Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise on behalf of the New Democratic Party to discuss Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act. I will read the recommendations out so that those who just tuned in or showed up will understand:
Her Excellency the Governor General recommends to the House of Commons the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances, in the manner and for the purposes set out in a measure entitled “An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act”.
It is actually a good initiative, because what happens sometimes when military personnel are on maternity or paternity leave, they can get called back in the middle of that leave in order to serve their country. What happens is they then lose out on their benefits, so when they come back from their tour or operation, or come back from whatever they have been asked to do, they can then continue on to achieve and receive that parental leave. That is a good thing, but my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst has asked very clearly that it also include any police officers or other folks who have also been in that same situation.
I could not help but notice that this bill comes from the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development. So, it is actually a government bill, not a backbench bill like the gun legislation.
So few people in the country would actually benefit from this bill. There are not thousands and thousands of people who would fall under this. This would assist very few people but it is a good thing that they will be helped.
However, I then ask myself that if the Minister of Human Resources goes to all this trouble to introduce legislation to help the military and military families, why did she not go all the way?
For example, in the last week from the media pages alone, British Colombia has a shelter for homeless military veterans. At the same time, on Easter Saturday our Prime Minister, the face of Canada, was at a Calgary food bank set up specifically for veterans. What kind of government actually takes a photo op at a Calgary food bank designed specifically for veterans? It is not just food they are receiving. They are also receiving medical and dental aid. When we speak to the directors of the Calgary Poppy Fund and Veteran's Food Bank, they say very quickly that these are veterans and their family members who have fallen through the cracks.
These are people who have served our country with dignity and honour and there should be no cracks for them to fall through. We know of 60 families in Calgary that go to the Calgary Veteran's Food Bank every month. What does our Prime Minister do? With the legislative powers at his hand and the millions of dollars at his disposal, he could correct this situation, but no, he gets a photo op. It is unbelievable.
I am not sure who is around saying that it would be a good idea to go out on Easter Saturday and take a picture at a food bank for veterans. That is a classic one. I do not think I have ever heard of that in my life, but that is just one thing.
Another thing the Prime Minister could have done, if he really wanted to help out veterans and their families, was to end the marriage-after-60 provision, that discriminatory practice in the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act. It talks about what would happen if the spouse of a retired 55-year-old military person dies and the person decides to remarry at 59 and lives for 20 years. His second spouse would be entitled to his pension, However, if he had the audacity to fall in love again and remarry at age 60 and then live for 20 years, his second spouse would get nothing.
Why did the government not introduce legislation to fix that problem? That would have been most helpful as well to make an omnibus bill for veterans and their families. That would have been a creative thing for the Government of Canada to do.
Another example is that when military or RCMP personnel die, they are allowed to only leave 50% of their pensions to their spouses. Why not two-thirds, as the Royal Canadian Legion indicated? In convention after convention, they have made this recommendation unanimously so that they can leave two-thirds of their pensions to their spouses. That would have assisted a tremendous number of people, mostly women, especially elderly women in this country, but, no, there was none of that.
I remember the letter of 2005 from the Prime Minister himself, when he was in opposition, to Joyce Carter of St. Peter's, Cape Breton, in which he said, “Mrs. Carter, we can assure you that if the Conservatives form government, we would extend, immediately--”, and the word “immediately” was highlighted in the letter, “--to all widows and widowers of World War II and Korean Veterans, the VIP Program.
I would remind the House that he said “immediately” and “all”.
The fact is in 2008, two years after the Conservatives took government, they had then initiated into the budget additional funding for VIP. However, not all of them got it. In fact, many of them still do not qualify because in order to get it they had to have had a disability tax credit or be of a certain income.
That is not what the letter from the Prime Minister said to Joyce Carter. He said that all widows and widowers would receive the VIP immediately upon forming government. There were no caveats to that letter, no attachments or amendments. The Prime Minister, when he was the leader of the opposition, said “immediate” and “all”. It did not happen.
With respect to agent orange, I remember very well the former minister of veteran affairs saying in 2005 that if his party formed government it would have a public inquiry into agent orange and defoliant spraying at Gagetown. Did we get it? No. The Conservatives also said that every person between the ages 58 to 84 would be covered. What happened? I think less than 3,000 people actually got an ex gratia payment of $20,000 or a bit more for that. At least the government did give some people a $20,000 compensation.
However, the Conservatives promised so much more and delivered so much less. They had the chance when a minister of the Crown introduced legislation in order to assist that.
There is another thing they could have done if they wished. The Prime Minister said that when the majority of the House of Commons votes on a bill or a motion and it passes democraticall, the government is duty bound to honour that bill or that motion.
On four separate occasions, November 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010, we in this House had the benefit deduction at age 65 for Canada pension disability for military and RCMP veterans. The majority of House voted in favour of those four different times and we did that because the current Prime Minister said that the government had to be duty bound to honour the majority of the House.
What happened? The Conservatives were consistent and said no. At least they were honest about that and said no every time. That is another example where if a minister of the Crown really wanted to introduce legislation to help many more people, this was the opportunity to do that. However, again they did not.
There is another thing they could have done. We know very well that by the time some of us to go to bed tonight we could lose anywhere from 90 to 100 World War II or Korean veterans because of the aging process and these brave heroes will have crossed the bar. We know that hospitals like Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, the Perley, the Colonel Belcher and the Camp Hill in Halifax do a tremendous job in looking after those veterans who have the opportunity to get a hospital bed and be cared for in the later stages of their life.
However, what will happen when the last Korean War or World War II veteran passes away? Those beds will not be available. In fact, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue Hospital right now is being looked at between the federal government and the provincial Government of Quebec to have it transferred over to the Province of Quebec.
We have thousands upon thousands of modern day veterans who are now in their seventies. They served during the Cuban missile crisis, in the cold war efforts, in the Suez, in Cyprus, in Bosnia and now in Afghanistan. They served in Haiti and East Timor. They have served around the world. Many of these individuals will soon require hospitalization because of the effects of what happened to them in their various conflicts. Even if they were not seriously injured or affected by their service, they served our country. We should be serving them all the way to and including their headstone, which means that there should be a hospital bed paid for by the federal government all the way until they pass away. The care of veterans and their families is a federal responsibility, not a provincial responsibility.
The other thing is that no veteran or his or her family should ever need to go to a food bank but we see that happening in Calgary. Those people at the Calgary food bank are decent, hard-working people and thank God there are people in Calgary willing to do that type of work. God love them for doing it.
What does it say when we tell veterans that they cannot have a hospital bed? What does it say when they cannot get their proper pension benefits and we will deduct it from here? What does it say to these people once they take that uniform off?
I could not help but notice that DVA is about to do a survey. It will be sending it out to about 1,200 of its clients. The front-line people at the Department of Veterans Affairs are some of the best public servants in the entire country. They do a fantastic job but time and time again we hear that their hands are tied by legislation and they tell us what the government and we in this House have to change in order to make their jobs even easier. This is not a criticism against them.
However, the department will be doing a survey of approximately 217,000 clients and 1,200 will be asked: “What do you think of the service of DVA?”. If people are getting a pension benefit or a VIP benefit from DVA and being well looked after, the response will be very positive. However, what about the thousands upon thousands of veterans and RCMP officers who get turned down for a benefit, who do not get VIP, a pension benefit or anything of that nature? What will their reaction be to a survey by a government department asking their opinion on it?
If the government wants a true reflection on how the department is handling Veterans Affairs, it should expand the discussions to include all those people who are veterans but not necessarily clients of DVA. That would give a true reflection on the department. We know the department does great work with what it has and the resources it has, but we believe that it should be much more for many more people. The men and women who serve our country are our greatest Canadians and we should not be putting them through the cycle of appeal this and appeal that. It is quite mind-boggling the work they have to do to fight and argue for a pensionable benefit.
I will now get back to Bill C-13. We thank the minister for bringing this issue forward. We know it will help a few people but why would the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development not take the opportunity to do more, especially after the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the country that I was born in, the Netherlands, the 60th anniversary of the start-up of the Korean conflict and the 100th anniversary of the navy? It is continuous. We will be having commemorations throughout the country. We commemorated the passing of the last World War I veteran, Mr. John Babcock. The government did a very good job in honouring the unanimous motion in the House of having a significant day in the recognition of all those who served in World War I. I congratulate the government on that. On Vimy Ridge day there was a tremendous ceremony here in Ottawa and across the country. It was truly the right thing to do.
All of us are very good at expressing our views of how we love the veterans and how we can never do enough for them, et cetera, but when the rubber hits the road, in some cases we fall off the road and we end up in the ditch. The fact is that many veterans contact their MPs on a regular basis with their frustration of how they are being dealt with, not just by the department but by the military itself.
We know the military can be a tremendous career for young men and women, or for anyone for that matter, but the problem is that when they take that uniform off, what happens to them? All of a sudden they go through the bureaucratic cycle and it can be intimidating.
I know many World War II and Korean veterans who applied for a benefit at DVA were turned down and they gave up. They did not realize they could appeal or get all this other assistance. They are in their 80s. The government said no, that is it. It is from the old school. It sits there and says that it cannot do anything more, so we try to assist veterans in that regard.
Many people are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. They have been diagnosed from an incident that happened maybe 20 or 30 years ago. It is very difficult for them to go to DVA and indicate that their current problems are related to their service some 30 years ago. If nothing is on their medical file, they have problems trying to prove it.
The government has a clause in the Veterans Charter called benefit of the doubt. I have worked on a lot of cases. I have 10 of them on my desk right now from people across the country. In all the cases I have seen, it is rare to see the benefit of the doubt clause applied. I have yet to see it on my own personal files. I am not saying that it has not happened, but it may have.
If the government truly wanted to help military families and the personnel of the RCMP as well, it would have had our support in an omnibus veterans bill to be more inclusive. If it had done that, it would have had the support and I would have praised the parliamentary secretary from West Nova from the top of Canning and the beautiful view of the Annapolis Valley. I would do that if he had a bill of that nature. He can read this in Hansard. If he ever did that, I would be at the top of Canning Look-off Mountain, praising his name right through the entire valley. Trust me, I have the lungs to do it.
We will support the legislation to the committee stage. At the committee stage, we hope to advance it, change it, move it around a bit and everything else, but it does leave one question. If military members go on maternity leave, they get so much EI payment and the military tops up the balance of it. Why are there two different forms of payment for maternity leave? There should only be one.
Members of Parliament do not pay into employment insurance because we do not get to collect it. However, if military members serve 20 or 25 years and retire, they do not get to collect EI. Once they receive their annuity, they do not have any access to collect it. We need to look at that.
However, I thank the government for this small initiative. We will support it to the committee stage and see where it goes from there.
If the Conservative Government of Canada really wanted to do something for military veterans and their families, all it needs to do is come over and talk to us or talk to veterans themselves and it will get all the ideas it needs.
We salute all the veterans and military personnel in our country.
