Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise on behalf of the NDP to debate the third reading of Bill C-55.
I want to say at the outset that when the bill first came to us in November, we looked at it very carefully and talked to various organizations and individuals, and we gave the minister our private and public support for Bill C-55, on the premise though, and this was a great big but, that the minister and department had told us and the House that further changes were coming.
We welcome this type of dialogue. It is for this reason that I want to personally congratulate the minister for what he surely recognizes, the ongoing concerns our veterans and their families, and RCMP members and their families are facing in this country.
The fact is that Bill C-55 is a short step forward, a minor step forward to be completely honest. We know where the difficulties lie within the Department of Veterans Affairs. We know that we can never ever have enough money to do everything that we wish to do.
However, we can streamline the process. We can make sure that veterans and their families, and RCMP members and their families do not have to go on television to plead their case before the nation, as Major Mark Campbell did just the other day on CTV in Calgary.
Let us think about that. Here is a hero of our country who lost both his legs in Afghanistan, who said very clearly, “I didn't end up this way just so I could earn 25 per cent less than I did before I lost my legs”.
No veteran, especially a disabled veteran, either psychologically or physically, should have to do that. It should be a no-brainer. The department should have immediately sat down with him, assessed his needs and determined exactly what he required to carry on with his life.
On the new veterans charter, let me provide members with a little historical asterisk. I remember the great Jack Stagg, who was probably one of Canada's finest public servants. He helped negotiate the Marshall decision in 1999 regarding Donald Marshall, the aboriginal Canadian. He helped in the creation of Nunavut. Most importantly in my mind, Jack Stagg was instrumental in developing a new veterans charter.
I remember sitting with Jack Stagg, and rest his soul, as he is no longer with us, and the department. They were very clear that the veterans charter might have the odd flaw, but they wanted to change the paradigm of veterans' care from not just giving veterans money and keeping them at home for the rest of their natural lives, but providing them and their families with educational opportunities and providing rehabilitation services where they could become productively employed members of our society.
I say this because many of these veterans are quite young. In fact, if I am not mistaken, our youngest veteran in the country is about 19 years old. I believe our oldest, if I am not mistaken, is about 102 or 103 years old. There is a wide range of veterans in this particular regard.
It is true that it is a challenge within the department to recognize the needs of and assistance required by these various age groups and the various indications of disabilities, psychological, mental or physical they may have and what they require. There is not one policy that fits all.
When the four leaders at that time came back from Holland in 2005 they recognized that the charter was a good thing. It was then passed in this House on the premise that it was a living document, meaning a document that implied that when there were problems and anomalies and errors, they would be corrected and be corrected rather quickly.
Our challenge is that we are now five years into the charter, and Bill C-55 is the first opportunity for change. This opportunity for change is a small step. The government had every opportunity to make a huge step to improve the lives of veterans, RCMP members and their families, but it chose a smaller step.
I do not buy the argument of fiscal restraint. For example, the government can allocate, at the snap of its fingers in an untendered contract, $30 billion for new jet fighters. And do not get me wrong on this, because the CF-18s indeed need to be replaced, but we just do not know if the F-35 is the right type of aircraft. However, if the government can be that aggressive on that type of procurement, then surely to God it could be that aggressive when it comes to helping veterans. Surely to God, veterans should not have to wait years to get a hearing and then when they get to that hearing, their claim is denied. Why are they denied? It because of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board.
I say directly to the minister, and I am glad that he is here, that this is the problem in his department, not the staff. There are 4,000 wonderful people working in the Department of Veterans Affairs, and every day they get up and try to do the very best they can for Canada's heroes.
The problem is the politically appointed Veterans Review and Appeal Board. There are 24 people on that board, which has a budget of $11.5 million. It also has a director general for 24 people, and 19 of them are political appointees, and four of them have some form of military experience and one has some form of medical training, but I do not believe the person is a doctor.
Yet if the veteran, Steve Dornan, of Annapolis Valley has five different cases of medical evidence, and even the federal court has said that the Veterans Review and Appeal Board has no right to declare his medical evidence as not credible, how does a person, without being a doctor, without being trained, without military experience, without RCMP experience, adjudicate cases of veterans and their families?
Mr. Dornan and wife Roseann have been fighting for nine years. They have the medical evidence. The federal court ruled that the medical evidence was credible. Since when do unaccountable people in the VRAB make that decision?
Then we hear from the minister and the department on letter after letter that I have forwarded to them, and we see the benefit of the doubt not being applied in any of the over 600 veterans' cases I have worked on since 1997. That is despite section 39 of the legislation stating quite clearly that the benefit of the doubt has to be applied if there is evidence that the injury or psychological concern may have been caused by military or RCMP duty. I have yet to see that applied.
These people sit in that tower in Charlottetown and make decisions that frustrate the living hell out of these men and women. Steve Dornan should not have to go to the newspapers to get help. Major Campbell should not have had to go before the media to get help.
We all remember Brian Dyck, that great man from Ottawa who did a press conference with the former ombudsman, Pat Stogran. Just before he died from ALS, he said very clearly to all of us, not just to the government but to all Canadians: “My advice to the ministry is if you are not willing to stand behind the troops, feel free to stand in front of them”. Unfortunately, he died.
However, I give the government top marks as it then immediately recognized that military veterans with ALS would then get the coverage they needed. The government did not have to move legislation for that; it was a regulatory change. The government did not need Bill C-55 or to bring something else before us, but it did it immediately. The government has the power and wherewithal to do this.
However, I will say again that veterans should not have to go public to get the help they need. They are our heroes.
We were told by a senior official in committee that Bill C-55 was going to help 3,500 people. That is not true. Research by the Library of Parliament shows that it will only help 500 people over five years. Where the additional veterans will get help is not from the legislated changes in Bill C-55, but in the regulatory changes. We do not need legislation to change regulations.
We heard from the minister, and god love him for it, that this is a $2 billion investment. Again, that is like telling a guy who makes $30,000 a year that he is going to make $1 million over 40 years. We cannot really do that.
I could go and on regarding veterans and their families, but I do thank the minister for moving Bill C-55 forward. However, I encourage the minister and the government to move much faster. If the government can give Christiane Ouimet a half million dollars for not doing her work, then it can turn around and give veterans the money and the programs they need to get back to a normal life.
