Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 28th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much.

Now, Mr. Richards, the floor is yours.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Certainly from my perspective, there's never any issue with more transparency and disclosure.

I do want to point out two things for the committee members. First of all, the date of November 8, 2021, is actually quite significant to what we're talking about. We're talking about trying to determine....

The decision of the jury was initially communicated on November 8, 2021. That's why that date was chosen. That decision of the jury was communicated to the two ministers involved, and from that date forward, there was interference by the Prime Minister's Office. We've seen enough evidence. We know that this has happened. That's what we're trying to find out about. Why was there interference to change the decision?

The only documents that matter are the documents from the date the decision was first communicated and afterward. They're the only ones that matter, because what's at question here is why the government tried to change the decision of the jury. Any document before November 8, 2021, is completely irrelevant to what we're trying to learn as a committee. That's why that date was chosen. It was chosen for a very specific reason.

What I would not want to see is.... Now we're talking about seven and a half more years' worth of documents that we're asking to be provided to the committee. Obviously, when you go back seven and a half more years, you're going to have a significant delay for documents that will clearly produce nothing that will help us to determine what happened here after November 8, 2021, which is what we're trying to determine. You can't determine anything about what happened after November 8, 2021, when the decision was communicated, by looking at events before that.

I will say frankly that I think the motive is to try to deliberately delay this, because clearly what we've seen over the course of a number of months now is an effort—not only that, but over two years prior to the Prime Minister's announcement of the decision to change this—by this government to try to hide whatever caused them to change this. They've gone to fairly significant lengths here.

I will say frankly that I think the motive behind this amendment is to further cover up and hide from that by delaying getting the documents that will actually get to the answers here.

I haven't heard a single reason as to why anything before November 8 will help us get to the bottom of why the Prime Minister's Office interfered after November 8, when the decision was initially communicated to interfere. I don't see what this adds. I think it's deliberately designed to try to delay this committee from doing its work to get to the bottom of this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Richards.

Ms. Blaney is next.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I just feel like this is the kid's song from when my boys were little. This is the song that never ends. It just goes on and on, so here we are.

I'm hoping we can just vote on this amendment. I don't really care; I just want to get this done. Veterans deserve to know what happened. We need a better process. We need transparency.

Can we just get this moved? If you want to change the date to May 1, I'm sorry, but I don't see how it's going to leave out November 8. I believe both sides seem to be trying to delay.

Let's get it done. I'm happy to support it if it means we actually get this vote done. If we don't get this vote done soon, I'm going to be very frustrated, because we just need to get it done.

Obviously we need to look into this. Obviously there's something that we're going to find, hopefully, because it just seems like a lot of blocking at this point. That's how I'm feeling.

I'm happy to support it. Let's move forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Ms. Blaney.

I still have three people on the list. I have Mr. Miao, Ms. Hepfner and Mrs. Wagantall.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

No, I'll withdraw.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

There are two MPs on the list.

Mr. Miao, the floor is yours.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think this amendment is valid. In the past 10 years when the opposition government was in power, there were a lot of cuts to the veterans, especially in closing many offices across the country. That really limited accessibility for our veterans to be able to find and inquire about the services they need. Understanding that there was a location decided before coming to this decision, which kind of took a long time back and forth as well, it's important for us, if we're to study whether or not this monument should be continued with the decision that veterans have made, to really go back to the start to look at where it happened and at how we can, at the same time, dig deeper.

If this is what the opposition member is proposing, then let's do that. Ultimately, I think there's nothing to hide. Our government is very transparent. There are ways, with the things that we have in place, that we can really go further in this study and see what is impacting our veterans right now.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Miao.

We'll go to Ms. Hepfner.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I agree that this is a good amendment. I think if we're going to study a monument to Afghanistan, we have to go back to when it was first conceived. That happened back in 2014. Lots of things happened with this monument before 2021. It is absolutely relevant to study the whole process of how we have come to where we are today.

That's it. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

If there are no more interventions, we'll go to a vote on Mr. Sarai's amendment.

Members, do I have unanimous consent on the amendment of Mr. Randeep Sarai?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

No. We're afraid they're just using it to delay further.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I don't have unanimous consent.

I will ask the clerk to proceed to the taking of a recorded division on Mr. Sarai's amendment.

(Agreement agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I see three people with their hands up, Mr. Desilets, Mr. May and Mr. Miao.

Keep in mind that we have just two minutes left in the meeting.

Go ahead, Mr. Desilets.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I want to propose something, Mr. Chair, so we can end on a positive note. Since we've dealt with the two amendments, could we vote on the motion as is?

My suggestion would be that we vote, but I will leave the decision up to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

Over to you, Mr. Miao.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Actually, Mr. Chair, I would like to propose another friendly amendment. Perhaps I can share it with the committee.

This is at the end of paragraph (b)(vii). I would replace “and without redaction” with “using the principles of the access of information and privacy act”. The reasoning is that it's important to follow the principles of the access to information and privacy act and protect personal information. The long-standing approach taken by successive governments has been to reconcile the exercise by the House of Commons of its privilege with other fundamental constitutional principles, such as the rule of law, parliamentary sovereignty, responsible government and the separation of powers.

I hope our opposition members can also agree to move forward with this amendment.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Miao.

You moved your amendment, but it's time to adjourn the meeting, so we can't debate it.

On that note, is it the pleasure of the committee to adjourn the meeting?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

What's our plan for the week after the break?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

The question is, what is the plan—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

The reason I'm asking is to know if we can have the witnesses come back.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

The plan is.... Today we should have had at least five or six witnesses. The clerk is already in contact with them, and we are so sorry because they were supposed to be here but we didn't hear anything from them.

I'm afraid that if we call those witnesses to appear in front of us at the next meeting on Monday and they won't be able to say anything, like today, as a chair I wouldn't like to see that and I don't think you, as members of the committee, would like to see that. I think that it was supposed to be the last meeting on that study, the transition to civilian life, but I will do whatever you want. After two weeks, we're going to come back, and on that Monday we're going to try to have those witnesses with us. I'd like to know if I should invite them and try to get them again for when we come back on Monday on our study of transition to civilian life. That's the thing.

Also, I know that we have a lot of notices of motions, so maybe we should think about having committee business to discuss everything and to discuss what we're going to do. Also, we have the report on women veterans. We have to look at that report, because it is an important study that we are doing.

Go ahead, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Perhaps the best thing would be if the Liberals could indicate how many more amendments they have, because if there are not that many more amendments, we can get this dealt with quite quickly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

You know that each member has the privilege of tabling amendments.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I'm not arguing they shouldn't be able to; I'm just wondering if they could indicate how many more they have.