Thank you, Chair.
This has been a frustrating process. I know that I brought forward a notice of motion putting everybody's wishes in it so that we could try to get this done. I heard a lot of backlash, especially from the Conservatives, so I'm letting it go in trying to get this done. I was clear the last time we were here that I was hoping we would get this finished. It feels like we're just going in circles. You know, what's sad is that I'm listening to the Conservatives blame the Liberals, and the Liberals blame the Conservatives—it's just a lot.
I also know—and I want to thank the analyst so much for his tremendous work—that we've just finished a monumental study on veterans who are women. The report is sitting there. Sadly, in the last couple of weeks, I've been getting messages from veterans who are women and who are very concerned that this won't get done, the piece of documentation they wanted to finally be represented in Parliament—because it has never been done before—so it will be there to give a baseline for the women who served our country and continue to serve our country. I'm just really sad to see this continue on.
I will say that I am also frustrated, because we know.... I keep hearing that there is this great veterans survey and “the veterans said”, but we still have nothing in the process that clearly states that it was veterans. There is no way of knowing that. Now, I trust veterans. I believe that if they knew there was a survey, they would totally participate, but when I hear that it's going to people's VAC accounts.... I have to tell you that I talk to veterans multiple times a week who are calling into those systems or using those systems and they are traumatized and they don't go on them anymore, so I don't think that it is a really strong statement. The thing that's frustrating is that there's nothing here to quantify. If we want to make sure that this monument gets done.... It needs to get done. There's a long history there that we need to acknowledge. We also have to acknowledge that it needs to be done well and that communication with veterans continues to be a concern.
I find it very interesting to listen to the Conservatives talk about it like they did it well. I remember when they were serving, and there's nothing great to say about the Liberals either. Everybody can shake or nod their heads, but the reality is that veterans are struggling across this country in profound ways, and here we are debating this.
I guess I have a couple of questions.
The first one is for Mr. Richards. I'm hearing from the Liberals now that many motions like this are being made in multiple committees. I'm assuming that there's a strategy there that is more political than based on veterans, if I hear that it's happening in other places. I'm wondering, with the Liberals, if we can at least keep (v) and (vi), because we need to figure out what happened. Let's talk about that. I'd like to offer that up.
If I could, I'd ask the clerk about a timeline. What I'm hearing is that this is happening in other committees, asking for a huge amount of information. Does that mean that, if we pass this, we'll just be waiting for months and months to get that information to our committee so we can do the work? That really concerns me.
If we could get some answers, I think that would help me make a decision.