There's no doubt that much of the public would be sympathetic to an appeal to compensate everyone who was infected: popular sentiment is rarely in a mood to deny anything to anyone, and it probably seems only fair that if some are to be compensated, all should be.

But the government – or rather the governments, given that the decision on compensation was taken collectively with the provinces – is on firm ground in insisting that compensation should be offered only where fault could be shown: namely, in the period between 1986 and 1990, when reliable tests for hepatitis C were available, but were not used.

This does not diminish the tragedy of those victims, perhaps 60,000 in all, who were infected before 1986. But compensation is not a cure, nor can it be the appropriate response to every case of hardship, regardless of who is at fault: every dollar that is directed to redressing past misfortunes is a dollar that cannot be spent on present needs. Those MPs who pose on the high ground for demanding compensation for all should say where they intend to find the money, perhaps as much as $3-billion, to pay for it.

But then, neither the victims' interests nor the taxpayers' are really what's at stake, here. The Opposition, sensing the unease of Liberal backbenchers, is simply exploiting the opportunity to put the government on the defensive.

The only wonder is that the Prime Minister is so eager to help them do it.

The Opposition is right on one point: there is no reason this has to be a confidence vote. Indeed, there is no particular reason why any bill, short of a budget, should automatically be considered a matter of confidence in the government. It is simply a convention, and not one that is derived from any practice at Westminster, where government bills routinely fail. Only in Canada is the party line so strictly whipped.

It would be one thing if the government found its entire legislative agenda frustrated by repeated defeats on important bills.

But that is plainly not the case, here. Were the government to lose, it need only, if it wished, seek the House's support in an explicit motion of confidence. Yes, the compensation package would have to be reworked. That's democracy.

Indeed, given the Reform party's view on free votes, maybe that's what they really have in mind. If they can use this controversy to break the tyranny of the three-line whip, they may indeed claim the mantle of political morality.