A pay-for-plasma clinic is opening a downtown Toronto clinic Tuesday to begin training staff in defiance of promised legislation from Ontario’s minority Liberal government that would ban it.

Canadian Plasma Resources will have 15 staff — including medical lab technicians and registered nurses — at its Adelaide St. location and expects to have donors on site within days, chief executive Barzin Bahardoust told the Star Monday.

The clinic will be open “for training purposes and collection of plasma for research purposes,” he said.

“When we get licensed by Health Canada, as long as the regulations in Ontario are not changed, we will compensate donors.”

Training will take about two weeks and compensation to donors will be $25 charity donations to the Hospital for Sick Children or $25 Visa gift cards that cannot be converted to cash, measures intended to compensate people for their time, Bahardoust said.

Health Minister Deb Matthews announced Friday that the province is preparing legislation to stop the company, or any others, from opening clinics.

“If the company chooses to act without a licence, they do so at their own risk and we will be prepared to take every necessary action to ensure they comply with the law,” Matthews spokeswoman Samantha Grant said in an email Monday.

Ontario’s pending legislation was prompted by concerns paying donors for plasma could lead to a contaminated blood system, as happened two decades ago when 30,000 Canadians became infected with HIV and hepatitis C after blood and plasma was purchased from “blood brokers” whose supplies came from various sources, including prisons.

Canadian Plasma has two more clinics planned, one in another downtown Toronto location and a second in Hamilton.

“They are located pretty poor neighbourhoods, so it is pretty clear who their target is,” Matthews said last week, noting a ban is consistent with the 1997 Krever Commission’s report recommending donors of blood and plasma should not be paid for their donations, except in rare circumstances.

Canadian Plasma’s plan to plow ahead “concerns us greatly,” long-time long-time tainted blood activist Mike McCarthy said.

“They should understand the minister’s intent to ban this. They should cease and desist.”

Canadian Plasma said Manitoba has allowed paid plasma donations for 25 years and there is no evidence paying for it weakens the voluntary donor system.

Resources issued a statement claiming there is no evidence that compensating plasma donors weakens the voluntary donor system, noting that Manitoba has allowed paid plasma donations for 25 years.

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Bahardoust said Ontario already reimburses organ donors for their expenses and his company does not collect plasma for transfusions, but for the creation of pharmaceutical products.

Plasma is a component of blood that contains the blood cells.

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