Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 29th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Okay.

Mr. Stoffer.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Yes, sir. Because the ombudsman's office is just getting set up and we're going to be having lots of testimony with the minister and with officials and with other people, just at the end of it we should also include--as a friendly amendment to this motion--that we send all copies of all our meetings to the ombudsman's department for their heads-up on things that may be coming down the pipe that would save them a lot of time.

I don't think at the beginning, although I'm being presumptuous here, that they would probably have staff that could attend every one of our meetings, so in the interim, we can send them our meetings--anything that's not confidential, of course, or without permission--so they can have access to what we're saying and doing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

We have some other speakers here.

We're going to go to Mr. Shipley and then Mr. St. Denis.

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

This is just a point. I don't have an issue with that, Peter, but I just don't think it should be an amendment to this motion. I think this motion should stand on its own.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

We'll just do it anyway.

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

We can have a separate one, and it may just go as direction. I'm not sure how this works, but we used to be able to just have a direction that minutes would go to the ombudsman. However, it works, I'd just keep it separate from this one. I think this is a stand-alone, Brent.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

We're discussing the mechanics of this. They're all publicly available, but it's a question of whether or not the draft versions of the blues would be the ones sent to the ombudsman. We're just considering the mechanics of it. Anyhow, we'll move on to the discussion.

Monsieur St. Denis.

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

I have two quick points. First, I'm glad to accept Peter's friendly amendment, if there's unanimous consent and with the clerk's judgment about whatever level of minutes would be appropriate, but I take Bev's point separately that they be sent to the ombudsman. Do we all agree that it be done as a separate thing?

Peter?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Sure.

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

I would just conclude by suggesting that if this is agreed to, I want to point out to the ombudsman's office that I deliberately asked the witnesses in the meeting if they would grant permission for the ombudsman's office to contact them, should they decide to do so, and the answer was yes. The only thing they're lacking is phone numbers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right.

Monsieur Perron.

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

I'd simply like to support what Bev said about Peter's amendment. The documents are available through the “blues” and appear on the veterans' site some time afterwards. However, if we want to expedite matters, we can let the clerk send a copy. Whatever the case may be, I don't think that should appear in Mr. St. Denis' amendment.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Alexandre Roger]

We've already sent the “blues” of the meeting. The only problem is that they are unofficial, untranslated documents of the House of Commons.

It's up to the committee whether or not to send the blues out to the ombudsman. The documents are made public as official transcripts when they've been edited and translated, and they are available on the website for only the public part of the meeting. Whatever is in camera is kept in my office, and no one has access to it. So it is your decision whether you want to send the blues--the unedited and unofficial and untranslated version--to the ombudsman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Just to be fair, committee, they're in a sense the poorer cousin of the public ones. I don't think it makes sense to send the blues, because they have to go through edits and what not, and then it's a question, really, of whether the ombudsman wishes to access them or whether or not we want to send them. It's a push-pull kind of question.

Right now I'll consider this to be extraneous to the motion, because I think we'll just leave the motion as it stands. Is that okay? Maybe we'll discuss it at a later time.

Mr. Sweet.

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

I have the suspicion that with a very qualified communications director, who was just introduced to us, that they're now onto this--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

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

--and they may very well just go to the site occasionally and be kept abreast of things. That might very well suffice. Certainly, since Mr. Stoffer was the one who introduced her, he knows the capability is there.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

[Inaudible--Editor]

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

I was talking about access and communications, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

They have been notified.

I don't see any other speakers to Mr. St. Denis' motion.

I don't have all the amendments before me, but basically I think it's to switch the mention of post-traumatic stress disorder to psychological injury, with PTSD in brackets afterward. I don't know what grammatical modifications Mr. St. Denis has.

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

If you want, in the second last line, we could put, “he has considered”, as opposed to “he considers”. And, “Ombudsman” has an a. They are pretty minor.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Yes. Okay. I think everybody gets the general gist of that.

All right, then, to the vote on the motion.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I think that pretty much wraps up our meeting. Thank you all.

The meeting is adjourned.