I'm not going to talk about which committee goes to it or anything. But it's unfortunate. I think he has unnecessarily raised an emotional level without having factual background to deal with it.
This government, former governments--Ms. Sgro was part of one, and it goes right back to the beginning--have looked at this and have thought that in terms of fairness, this is how the public service receives pensions. They make contributions and they get a bridging process to take them through so that they get fair treatment right through to the CPP time. We can argue about whether it's right or wrong or fair, and I think probably there are some points there that are worth looking at. It doesn't change the main premise that this is a fair pension process.
Second, I feel that the disability issue is important. As you well know, since you were part of the bill, that's not necessarily the thrust of this bill. But it's an important issue that I think this committee should look at, and I think it has some merit.
I think it's really important, Mr. Chair, that we remind ourselves that it is extremely important that this pension process, this public service pension process, of which these are members, is funded properly. It's extremely important that it in fact is fair to all the participants. There's no question about that. There are issues with each and every pension. I think it's fair to discuss them. But as a general premise, this in fact is a compensation process that was thought out carefully and was funded carefully. As far as using the EI process, we have some experts today who can deal with that. But to leave the taxpayers with the idea that this is not going to cost anything.... I don't know who your experts are, but we do have experts this morning who will deal with the financial part of it. Whether the numbers are exactly correct, we can debate, but there's a huge cost to taxpayers in this.
I think every member supports the military, supports the veterans, supports whatever. I really think it's important. I get a little frustrated--you do a lot for veterans, I have no question--because you have not supported one financial initiative for veterans. There are very, very important programs that provide absolutely critical and essential services. You have voted against every single one that has come forward in the House.
My question, very specifically, is how you can take us down this road with the false expectation for the military folks, and not, at the same time, support the financial initiatives that are so very critical to our veterans and to former service people. My question is specific to that. How do you arrange it so that those two match up?