Veterans Affairs Committee on March 27th, 2007

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

That's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right, merci. I think it's an improvement, sir.

What about number six?

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Line 6 would simply read: “Reconnaître la contribution importante [...]” instead of “Reconnaissance [...]. The verb form is “reconnaître”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I haven't read it all, but would it be better to put “recognize the importance of”?

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

“Recognize the importance of family and community and their well-being”--does that make sense?

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

On a point of grammar in English, do you notice the header “Veterans have the right to”? The sentence has to continue with the header “have the right to recognition”. If you say “the right to recognize”, it's a grammatical point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Yes. You like the word “recognize”.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

If you're keeping the header, you need to have it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Sure. I'm with you 100%.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

It's a point of grammar. It doesn't have to be the same form.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Before we go too far, Mr. Chair, are we going to vote on all of the different things that have been put forward so far?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

So far, I think we're operating on a consensus. When I sense that we need to have a vote, because there seems to be a real battle cry going on, then I think we'll do it.

I have Mr. Sweet on the list. Sometimes we pay attention to the list, sir.

Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I feel the same way as you do, Mr. Chair. There's a consensus in the room.

But I think one of the things we should decide on is the one principle that I think was echoed by many contributors about this being short and sweet. I love that; short and sweet. It has the capability to be in someone's wallet.

If that's the case, then with Mr. St. Denis' addition of “receive services in both official languages”, we're up to 13 points.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

It's part of the same one.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Okay. We'd then have 12 points.

We might want to decide whether or not it's going to be too much for one little card in somebody's wallet. If we want to recommend to the department that we have a more concise statement with an explanatory document that would be more robust, what does this particular line mean?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

My sense, Mr. Sweet, is that all the rest of the stuff we have here is gobbledygook. I think what really matters is those 12 lines.

I am certainly always in favour of brevity in regard to these matters. If people see places where they think we can streamline those 12 lines to make them shorter and tighter 12 lines, I'm all for that.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

That's exactly my notion here, that with some good editing.... For example, the two lines, “Veterans have the right to...recognition of the importance of family and community in your well-being” and the next line, “Veterans have the right to...be included in discussions that affect your health and well-being”, could be edited to one line: “Veterans have the right to know their well-being is the number one concern of Veterans Affairs”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Could I ask that when people make references to lines, they start using numbers or something?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Well, this would be lines six and seven. If you look at those two lines, six and seven, you could make one statement like: “Veterans have the right to know their well-being is the number one concern of the Department of Veterans Affairs”, and then, of course, in an explanatory document you would have a more robust description about this that would include your family, would include the privacy of your health documents. The list, of course, could even be much more robust than what's already there. You could get something really concise into six or seven points.

By the way, our older veterans probably need a little bit bigger type than this has, too.

[A voice]

We were going to build in a little magnifying glass.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Sir, I'm with you in principle here; I'm not opposed to where you're going. Is the question that you want to strike line six, or how do you want to do it?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I'm putting it out as a notion to the committee that we've had this input in the past. I envisage something the size of a driver's licence, whereby a veteran could look at it. Obviously you can't, on something the size of a driver's licence, get every aspect of every dimension of this whole notion of rights in front of a veteran. But you can have a statement that has the solid, overriding principle, and then put the details in another document that the veteran would have in their desk, so to speak, at home, rather than carry in their wallet.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

So you're not proposing a specific amendment here?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

No, I was trying to give an example, so that if we look towards that goal, then we might look at statements like these two and put them into one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

l like it.