Veterans Affairs Committee on March 27th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

In 1215 at Runnymede, did they know Charles II would lose his head? I don't know.

Mr. Cuzner.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I don't know if I'm going to be able to add to this discussion or not, because what I was thinking about 20 minutes ago has been kicked around here before.

Betty, I think the discussion around this issue today underlines the merit of proceeding with something like this. I think the discussion has been positive. I think the questions that have been asked are very valid questions. We share a common desire around this table to better serve the veterans of this country, and I'll never question that.

But as to the legality of it and whether or not it would hold water, I think we should try to flesh it out more. As Mr. Roy indicated, it would be great to have it concise, and I think we should boil it down to five, six, or seven points, or whatever it might be. But then we should flesh them out in a bigger document, whether or not it's a document that's displayed in every Legion in this country, that better expands on what each of the lines of intent is in this charter. We could maybe pursue that route.

But I think we'd allow our veterans to feel better and more assured if we could better serve them. I agreed with Peter Stoffer when he said we should be cautious about being patronizing.

On the one that says “Be listened to so we may understand your needs and be sensitive to them”, I know any husband around this table who's worth his weight has pulled that club out of his bag--that you're sensitive to your wife's needs, and she says, okay, great, but what you are going to do for me? That's one you can only play so often.

So let's go forward here. I think there's a will around the table to go forward on this. But let's make sure that when they pull it out of their wallets, they have something that has some clout, or we would hope has some clout. I think finding where we stand with the legality of it is important.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

My thinking on it is that whenever you draft something like this, it could potentially have legal implications. I believe it could, based on the scenario laid out before, where people felt they didn't have things met and then they challenged it in court.

You have something that you want to have legal implications, even if you didn't intend it at the time, or you see that whatever aim it's tending toward, if it becomes legal and has teeth, it's a good thing. If you put something together that you hope never has teeth and then it winds up having teeth, you'd better have good intentions behind it, because you never know where it'll go.

Monsieur Perron.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I would like to recall certain historical facts.

First, the world was witness to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Looking to this document for inspiration, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, or PET as he was known at the time, brought in his Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He stated that henceforth, this charter would take precedence over the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We're taking a reverse approach. We already have a veterans' charter and now we want to bring in a veterans' bill of rights. I have no objections to doing that, but from a legal standpoint, we need to make it clear that the veterans' charter has precedence. That would avoid any legal concerns like the ones mentioned by Peter. My expert will surely advise me on this. If we want to maintain a parallel between the veterans' charter and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we must ensure that our charter enables us to resolve any problems that may arise in connection with this document.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

And I hope our parliamentary counsel will be able to do it. I don't sense there's anything in violation here, but--

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

Mr. Chairman, normally the veterans' bill of rights should have precedence over the charter. It should be based on the charter. Let me give you the example of aboriginal peoples. The United Nations adopted a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and subsequently, a charter was enacted. The charter drew its inspiration from the declaration. However, we are taking a reverse approach. We're drawing inspiration from the charter to draft a bill of rights. It's totally logical.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Now over to Ms. Hinton.

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

Sometimes when you come into this committee meeting, you never know what's going to happen. It's always interesting. I thoroughly enjoy it, but at the beginning we as a committee made some decisions regarding the direction we were going to take.

I recognize that a number of members have changed, and so there may be a number of issues that have also changed. But in reference to something Rodger said, this was never meant to be patronizing; it was meant to be a reassurance and it wasn't meant to replace any other piece of legislation. The ombudsman position, as I said earlier, was meant to be the club. I'm giving you my thinking on this, anyway, and we as a committee decided we were going to have two meetings to discuss the bill of rights.

So if it was going to become very heavy-duty legislation, I think two meetings would have been rather short-sighted on the part of our committee, if that's all we were going to deal with. The ombudsman takes care of the heavy-duty side of it, the legislation side of it, but if that's the way the committee wants to go, if you want to have the bill of rights become a piece of legislation, that's in the hands of the committee. The committee can certainly go in that direction if it wants to, but as a committee we did make some promises to veterans. We told them we would be dealing with the health care review, which is very important, especially to the senior veterans.

So I'm just saying, when we make a decision as to which way we want to go as a committee, bear in mind the promises we've already made to veterans, so that we're not letting them down. This was meant to be a reassurance, not patronizing, not a legal document. If you want to make it a legal document, that's up to the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. St. Denis.

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

I think part of the problem is what it's being called, and then as the rubber begins to hit the road, we're seeing what it is. In the minds of some of us, there is a disconnect between what a bill of rights is and what we're trying to do, which is more of a statement of service principles, in my mind. So if that had been the campaign promise, we wouldn't really even be worried that much about legalities, I don't think. You could easily deal with that, but as soon as you use the bill of rights--and I'm certain Betty was well intentioned when she drafted the campaign policy statement--

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

I didn't draft campaign policy. I drafted Conservative Party policy. Big difference.

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

Oh, okay. And that is the importance of committee discussion. We can't rush something, because I mean, there are always a lot of things on our plate. So you have to disconnect--bill of rights versus what it is we're actually looking at. Nobody disagrees with bill of rights over here, and then nobody disagrees with these good ideas contained in here. How do you put them together? Do they fit so that down the road we aren't creating a jackpot for veterans or for the government administration of the day? We just want to be responsible, that's all.

So if Betty wants to propose a statement of service principles, then does discussion change or not? I don't know.

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

I don't propose, the committee does.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I sense from Mrs. Hinton that she's not crazy about changing the name of it, but you're certainly welcome to put one forward and vote on it if you want.

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

The committee can do what it wants.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I sense that we have exhausted the speaking on this, unless there's somebody else who wishes to chip in. I think at this stage, then, we will allow our Thomas Jefferson in the committee, Michel, to draft this.

There's a motion from Mr. Valley that we'll be dealing with, which he brought forward at the previous meeting. Let's move on to this aspect of the motion, then. Do you have a copy of that? All right.

Mr. Valley gave notice of motion at the last meeting, which I will read out. His motion is: “That the Committee continues its investigation into and at its conclusion the Committee reports to the House as the first part of its study on Veterans Independence Programme and Health Care Review.”

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

It was on the study of post-traumatic stress disorder.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I was expecting PTSD to be mentioned in there.

[A voice]

PTSD is not a study per se; it's just a part of it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Actually, it doesn't matter if the chair understands the motion, as long as everybody else does. That's really key.

[A voice]

That doesn't read the way the motion was originally.

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

That's not how it was originally written by Roger. He mentioned PTSD.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

That's what I thought.

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

It should be “into PTSD, and at its conclusion...”. PTSD is missing in there. There's a typo.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I thought that was the case. All right, I'm going to read this out, because that makes more sense, I think: “That the Committee continues its investigation into Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and at its conclusion the Committee reports to the House as the first part of its study on Veterans Independence Programme and Health Care Review.”

Does that sound better? That makes more sense to me. I take it our French colleagues and everybody accepts that.

All right. Now we have some speakers.

Mrs. Hinton.