Bill C-27 (Historical)

Veterans Hiring Act

An Act to amend the Public Service Employment Act (enhancing hiring opportunities for certain serving and former members of the Canadian Forces)

This enactment amends the Public Service Employment Act to provide increased access to hiring opportunities in the public service for certain serving and former members of the Canadian Forces and to establish a right of appointment, in priority to all other persons, for certain members of the Canadian Forces who are released for medical reasons that the Minister of Veterans Affairs determines are attributable to service.

Speaker's Ruling

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

moved that Bill C-27, An Act to amend the Public Service Employment Act (enhancing hiring opportunities for certain serving and former members of the Canadian Forces), be read the third time and passed.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie.

I will let him know we have five minutes remaining in the time for government orders, so he may want to judge his time accordingly.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to be speaking today on Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act. It is truly an honour to rise today in support of our men and women in uniform, past and present, and to do so just days after Canadians from coast to coast to coast came together in almost record numbers to recognize and honour our nation's heroes on Remembrance Day. If there had ever been any doubt, Canadians made it abundantly clear that they hold our veterans and still-serving members in the highest regard and with the greatest pride and gratitude.

The ceremony in Sault Ste. Marie was a testament to that. It was incredibly well attended on a snowy and blustery day, and I was so very proud to be there as we paid tribute to all of our fallen, including, most recently, Sault Ste. Marie's own Sergeant John Wayne Faught and Master Corporal Scott Vernelli, whom we lost in the war in Afghanistan.

Canadians have also let our military families know that they share in their tragic loss when brave men like Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent and Corporal Nathan Cirillo make the ultimate sacrifice to defend our cherished way of life and the values we hold so dearly. Our nation has lost two of its finest sons, and we will never forget them, especially those of us who were on the Hill that dreadful day. I was one of them, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all security forces, who did an amazing job keeping the entire parliamentary precinct safe that day. It was a mammoth task. I also want to thank my colleagues, who took true leadership roles during the event, and I especially want to thank Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers for his unselfish action in placing his life in jeopardy to save ours.

This is why the legislation before us today is important. Bill C-27 is another way for Canada to demonstrate its steadfast support for the men and women who have always been there for our great country. These men and women include my own father and mother, as well as my two sisters and brother-in-law. Collectively they have provided almost 100 years of service to their country, with my dad leading the way with a 36-year distinguished career in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

It is because of my immediate family's Canadian Armed Forces background that I was so pleased to be appointed to the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. I take great pride in working with members from all parties as we strive to bring forward legislation such as Bill C-27 to better serve our veterans. Members of the committee work very well together, as demonstrated by the unanimous report on the new veterans charter moving forward. I am confident that in time, the government will adopt the 14 recommendations brought forward.

I would like to thank all members of the committee for their hard work. However, I would like to especially thank my colleague from Guelph for his expertise on the committee. I understand that he will not be seeking re-election in 2015, so I would like to thank him for his service to Canada since his election in 2008 and wish him great success moving forward and great quality time with his children, as he will no longer have to live in Ottawa for six months of every year. As much as we all love Ottawa, it is a tremendous strain on our families. We can all attest to that.

Specifically, this legislation is another meaningful way for us to create new opportunities for eligible veterans and still-serving members to continue serving Canada through the federal public service and to ensure that Canada continues to benefit from their skills, training, and can-do spirit. Bill C-27 would do this by giving veterans and still-serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces greater access to rewarding jobs in the federal public service.

First and foremost, it would create a statutory period of entitlement for those eligible men and women who are medically released from the military because of a service-related injury. These deserving men and women would be moved to the front of the hiring line in recognition of their service and sacrifice on behalf of Canada. As the Minister of Veterans Affairs has said, this is the right and honourable thing to do, and all Canadians would be proud of this support for our men and women in uniform.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie will have 15 minutes remaining in his time for his comments on the question when the House next resumes debate on the motion.

The House resumed from November 17 consideration of the motion that Bill C-27, An Act to amend the Public Service Employment Act (enhancing hiring opportunities for certain serving and former members of the Canadian Forces), be read the third time and passed.

Veterans Hiring Act

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie has 15 minutes left for his remarks.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-27, the veterans hiring act, would be another meaningful way for us to create new opportunities for eligible veterans and still-serving members to continue serving Canada through the federal public service. It would do this by giving veterans and still-serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces regular access to rewarding jobs in the federal public service.

First and foremost, it would create a statutory priority entitlement for those eligible men and women who were medically released from the military because of a service-related injury. These deserving men and women would be moved to the front of the hiring line in recognition of their service and sacrifice on behalf of Canada. It would assure us continued access to the talent of these men and women that Canada helped to train and develop in the first place.

I had an opportunity to live a portion of my father's 36-year career for 17 years before leaving home and I was fortunate to witness his exceptional leadership, management, problem solving and public speaking skills to some small extent. My older sister, also in the military, excelled in many areas, including purchasing and asset management, to name but a few. Her husband was an air frame technician for 20 years, while my youngest sister became fluent in the Russian language and used her knowledge to the benefit of Canada in postings to Alert on a couple of occasions.

All of these skills are transferable not only to the private sector but also to the public sector. All of my family transferred to the private sector, with the exception of my father who retired.

As a further testament to the skills learned, I want to provide a quote from Wayne Mac Culloch from the Canadian Association of Veterans in United Nations Peacekeeping. He said: “My own experience highlights the value that disabled veterans continue to be able to contribute to the public service and Canadians. I was medically released from the Canadian Armed Forces for service-related injuries in October 2008. Although I did not enjoy the level of priority being proposed in C-27, I was fortunate to turn my regulatory priority into an intermediate appointment in January 2011 and I have continued to rise in authority, accountability and responsibility. My knowledge, experience, ability to focus on priority issues, analytical excellence and agility in action, accrued through a wide variety of employment, are seen as having particular importance in today's government business operations. Re-engaging with a familiar workplace and pursuing meaningful employment has greatly increased my quality of life, while providing continued value to government and the Canadian public.”

The bottom line is that Bill C-27 would be a win-win for our men and women in uniform, as well as the country they served so proudly.

Of course, the legislation would also build upon our government's extraordinary record of action on behalf of veterans, still-serving members and their families.

In fact, since 2006, our government has invested in a cumulative total of almost $4.7 billion in new funding to enhance veterans' benefits, programs and services.

As the member for Edmonton Centre said during second reading of the bill, our government has been single-minded in doing everything it can to ensure veterans and their families have the care and support they need, when and where they need it. This included implementing the new veterans charter, with its immediate and long-term financial benefits for injured and ill veterans, as well as comprehensive medical, psychosocial and vocational rehabilitation services, health care benefits, mental health services and one-on-one case management for those who required such help.

It also means being there to help veterans with everything from the shovelling of their driveways in the winter and the cutting of their grass in the summer, to assisting them with housekeeping services year-round.

The program is necessary in order for my own mother to continue to live independently. On her behalf, I would like to thank Veterans Affairs and the veterans' independence program for their support. Part of the reasons for these programs are so individuals can live in their homes longer and are not a strain on the system.

In fact, the range of services available to veterans and their families extends from benefits and supports for modern day veterans and their families to long-term care and the funeral and burial program. It also includes our delivering on what all the available research tells us: a successful transition from the military often depends upon finding satisfying and rewarding new employment.

After all, the average age of a member releasing from the Canadian Armed Forces today is 37 years. These young men and women do not just want to start new careers, they also need to find new careers. That is why we have developed a flexible new approach to our vocational rehabilitation services to provide up to $75,800 for eligible veterans to pursue the new training they may need to gain employment when their time in uniform is complete. That is why we contributed $150,000 to the Helmets to Hardhats Canada program, which is helping veterans find good paying jobs in the trades and construction industry. That is why we are actively encouraging employers across the country to place priority on hiring veterans. That is why we are working more closely than ever before with blue-chip partners, like the True Patriot Love Foundation and corporate Canada generally, to find innovative new ways to improve the transition process for veterans and their families.

For business leaders, the military world may seem difficult to understand and a little intimidating. That is why organizations such as True Patriot Love, the Treble Victor Group, Wounded Warriors Canada, and Veterans Affairs provide effective support to help facilitate understanding and to connect talented veterans with employers.

The Canada Company military employment transition, otherwise known as MET, brings together employers and veterans in an online marketplace and provides workshops about military culture, values, and structure in order to supply employers with an understanding of the applicability of military experience to the business world. The impact of MET, founded by Blake Goldring, chair and CEO of AGF Management Limited, can be seen through the experiences and results obtained by both Target Canada and Bell Canada.

Gabriel Granatstein, group manager and senior counsel of employee and labour relations at Target Canada, himself a veteran, secured the active support of senior management to establish Target Canada as a veteran friendly employer. A key step was to invite MET to hold workshops for Target Canada recruiters to help them understand the positive attributes skilled veterans bring to the workplace. Target Canada is now actively recruiting veterans and sponsoring MET workshops for other employers.

Kristine Emmett, vice president of organizational development at Bell, champions the value that veterans bring to Bell's business and sees MET workshops as an excellent means of educating recruiters. Ms. Emmett views MET as a “great business partner” that has helped Bell recruiters better understand the value of hiring veterans and reservists. MET has already conducted two workshops for Bell recruiters, and Ms. Emmett said that the MET program also provides Bell with the opportunity to post jobs on MET's Hot Jobs communication channel, which goes directly out to MET members. Walmart, Cenovus, Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, Queen's University, and CN Rail, all of which are veteran friendly employers.

That is why we introduced this important legislation, Bill C-27, because we are committed to leading by example. The merits of this legislation are well known and they have been repeated often. However, it is important that I remind the House what Bill C-27 proposes to do.

It would move eligible veterans to the front of the line for those jobs they are qualified to fill in the federal public service. This would be achieved by creating a five-year statutory priority entitlement for any members of the Canadian Armed Forces who would be releasing from the military because of a service-related injury or illness. Bill C-27 would also extend the existing priority entitlement period from two years to five years.

In addition, this legislation would create other hiring opportunities for honourably releasing veterans and still-serving members who want to start a new career in the federal public service. For example, if passed, this legislation would permit still-serving military personnel with at least three years of service, as well as veterans who are not employed full time in the public service, to compete for internally advertised positions within the federal public service. This eligibility would continue for a full five years after their honourable release from the Canadian Armed Forces.

Furthermore, Bill C-27 would also establish a hiring preference for veterans applying for externally advertised positions in the federal public service. This means is that if a veteran has been honourably released with at least three years of military service, and is equally qualified for the position at hand, he or she would be given hiring priority over all other eligible applicants.

These measures were designed to recognize that Canadian Armed Forces personnel and veterans who have served for three years have gained enough military knowledge and attributes to make them a clear asset to the federal public service. In addition, three years of military service demonstrates a sufficient commitment to Canada. It is consistent with the minimum commitment required of new recruits. It also demonstrates a real sense of purpose and a willingness to serve on the part of our veterans and still-serving members. At the same time, as others have noted, the five-year hiring preference for veterans would give them sufficient time, if needed, to further upgrade their education and skills before they seek a career in the federal public service.

Let me be very clear. While these measures greatly improve access for veterans and still-serving members to start rewarding new careers in the federal public service, this bill is not a blank cheque. Veterans and still-serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces must still be fully qualified to perform the work for which they are applying. This is an essential point to note. We are committed to building the best, most talented, and most professional public service in the world, and we will never compromise on that.

However, as I noted at the outset, we are also well aware of the experience and expertise our veterans can bring to the workplace. We know that they have the skill sets to succeed at anything they set their minds to, and we want to maintain our own access to this pool of high quality individuals.

The Minister of Veterans Affairs often says that Canada's veterans reflect the very best of what it means to be Canadian. Who would not want to hire them into the positions and jobs they are trained and fully qualified to perform? That is why I am urging all members of the House, through you, Mr. Speaker, to support this important piece of legislation.

I do believe that we will have unanimous support, judging from the work we did on the committee. Here I would like to take this opportunity, once again, to thank my fellow committee members on the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. We do work incredibly well together. We do have the hearts of our veterans in mind. Many of us have a strong military background and are on the committee because we really want to serve our veterans well. This is one piece of legislation that I think would absolutely do that in conjunction with others.

Now, more than ever, let us show our support for every Canadian who has proudly worn our nation's uniform. They deserve every opportunity that we can provide for them. Bill C-27 is a truly worthy piece of legislation whose time has come. Let us make it happen. Please support it and all the fine men and women it is designed to help.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I also want to acknowledge his work at the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.

As far as Bill C-27 is concerned, my conclusion is that it is a good bill, but it needs more work. In committee, we pointed to a few flaws. We also proposed some amendments that the government members did not want to accept.

One major oversight in this bill was that it left out RCMP officers. Many RCMP officers might have operational stress injuries and if those officers had been included in this bill, they might have benefited from it and applied for work in the public service. Unfortunately, the government failed to include them.

Other soldiers were left out, including those with operational stress injuries. Their injuries are related to their service, but they have to wait and turn to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board to reverse the department's decision, which initially did not recognize their service-related injuries.

Unfortunately, the government members did not want to amend the bill to include those people and I would like the hon. member to tell us why.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is correct that we discussed this in committee. Regarding the members of the RCMP specifically, they are members of the public service. Their employer is the Treasury Board and policies for them are devolved by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

We welcome that suggestion. However, we felt it was important to move forward because we do not control that particular policy. We can only control the policy that is applicable to the members this particular legislation is referring to. Maybe that is something the committee can consider at some point.

That being said, I believe that the RCMP is not included as a priority one hiring but within priority five hiring, so there is still a component of this legislation that does include the RCMP. It just does not move injured RCMP personnel right up to the number one priority.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Sault Ste. Marie, as well. On that committee, we are all earnest in our efforts on behalf of veterans but, of course, confined by the limits that a majority government puts upon us.

I would like to ask the member two questions, through you, Mr. Speaker. The first was raised at committee, so the member will not be surprised by it. Some of our veterans suffer from illnesses that do not manifest themselves until much later, especially when it comes to issues relating to mental illness. It can take them past the time limits within which they would otherwise qualify for this program. While they remain entitled to the statutory benefits that the law provides, they are not entitled to priority and hiring. I would like the member to address that.

In addition, I would like him to address the fact that since somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 people are being let go and there is a hiring freeze, how realistic is it that veterans might actually get a job within the federal government?

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, regarding the late manifestations of injuries specifically, I believe that is why the bill is retroactive to 2012. For some of those manifestations that might come two years later, those folks would have an opportunity to start over with respect to their having five years of eligibility. I think that was our thought process with respect to that.

If we look at one of our recommendations on the new veterans charter moving forward, it was to look at what those potential new types of injuries are and how we might deal with them. I believe that was one of the recommendations, so it is partially addressed through that.

With respect to hiring, we did look at a chart that pointed out that about 7.8% of veterans who leave the armed forces will be looking for work. We heard from the Public Service Commission of Canada that there are 8,000 federal public service employees who are leaving and retiring each year. Since 2012, we heard that 2,500 of those employees have been rehired. I think we can assume that there is going to be a rehiring process going on, based on the statistics that we heard. We can also make an assumption in moving forward with the veterans hiring act that priority injured veterans would move to the top of the line.

This is just a great benefit for our injured veterans.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to personally thank the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie. I had the honour of sitting on the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs when I first joined Parliament in 2012. His passion and commitment to the Canadian Forces and our veterans, and his family's service in the Canadian Forces, have been clear to me from the first time I met him, as it has been to all members of the House.

He has raised some of the fundamental reasons why the veterans hiring act is before Parliament. There are groups of Canadians in Canada Company; True Patriot Love; and Treble Victor, a networking group of former men and women of the Canadian Forces and allied services, already doing veteran hiring, networking, and connecting. There are employers across the country hiring veterans not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because it is accretive to the bottom line of the company, because are hiring people with training, loyalty, and the inherent ability to stay on the job and complete tasks.

My question for the member stems from the comments of the member for Guelph, who seems to think that a lot of people might not be hired through this. I would like to ask the member how important it is that one of the largest employers in the country, the Government of Canada, puts as a top priority the hiring of veterans. The symbolism of that action, showing that we are putting veterans as a top priority for hiring and encouraging other employers to do that, is as important as the dozens or several hundred who might be hired as a result of this program. Could the member comment on that?

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Yes, I absolutely can comment, Mr. Speaker. It is incredibly important that we lead by example. A portion of this bill started in what I believe was Bill C-11. It was initiated a couple of years ago. This builds on that bill and makes it a better bill.

If the Government of Canada was not leading by example, it would be pretty two-faced to try to push it on corporate employers.

This bill is long overdue. I am very thankful that we are bringing it forward, and I hope we have the support of all members in the House.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to be speaking to Bill C-27 at report stage, which gives veterans hiring priority in the public service.

First of all, I would like to remind Canadians that it has been a long road for this bill. Bill C-11 was introduced over a year ago. However, the government left out certain details and made some mistakes. As a result, the bill was abandoned and the government came back with Bill C-27, which is being studied today.

This new bill was introduced in response to certain criticisms of a less-than-stellar record concerning our veterans' employment and return to civilian life.

According to certain statistics, between 2006 and 2011, 2,000 veterans took advantage of the hiring priority and 1,024 of them obtained a job in the public service. Of these 1,024 veterans, 739 were hired by National Defence, which makes it the largest employer of veterans. The Department of National Defence tries really hard to hire veterans. Unfortunately, it is the only department that is making a significant effort to hire veterans, since the Department of Veterans Affairs provides the majority of the jobs, or 72%.

At Veterans Affairs, which should be quite open to hiring veterans, the situation is more disastrous. During this same service period, from 2006 to 2011, only 24 veterans managed to be hired by Veterans Affairs, which represents less than 2% of all jobs.

The second largest employer of veterans is Correctional Service Canada, which, in the same five-year period, hired 54 veterans, or 5% of all veterans hired. Not far behind is Human Resources and Skills Development, with 44 veterans hired, or 4% of all hires.

When we look at these figures, we see that few departments are making an effort to hire veterans. Most of the other departments did not hire even one veteran, while a few hired less than 10.

This means that a major change in culture is needed within the public service. I am not sure that this bill will be able to reverse the trend and ensure that many more veterans are hired, especially since so many cuts have been made to the public service in recent years. I think it will be many years before this bill has any effect on the hiring of veterans in the public service.

True to form, the government has introduced a bill that I feel is incomplete. This superficial bill is primarily designed to give the impression that the government is taking the necessary measures to help our veterans transition to civilian life. However, that is not the case. This bill is incomplete because it would have a limited impact, as I mentioned.

We will still support this bill, since in the long term—but not in the short or medium term—this bill will still help our veterans find good jobs and seamlessly transition into civilian life.

In this bill, the government did the bare minimum of what it could have done for our veterans who have been injured in service and are looking to get back into the job market. It can be extremely hard for veterans with disabilities to find suitable jobs.

Not only do veterans have to deal with physical limitations, but some may also face a number of prejudices related to operational stress. They must face many challenges to find a good job once they return to civilian life.

A survey of private-sector employees indicated that it would be essential to improve co-operation with the private sector, since they have very little knowledge of veterans' skills.

Human resources staff do not know how to read the resumés of military applicants. This same survey indicated that, of the 850 employers surveyed, the majority had little or no understanding of veterans' skills. Only 16% of companies make a special effort to hire veterans. Nearly half of employers believe that a university degree is far more important than the skills acquired by military personnel during their time in service, and only 13% of them stated that their human resources departments knew how to interpret the resumés of military applicants.

Given this situation, the government needs to accommodate these veterans and make it easier for them to join the public service. However, it is clear that this alone is simply not enough. The government decided that not all veterans would have access to priority hiring in the public service.

According to this bill, only military personnel who are medically released will have that priority in the public service. That is far too restrictive. It in no way takes into account our veterans who are not granted a medical release, but who, after launching an appeal with the department or the veterans board, are then recognized as having a service-related injury or disability.

Many veterans with physical and psychological symptoms would not be given immediate medical release. They have to appeal to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board to overturn those decisions and acknowledge the link between their injury and their military service. However, even once the board recognizes that, these people would unfortunately not receive hiring priority under this bill.

Unfortunately, the government chose not to include these people in this bill despite the fact that we proposed amendments to include them. The Conservative members of the committee simply decided to reject the amendment. To me, it was a no-brainer to grant hiring priority to that kind of veteran as well. The government just decided to turn its back on them.

Some injuries, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, do not show up until years later and can have a major impact on veterans' work. The Conservatives think that all the veterans have to do is sign up for a transition program and hope to find work that is a good fit with their condition, which is not always easy, especially in the private sector. As I mentioned, too few civilian employers truly recognize veterans' skills. The government's decision not to include them is shameful.

The public service would have been a very appropriate environment for these kinds of veterans. Working conditions and the duty to accommodate would have really helped these veterans maintain suitable, stable, long-term employment in an environment where they could properly adjust to their situation.

Furthermore, the Conservatives changed the definition of “veteran” in the Public Service Employment Act, so as to exclude the spouses of veterans from the preference list for jobs in the public service. This preference for the spouses of veterans, who would come before other Canadian citizens, was offered to the spouses of our Second World War and Korean War veterans.

Why did the government decide to exclude those spouses from the preference list? We might have thought that it was simply an oversight, but the government also refused our amendment that would have corrected the situation. Once again, the Conservatives decided to ignore these entirely reasonable requests.

The government says it wants to help families, but excluding spouses from the preference list is certainly no way to help families. On the one hand, the government accepted the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs regarding families, but on the other hand, its actions go against those principles.

Once again, the government has abandoned veterans. In my opinion, the Conservative members of the committee were never interested in discussing the amendments with other committee members. I will even quote something the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs said when the committee was examining the bill:

...right now obviously the intent is to get this bill through as quickly as possible. With regard to other suggestions and I think wonderful initiatives that you brought forward, we are happy to look at those, moving forward.

He will be happy to look into those suggestions, but he will do it later. He cannot be serious. Once this bill is passed, I doubt we are going to come back and amend it. What a joke. He just said that to get rid of us.

We also unanimously supported the report on the new charter, and we got the same type of response: later. The government said that it would examine the recommendations later, not now. That is nonsense. The Conservatives are not showing any real willingness to do anything that would actually help our veterans. The only amendment they made after the bill was examined in committee was to clarify who would be responsible for establishing the link between the injury and the military service. It is a good thing they did that because the bill was rather vague in that regard when it was introduced. That was also one of the ombudsman's major concerns.

The Conservatives were also unable to conduct a decent examination of this bill because the shooting in Parliament took place on the first day this bill was scheduled to be examined in committee, and the meeting had to be cancelled. Unfortunately, instead of adding another meeting when we returned to work, the Conservatives decided to hold only one committee meeting to examine this bill. We were therefore unable to hear from anyone other than representatives of Veterans Affairs Canada and the Treasury Board. We were unable to meet with veterans groups that could have also presented some amendments and spoken to certain aspects of the bill. In my opinion, the bill was not thoroughly examined.

Some veterans groups had reservations about the bill. A member of the Canadian Association of Veterans in United Nations Peacekeeping said:

I am uncomfortable about the distinction made between service-related and non-service-related causes, and to the lack of recognition for RCMP members.

RCMP officers therefore have the right to be treated in the same way as members of our military. Unfortunately, the government did not want to include them in the bill.

What is more, the veterans ombudsman said the following on his blog:

...all medically releasing [sic] Canadian Armed Forces members should be treated the same way, because there is an inherent service relationship for every Canadian Armed Forces member who is medically released because the individual can no longer serve in uniform.

The Union of National Defence Employees had this to say:

Disabled veterans, especially those with stress-related injuries, who return to the workforce, must have access to reintegration services. Bill C-27 includes no such provision

To come back to the study in committee, unfortunately we were unable to have a meaningful study because the government did not schedule at least one meeting to hear from people who may have also been able to recommend certain changes. As I was saying, no changes, except for one minor one, were approved in committee.

This is a joke. Veterans' representatives should have appeared before the committee as witnesses, but the Conservatives wanted to pass this bill as quickly as possible. I think they have proven time and again that they have nothing but contempt for the legislative process and for Parliament.

As I said at the start, they did the bare minimum. The bill excludes soldiers who have non-service related injuries. It excludes veterans whose injuries are recognized later and it excludes veterans' spouses from the preference list.

The bill also leaves out RCMP officers. Half measures like these are no way to properly honour our veterans.

Mr. Speaker, we are going to support this bill, but we are a bit disappointed with its final draft. As they did with the committee report on the new charter, the Conservatives made promises they did not keep. They take far too long to make good on those promises.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his remarks today and for his service on the Veterans Affairs committee. I sat with him for some time and appreciated his work on the file.

He used debate on the veterans hiring act to, unfortunately, launch into a bit of a political attack, sadly, on a day when one of the findings in the Auditor General's report is that one part of Veterans Affairs that is working very well is rehabilitation and vocational assistance for injured members. There are 4,600 veterans within this program with mental health injuries, something that has been talked a lot about today.

The department has a goal of hitting 80% of cases being processed within a two-week standard to help veterans get rehabilitation and vocational retraining support for their transition to civilian life. It is actually exceeding that target. The Auditor General said that 84% are being assessed for vocational support and help with the transition to their new civilian lives within that two-week window.

I am sure that the member, as a member of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, has read this section of the Auditor General's report. Does he not think that since we are doing a good job on the rehabilitation and vocational end that this hiring act would also provide an opportunity for people to find opportunities in the public sector?

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. I will first answer the question he asked at the very end, and then I will come back to his other comments.

This definitely can help veterans but, as I mentioned, not in the short term or the medium term. With all the cuts made in the past few years, and those still to come, I find it hard to see how we can help veterans in the short term, since the public service has been gutted.

Of course there will be new hiring processes in the medium to long term. At that time, veterans will indeed be able to rely on the hiring priority to find a job in the public service. Furthermore, being aware of the hiring priority, they can find a new career and perhaps even learn new skills before the five-year deadline.

The parliamentary secretary spoke about the Auditor General's report. Unfortunately, we are looking at it through rose-coloured glasses, as it is a damning report for the government with respect to several issues concerning veterans. In particular, it mentions wait times that are far too long because about 1,000 positions have been cut at Veterans Affairs Canada in recent years. Consequently, the processing of veterans' cases takes much too long, and veterans do not receive the services to which they are entitled in a timely manner.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the member from the Conservative Party would stand and challenge the member from the NDP who just spoke and suggest that he was politicizing this debate by talking about how little may have been done and then would do the very same thing himself by highlighting one very tiny pebble of congratulations the Auditor General may have extended to the government, among a mountain of criticism about the failure of the government to properly and in a timely way provide mental health services to the most needy veterans, those suffering from mental health conditions. Let us put this in perspective.

Having said that, I had the opportunity to be at Wainwright for four or five days and then on the HMCS St. John's for four or five days, and I can say that our service men and women, both at Wainwright in the military and in the navy on the HMCS St. John's, have incredible skills that could be translated into the private sector.

One of the things I asked the government to do was invest in a proper skills translator, instead of just offering people jobs that really do not exist, because of the hiring freeze, and find ways to identify people's skills and move them into the private sector. However, it did not want to do that. It is just another incident that suggests that this is all window dressing.

I am wondering if the hon. member can comment on that.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and for the work he does on the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. He is a huge asset to that committee. When this bill was being studied, he proposed several amendments that were rejected out of hand.

My colleague is correct. The government is all smoke and mirrors when it comes to veterans affairs. For months, it repeated that it had invested $5 billion to help veterans since it came to power, even though that was untrue. It was $4 billion, since $1 billion was diverted and returned to the treasury. We could have used some of that money to hire staff to help veterans or military members who are struggling with service-related mental health problems.

The National Defence and Canadian Forces Ombudsman mentioned many times in previous reports that about 100 medical employees were needed to help people struggling with mental health problems. However, as we are seeing today, the government simply said that it would accept the recommendations in the report, but then it turned a blind eye to the issue. The government simply looks the other way and avoids the problems.

The government has shown in many ways that it has no regard for the mental health of veterans and it is not interested in helping them deal with this issue . The Auditor General's report today made it very clear that the way this government treats veterans is absolutely disgusting.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the outstanding work he has done on this issue and as part of the committee.

In drafting this bill, the government did not consider putting the entitlement period on hold while the veteran is going through the appeal process.

What kinds of problems will that pose for our veterans?

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her very relevant question. The entitlement period is one of the many issues with this bill.

Some military personnel who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder are not immediately recognized as having a service-related injury. They are not granted the right release status when they return to civilian life. Sometimes, they have to launch an appeal with the veterans board so that their injuries are recognized as being directly related to their service.

When it take veterans two or three years to obtain that decision from the board, in very rare cases, they can go back to see the national defence minister, who can amend the reason for release. If it takes three or four years for the reason for release to be changed, there is only one year, maybe two, left in the priority hiring period. That can cause problems. The veteran is at a disadvantage because his or her entitlement period is shorter than that of veterans whose injuries were immediately recognized upon release.

It is shameful that there was absolutely no desire to change that in committee. These people will have only one year or two to take advantage of their priority job placement in the public service, if they need it.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with the consent of the House, I would like to share my time with the member for Random—Burin—St. George's.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Does the hon. member have consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the most substantial efforts we can make on behalf of our veterans is to help them find a career when they are released, medically or voluntarily, from the Canadian Forces. This bill might do this, though even if it does, I am afraid it likely will not be enough.

This bill amends the Public Service Employment Act to increase access to hiring opportunities in the public service for certain serving and former members of the Canadian Armed Forces. Furthermore, and perhaps more notably, this legislation would establish a right of appointment and priority over all other persons for certain members of the Canadian Forces who were released for medical reasons that were attributable to service. If members of the Canadian Armed Forces were released due to service-related injuries or illness, their priority in the public service hiring would move from fourth to first. Access to internal postings of the public service and priority over all others for external postings would be extended to Canadian Armed Forces members and veterans who had served at least three years and were honourably released.

It is one thing to have priority for jobs in the public service, but it would remain contingent on possessing the skills that match any number of the public service jobs that exist. It would rely on there being positions available in the first place.

There is nothing in this bill that offers any form of skills translation or upgrading. Also, with the freeze on hiring, what jobs are Conservatives proposing these veterans fill? With 50,000 fewer jobs and a freeze on new hiring not many jobs are really available to recently or medically released veterans.

Officials from Veterans Affairs Canada noted that where issues arise, they involve certain groups of veterans: younger veterans, those with fewer years of service, those in the lower ranks, and those medically or involuntarily released.

The unemployment rate for veterans is more or less the same as the general Canadian unemployment rate, about 8%. That said, the unemployment rate for medically released veterans is much higher, at approximately 15%.

Beyond potential incapacity, there is the additional hurdle of seriously injured veterans who may be unlikely to find employment in line with their initial goals. Injury dashes a lot of those dreams. It is a long and often endless road from recovery to rehabilitation, and finally, to employment. This bill neither shortens this road nor hastens the completion of their efforts.

The government cannot look a wounded soldier in the eye and point to this bill as an example of what a good job they are doing if, when that man or woman is ready to re-enter the workplace, that person is then told that there is no vacancy, that a hiring freeze is in place, and that the time in the Canadian Armed Forces really did not prepare him or her for a career in the public service.

Realistically, this bill is anathema to Conservatives. They do not believe that the government has any role in veterans' affairs, career transition, or rehabilitation. First and foremost, Conservatives have cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Veterans Affairs Canada, $1 billion really, tying the hands of the department when it comes to delivering the benefits and supports veterans rely on.

Now add the egregious closure of nine regional Veterans Affairs offices, often in more remote places, like Brandon, Manitoba, and Sydney, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton, making it more difficult for veterans to access these benefits and services in their communities. It is unconscionable that veterans, some of them seniors, might have to drive hours outside of their communities to receive face-to-face help.

Conservatives have claimed that veterans can still attend nearby Service Canada centres for services, but front-line staff at Service Canada are not trained to specifically help veterans, and caseworkers are currently burdened with a 40-to-1 caseload ratio.

The government would like Canadians to think they are doing a great job with veterans hiring. They spent millions of dollars advertising the career transition services in prime time playoff slots. I say millions, because among the only new spending in this year's Veterans Affairs estimates is $4 million for advertising, a new and exclusive line item. I say millions, because despite my requests to the minister, his political staff, and his departmental officials, I cannot get an answer as to how much money they are spending on their advertising, precisely.

Had the minister accepted the committee's invitation to testify on this bill, I might have asked him how many veterans currently have access to priority hiring, how many more will have access with the changes made, and how many positions are in fact available to these veterans.

I might also have asked him about concerns expressed by the Veterans Ombudsman, Guy Parent, who, early on, questioned the adjudication of a releasing Canadian Armed Forces member's file to determine if the medical release was service-related.

This will be important in determining whether the member has a statutory or a regulatory priority, or, in effect, whether the priority will be for internal or external postings. This is unclear in the legislation, and I fear it has become a little more complicated since the amendments proposed by the government at committee. Initially the legislation held that the priority for appointment over all others was given to:

... a person who was released from the Canadian Forces for medical reasons that are attributable to service, who belongs to a class determined by the Commission and who meets the requirements established by the Commission.

Upon amendment, the section I quoted changes the priority to be given to:

a person who was released from the Canadian Forces for medical reasons that the Minister of Veterans Affairs determines are attributable to service

We know who adjudicates the files now, but I cannot believe that leaving it to the discretion to the minister was the sort of clarity the ombudsman was looking for. We must remember that this is a government that continually insists that it will not release soldiers before they are ready, but has repeatedly and abruptly ended the careers of injured soldiers who have asked to be kept on.

Finally, I would have asked the minister why his legislation would impose a five-year limit for priority hiring. For starters, the government is not hiring right now. Anyone who applies once this legislation goes into effect is racing against the clock for the government to lift its hiring freeze.

More importantly, the government is putting a five-year time limit on rehabilitation and then on finding a job, which does not take into account potential relapses of injuries at a later date or a later manifestation of an injury that may not be present immediately upon release. I am reliably informed that many still have an avenue to benefits, but no opportunity for employment. It is important that they be eligible to be employed, notwithstanding that they have access to the other regulatory benefits and at a time surpassing the five-year limit.

We are always responsible for those who were so willing to make sacrifices on our behalf, yet somehow the government feels that it has a limited responsibility for these brave men and women's unlimited liability.

The minister would have us believe that veterans, if healthy, will just move on to a career in security or policing, but that is not true. There are veterans like Sergeant Bjarne Nielsen, who wants to be a financial planner, or Corporal Mark Fuchko, who wants to be a lawyer. They do not need a government that dangles weak and ineffective legislation before them in place of real, effective action.

We all just returned from Remembrance Day ceremonies in our ridings a few weeks back. Thousands of celebrations were held across the country, celebrations made perhaps more meaningful by the sacrifice of two brave members of the Canadian Armed Forces here in Canada at a time when they never would have expected to face threats or danger. We have all just returned from looking into the faces of generations of Canadians who served this country with honour, dignity, and professionalism.

To our veterans we owe a sacred obligation. When they and their families agreed to make sacrifices for the well-being of Canada and Canadians, we committed to their well-being and the well-being of their families, and in that commitment lies the necessity to take care of them no matter what.

I truly hope that this legislation will create positions for veterans. Even if it helps one veteran, we should and must support it. The Liberal Party will support it. However, members should not be mistaken: this is a weak, inefficient, and disappointing bill put forward by a minister and a government that have confirmed time after time that they would rather look good than do anything meaningful to help our servicemen and women and their families.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, the member said he is going to support the bill, but then spoke on a range of other issues.

He spoke again about the closure of the veterans service offices, which were administrative points of contact but provided no benefits or actual programs to veterans.

In my area of Ontario, the Durham region, there are about 500,000 people, and we have never had one of those veterans affairs offices. The majority of the work done for our veterans has been done by the Legion's veterans service officers, who report in through their district officer right to Veterans Affairs Canada.

I would like to ask that member how veterans in the wider Guelph area have been served over the last several decades. Have they had a veterans affairs office in their community, or have they, for 50 years or so, used veterans service officers from the Legion?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to speak on behalf of all Canadians and not just those who are in Guelph.

Yes, the member is quite right that veterans have used the services of Legion members in Guelph, but I have also been to Brandon and talked to veterans there who are completely discouraged by the closure of the veterans office in Brandon. They now have to drive for hours to Winnipeg. We are talking about older veterans. We are talking about veterans who need immediate access to the workers who had expert knowledge of what services were available when they were with Veterans Affairs Canada in those veterans offices.

Now a lot of them have to go to Service Canada and see people who are, frankly, not qualified to answer the questions that veterans ask. This is the experience not just of people in Brandon, but of people on Cape Breton Island and around seven other veterans offices across this country that have been closed.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I did hear the member and I did read the bill.

I would like to ask him a question about the five-year period that veterans are given to find a job. Veterans who want to get training and go to university need four years if they begin their studies the moment they put their names on the list for a job. However, if a program requires a master's degree—the federal public service wants skilled workers with suitable training—is that five-year period not too short?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member from the official opposition for that question. That is exactly the point that was raised by the NDP and the Liberals at committee: the window is not broad enough to capture those people who may wish to retrain. Interestingly, no part of the bill actually provides for the retraining to qualify for a job that may be available. The question was asked and debated, but it was refused by the government.

As well, that is not to mention those people whose service injuries may manifest themselves at a time after one might otherwise qualify to find a job within the scope of this legislation. We asked for an amendment to remove the restriction of five years, but because the current government is all hat and no cattle, it was “No, sorry.”

Not one amendment was accepted. It happens all the time, and time after time. Every single time a good idea is presented, even when we are supporting the bill, it is rejected by the Conservative government.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of a measure that would provide support for the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces and Canadian veterans, to whom we owe so much. My concern is that while Bill C-27 may provide support for a small number of service members and veterans, it would not do nearly enough.

Bill C-27 is designed to amend the Public Service Employment Act to provide increased access to hiring opportunities in the public service for certain current and former members of the Canadian Armed Forces. In Random—Burin—St. George's, over 700 men and women are serving in all branches of the military, and it is those young men and women and the repercussions of the experiences they have that I think about whenever we talk about veterans or going to war.

The proposed legislation in Bill C-27 would ensure priority is given to Canadian Armed Forces members who are released because of service-related illness or injury, and would extend eligibility to reservists and Canadian Rangers.

Bill C-27 would also provide increased access to internal public service postings for eligible members and veterans and increase their period of eligibility. This all sounds very good. We can all agree these changes are indeed positive steps.

However, what they are not is a substitute for a real plan to ease the transition of service members and veterans into civilian employment. The government can and must do more to assist veterans in finding work following their military service. Unfortunately, nothing in Bill C-27 actually ensures that veterans will get jobs.

We know that helping veterans find jobs is a crucial step in their return to civilian life and well-being upon release from the military. Under normal circumstances, placing injured veterans at the head of the civil service hiring line and increasing access for veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces would be considered a valuable commitment and something to be applauded. In this instance, however, the promise is being made by a government that has already cut 20,000 public service jobs and is on track to cut 30,000 more.

Regrettably, Bill C-27 appears poised to have little impact on the day-to-day lives of the majority of Canadian veterans. In the words of Jerry Kovacs, a director with Canadian Veterans Advocacy, “In theory, it's a good bill. ... Initiatives to hire veterans are good initiatives. [But] if there are no jobs, how can there be any priority hiring? So it's kind of a hollow promise."

After years of cuts and hiring freezes, there are fewer civil service jobs for veterans to fill than ever before. Bill C-27 would do nothing for veterans who may be too ill or too injured to work.

In his recent report, Guy Parent, the Veterans Ombudsman, stated that “Severely impaired Veterans can face a lifetime of loss of employment and career progression opportunities.” Simply put, even injured veterans who are already entitled to government assistance are not receiving it. The Veterans Ombudsman's report indicated that nearly half of the country's most severely disabled ex-soldiers are not receiving a government allowance intended to compensate them for their physical and mental wounds. The ombudsman also concluded that many of those who are receiving the permanent impairment allowance are only being awarded the lowest grade of the benefit, which is the minimum amount.

The federal government also has an obligation to assist injured and ill veterans to find jobs when they are released from the Canadian Armed Forces, but Bill C-27 should not replace the government's responsibility to help injured CAF members stay in the forces when that is their wish.

Furthermore, there is a genuine concern that soldiers may hide health problems so that they will not lose their income. The Conservative government must do everything it can to ensure Canadian Armed Forces personnel suffering from physical and mental injuries need not fear being set adrift and having to keep their wounds secret in order to qualify for their pensions.

Recently released government statistics show that approximately 1,100 of the 6,200 soldiers discharged because of health conditions since 2009 were unable to serve the 10-year minimum required to collect a full pension.

Under the existing policy, many Canadian Armed Forces personnel face the dilemma of having to choose between risking their physical and mental health or risking their financial future. Soldiers suffering from PTSD and other ailments can either avoid seeking help in the hope of making it to pension eligibility, or seek necessary care and risk losing their pensions. Bill C-27 is clearly just the latest example of the Conservative government attempting to hide its inaction on the many issues affecting CAF members and veterans today. The Conservatives boast how much they support our soldiers and care about veterans and their families, but the facts show otherwise. Shamefully, the Conservative government continues to abdicate its responsibility to care for Canadian veterans.

A few months ago the Minister of Veterans Affairs called into question the social and legal responsibility Canada has for its soldiers. On at least two separate occasions since then, the Minister of Veterans Affairs has literally turned his back on veterans and their families who have come to Ottawa to voice their concerns about the lack of respect and support they have been receiving from the Conservative government. When it closed nine regional Veterans Affairs offices throughout the country, including one in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, and committed to eliminating 781 jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs by 2014-15, it claimed it was doing so in an attempt to cut costs. Meanwhile the Conservative government continues to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on partisan advertising while neglecting Canada's veterans. Then, at the last minute, when it knows the Auditor General's report is coming out, it comes out with a pot of goodies that we know are promises and only promises.

In his report today, the Auditor General concluded that Veterans Affairs is largely unconcerned with how well veterans are being served and whether programs are making a difference in their lives. While $1.13 billion in funding for veterans having gone unspent since the Conservative government took power, veterans have been forced to wait months for the mental health services they so desperately need. According to the Auditor General's report, about 15,000 veterans and serving military personnel were eligible to receive health support from Veterans Affairs through the disability benefits program at the end of last March. The number is expected to increase as more veterans of the Afghanistan campaign leave the military for civilian life in the coming years.

Over the past decade, 160 Canadian Armed Forces members have died by suicide, and 158 died serving in Afghanistan. Many more continue to struggle with mental health issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. The Auditor General's report confirms what Liberals have long maintained, that the Conservative government simply is not doing enough to help our veterans and their families who have sacrificed so much for their country. They have put their lives on the line and some have made the ultimate sacrifice, yet we are not there for them in the way they need us to be.

As Canadians we owe a debt of gratitude to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and their families. They require assistance in so many ways. Unfortunately, because the Conservatives are refusing to respond to the needs of our veterans, the latter are being forced to mobilize in a variety of ways to get their message out about how unfairly they are being treated. Bill C-27 does very little to address a much larger problem. This bill is a step in the right direction, as my colleague has said, but there is much that still needs to be done. It is time for the government to start treating our veterans and their families with the respect they have earned and deserve from those of us who get to live a much better life, and those throughout the world who get to live under better circumstances because of their efforts. This begins by listening to the concerns being raised by those who have already sacrificed so much, instead of ignoring them when they reach out for help, which unfortunately the Conservative government continues to do.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Random—Burin—St. George's for her remarks. One of the highlights of my time sailing aboard HMCS St. John's was travelling with Lieutenant Governor House and his wife on an outport visit through the member's riding, including small communities like Francois and some really charming parts of Canada. There are some wonderful people in her riding.

I will ask her the same question I asked her colleague from Guelph. Do veterans, whether traditional war veterans or newer veterans, who after active service return to Stephenville or Marystown or some of the smaller communities in her riding, use a bricks and mortar Veterans Affairs office or do they receive support mainly from veteran service officers at Legions in many of those towns?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, if colleague has been in Francois, McCallum, and La Poile, he has indeed been in my riding, which is one of the most beautiful parts of the country. It is also a riding where we have many men and women involved in the military, who do so much to represent Canada in fighting wars abroad.

The veterans in Random—Burin—St. George's avail themselves of whatever services are available to them, whether in a building, through other services, or whether they try to use the Internet. A lot of them of course do not use the Internet, and when they return to rural communities it is much easier if there is a short drive. A short drive, for instance, is to go from a small community like Stephenville, or Stephenville Crossing, to Corner Brook. The Conservatives have now closed that office in Corner Brook, so for any of those veterans, it is now at least a three-and-a-half hour drive to St. John's to be able to have the same service they could have received before the government closed the office in Corner Brook.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

As she pointed out—as we all pointed out—we cannot do enough for our veterans to honour their service to the nation.

There is a major problem with how this bill treats veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Specifically, there is a problem with the administrative delay in responding to veterans who have experienced such trauma, and this bill does very little about it.

What does my colleague think of that?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question and her recognition of how serious this issue is with respect to those who served in the military and returned suffering from PTSD.

There should not be a window. The service should be available to a veteran whenever it is determined that they need the services. As my colleague has said, in a lot of cases it may not even present itself very soon after the veteran returns home. Therefore, to put a timeframe in place in which they have to work is really unfair, which again points to the lack of support for our veterans. Our veterans need to be able to avail themselves of whatever services are available to them, as our way of thanking them for the sacrifices they have made on behalf of Canadians.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the member is a very strong advocate for her community on a wide variety of issues. She is obviously very passionate about our veterans.

She makes reference to the offices that have been closed. At the same time, we find out the government has held back spending money for veterans to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Could the member provide comment?

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the my colleague for his question because we find it almost unbelievable that this could happen to our veterans. These veterans have given so much and could use so much more support in recognition of the sacrifices they have made, yet the government has turned around and not used funding that had been there specifically to help our veterans. Instead, they let it go back to the treasury to be used for other purposes, including partisan advertising, which should never, ever be done on the backs of those who are most vulnerable, including our veterans.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for York South—Weston regarding housing and the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands regarding the environment.

Resuming debate, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, to be honest with the House, I was not at first going to rise to debate Bill C-11 because I spoke at second reading on this bill. However, I stayed after question period to hear how much discussion of veterans hiring and the veterans hiring act there would be. Because so many members of the House chose to say quietly that they were going to support the bill, but then used it to talk about a range of other issues, I decided to speak yet again.

It is always an honour for me to speak in the House on issues related to the Canadian Forces and our veterans, and particularly to try to raise the level of debate, to try to bring some statistics and facts to bear on it, as well as to highlight some of the amazing work being done by non-governmental actors in both the rehabilitation and particularly the retraining and employment of our veterans. I did that at second reading, highlighting some exceptional Canadian leaders in that regard. I will do a bit more of that today.

Going back to Bill C-11, as I said in my previous speech in the House, this has an important impact on a small number of veterans, but perhaps more importantly, it is massively symbolic, as the Canadian government is one of the largest employers, if not the largest employer, in the country. Bill C-11 states that after three years of honourable service in the Canadian Forces, people who transition out of the forces and become veterans will have priority one hiring in the rest of the civil service for a five-year period. We have heard some members of this House state that they still have to qualify for the position; of course they do. Veterans who leave the Canadian Forces, when they hang up their uniform, have an amazing range of skills and experience.

In fact, last night after I appeared on a panel and tried desperately for the second time to explain how the estimates process in the House works to my friend from Guelph, a retired Canadian Forces captain from Chester, Nova Scotia, emailed me to say he shared my frustration with the lack of uptake with my friends. He told his story to me of how he served for several years in the Canadian Forces and then transitioned to 20-plus years as a foreign service officer for Canada. Certainly, it has been the experience, from the Great War right through to today, that we have seen a lot of citizen soldiers, and soldiers who become corporate leaders and productive business owners and entrepreneurs. It is up to the veterans to qualify for positions, but they will get priority one hiring, meaning that if there are several eligible candidates, veterans with service-related injuries would get the priority hiring.

It is important to see who could be impacted by this because it is not a couple of people, as some of my colleagues in this debate have suggested. There are about 4,000 men and women who release from the Canadian Forces each year. The majority of those are regular retirements or completions of service contracts. When I left after 12 years, I would have been among the several thousand people that year to transition out. However, there are over 1,200 members of all ranks who leave because of medical release. That could be everything from those who have had an injury right through to those whose medical category might have changed, like a pilot's vision declining before getting his or her wings. Twelve hundred is a big number, and the vast majority of those would have post-secondary education, because now both non-commissioned members of the Canadian Forces and officers tend to have at least a college or a bachelor's degree. In some of the specialized trades within the Canadian Forces, the members have some of the most cutting-edge training in technology, intelligence-gathering, communications, and signals. These are in-demand services also used by other departments within the government. Many of them would also be bilingual, having either joined the Canadian Forces with a bilingual background or received training over the course of their time in uniform, therefore making them even stronger candidates for some of the work with the federal government.

The bill puts a five-year timeframe on it because that is an appropriate timeframe for the priority hiring. That five-year period would allow that veteran to accept the training or vocational support as part of their retirement or departure from the Canadian Forces. They would be able to educate, potentially move back to their place of enrolment or place in Canada, and that period gives them that chance.

I am proud that our government has dramatically increased what a veteran can get in terms of retraining and education assistance. There are higher numbers of education assistance while they are in uniform in the Canadian Forces and there is more outside. In fact, the total envelope that an individual veteran could get, depending on their background, their time in and what courses they take, is in the tens of thousands of dollars of that retraining and re-education assistance. This would be accomplished within those first five years and that would be the period of time that priority hiring would be held for that veteran.

Now I will talk a bit about some of the other items people have addressed in the debate today to show that overall our government is making tremendous strides, particularly on the transition of men and women from uniform in the Canadian Forces to civilian life as a veteran.

In fact, one of the things the Auditor General's report from today highlights is that our government has invested heavily with Veterans Affairs and is working and meeting its objectives in rehabilitation and vocational assistance.

One of my friends in the House suggested that was focusing on a small in the Auditor General's audit on veterans mental health. No, that was one of the two major categories at which the auditor looked. He looked at 4,600 veterans with a mental health condition of some sort. The department's goal was to ensure that veterans could qualify for this rehabilitation and vocational assistance. The goal was 80% to qualify and be on the program within two weeks within the department. The Auditor General showed that 84% were getting on to that program within the two week goal.

In the case of rehabilitation and vocational assistance, this is directly germane to this debate because it is about transitioning and allowing veterans to get the education or training to become a priority hire of the federal government, or a great hire for the private sector. The Auditor General is saying that we are getting that pretty much right. As a veteran, I would love to see 100% within two weeks. We should always strive to do a little better, but in the House, we should also strive to actually look at a report that comes out like this.

It is important, because we asked the Auditor General to look at mental health. We wanted to see where we were doing well and where we had to improve, because we are investing heavily. The Auditor General suggested $500 million each year earmarked specifically for mental health support.

On the weekend, there was a new announcement about even more money, but it is also about performance and whether that money is making the intended impact. That is why our government asked the Auditor General to look at this area. That is important context.

Another thing about the Auditor General's report that I take as a good indication is some of the statistics. The big one shows that we are finally addressing the issue of stigma, which haunts mental health, not just in the veterans community, but the mental health discussion across the country. Stigma affects the ability of somebody to come forward and ask for help.

I have spoken in the House before about the MP from my riding 100 years ago, Sam Sharpe, who served at Vimy as a sitting MP and took his own life on return from World War I at the Royal Victoria Hospital from shell shock. We have not been dealing well throughout our history with post traumatic stress, with mental illness as a result of service. We still have a way to go, but we are getting better.

What did the Auditor General say?

Ten years ago, there were only about 2% who would identify as a medically-released veteran with a mental health injury. Now, it is 12%. There has been a 10% increase. Some of that would be attributable to the fact that we were engaged in a combat mission in Afghanistan, certainly, but I think all members, and certainly any advocates in the mental health community, would also say that the reason we are seeing that higher number over such a short period of time is we are finally getting to the stigma issue and more Canadians are willing to come forward to seek treatment, some of which is innovative and can really help them get back to leading a fully productive life as not just a soldier but as a father or a mother. Getting rid of that stigma allows them to get the support quicker.

I read in the news the other day about a veteran who was concerned that he went undiagnosed from his tour in Bosnia years ago. That is likely because the Canadian Forces, and really society 20 years ago, was not doing well in this area. The first operational stress injury clinic for the Canadian Forces was not opened until 2002. There were two, perhaps a third almost opened under the previous government. We have opened an additional 12 to 14 in that time. On the weekend, we that a new one would open in Halifax and satellite offices in another seven communities, bringing the total up to 25, to spread that operational stress injury clinic network across the country. Therefore, when men and women leave the Canadian Forces, they have support regardless of where they live.

The Auditor General has shown that more Canadians are coming forward to get the help they need. That training and educational assistance, which I said numbers in tens of thousands of dollars, can help them retrain and be ready for an opportunity in the federal public service as a priority one hire under the veterans hiring act, BillC-11, or within the private sector.

I would like to showcase some of the leadership going on across the country when it comes to hiring our veterans.

Non-profit charitable groups like Canada Company has a hiring program with employers, engaging them, reaching out to veterans and trying to plug them into opportunities. Someone I served in the military with, Walter Moniz, works diligently on that program for Canada Company, and I would like to thank Blake Goldring for starting Canada Company and this program on hiring and transition for our veterans.

True Patriot Love, a charity that I had been involved in forming prior to my time in Parliament, hosted a conference called “From Battlefield to Boardroom”, It was focused at human resources leaders within companies so they could learn about the value of hiring a veteran and learn what the difference between a corporal and a colonel was. This is self-evident when one is in uniform, but it is not as evident to civilian employers or an HR department if they have no familiarity with military service and the experience that those Canadians would have. At that “From Battlefield to Boardroom” conference were veterans who secured jobs when employers realized what a tremendous opportunity they were for their company.

Finally, I have also spoken in the House on a few occasions about a really exceptional group called Treble Victor. That is a group of former military members, not just from the Canadian Forces but also from our allied forces. There are some British, French, and South African veterans who are volunteers. They served some time in uniform and now want to help men and women leave and transition into meaningful post-CF employment. These people have busy careers and lives but volunteer their time to meet with employers and to mentor the men and women of the Canadian Forces transitioning

I have had the good fortune of working with Treble Victor for many years and want to applaud it on its efforts, again. Tim Patriquin is the current head of Treble Victor, and I want to thank them for their work.

I should also add that one of the carpenters' unions and its members have also done a tremendous job in reaching out directly. I have met some of their leadership who are reaching out and giving opportunities within the skilled trades.

With all of these groups, such as non-governmental operators, charities and people volunteering their time, is it not important that the government shows that it is also putting the hiring of veterans as a priority? I think I said at second reading that whether Bill C-11 hires 10 people or 100 people, the symbolism of it is as important as the men and women who may benefit from it. It shows that the federal government, as one of the largest employers in the country with coast to coast reach, puts a priority on hiring our veterans, particularly those who exit as a result of an injury or a medical category change of some sort. The federal government has the obligation to show leadership on this front, and Bill C-11 is the embodiment of this.

I would like to return to a subject that I have spoken about several times in the House and that, sadly, has become so politicized we cannot even have an honest debate about it, which is the nine regional Veterans Affairs bricks and mortar offices that were closed. I asked the members for Guelph and Random—Burin—St. George's if veterans in their ridings used a bricks and mortar office. I would invite Canadians to check Hansard. They will see the members did not answer that question.

In fact, while I was on a political panel with the defence critic from the Liberal Party, I suggested the Legion played an important role in helping veterans access their benefits and services. I was mocked for that position. I think she said something like I was outsourcing to the Legion. The Legion, which was created in 1925 and in 1926 became incorporated by a special act of Parliament in the House, was empowered from its start to help support our veterans.

There is actually no better network of people helping our veterans than Legion veterans service officers. They have done it for generations. That is the real answer to the question that my friend from Random—Burin—St. George's did not want answer. In small communities like Stephenville and Marystown in her riding, there was never a bricks and mortar office. Were the veterans not helped or ignored for 50 years? No. In the vast majority of cases, they were helped by their veterans service officers, who have a direct link into Veterans Affairs Canada.

In the Auditor General's report today, the Auditor General asked some of the veterans service officers their thoughts on some of the cumbersome administrative forms used in their help with veterans. The Auditor General asked the Legion about how we could maybe make some of these administrative forms and the delays from them shorter. Our Conservative government already moved on that to reduce the application from seven pages to three, or something like that. The Auditor General went back to veterans service officers from the Legion to once again ask if the changes had been beneficial. It is in his report.

This is the issue that we do not talk about in a rational way. Our government has the obligation to provide support and access to that support for veterans who are in their late 20s from Afghanistan to veterans in their 90s, some of whom are in Italy right now, visiting Ortona and the places that they helped to liberate. We have to do that, not by staying put with the way things were done in the 1950s. As a veteran, it is important for us to do what we are doing, opening 18 to 25 operational stress injury clinics across the country that actually deliver services. We are not doing things in a way that involves only eight or nine people walking into an office to fill in forms.

I hope the veterans hiring act is not just an opportunity to revisit why it is so important for the federal government to lead in this category and this issue. I hope it is a good opportunity for all members of the House to try to bring a much more informed and dedicated debate to the House when it comes to veterans.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for his speech.

Since he raised the issue of honesty, I would ask him to be honest in the context of the debate we are having right now.

Unfortunately, following the events of October 22, the Conservatives refused to change the schedule of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, which has prevented the committee from hearing from some individuals directly involved, specifically, some veterans' groups and representatives of the public service union.

I wonder if the parliamentary secretary can tell me why the Conservatives have been so inflexible and why—there is no denying it—they refused to have a truly open debate on an issue as important as this.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when I was on the veterans affairs committee, we heard regularly from witnesses. There were extensive consultations done in the review by the committee on the new veterans charter, and I applaud their unanimous decisions.

Many of the groups involved in transition, involved in the issues related to Bill C-11, actually appeared before that committee. Many of the NATO veterans, and the Legion veterans transition program, appeared, and that input was taken.

I am glad that the member mentioned the Public Service Alliance of Canada union. In fact, the only negative comments about Bill C-11 that I have been able to find were from the public sector union. What is unfortunate is that it was also the one to craft the debate on the regional offices.

At its first press conference, in October of last year, I attended that meeting. Mr. Clarke, from Sydney, said that he wanted to make sure that someone in his Service Canada office had experience with veterans. We listened, and by Christmas we had transferred a veterans case officer from the office that was closing, to the Service Canada office down the street. We had directly listened to his input.

Sadly, that has been lost in the discussion because it is being pushed forward by the invisible hand.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have to sympathize with the member for trying to defend the government on the disastrous veterans affairs file.

I had to get up when he started talking about Sydney and Cape Breton, and Mr. Clarke, to put it in context. He started talking about how the legions are going to help service the veterans, and how they can go to a building and that they do not need a building.

The member should have been at the rally where there were over 2,000 or 3,000 people in support of veterans, what they are going through, the service they are not getting, and how the pressure is being put on the legions.

We have about 30 legions in Cape Breton, and maybe one of them is looking to step up to do that which they cannot do. Could the member try to explain how all of these legions are going to service the veterans?

The caseworkers are so used to working with the Legion members and the veterans, and now veterans will have to travel to Halifax, over 300 miles, to get any service. How can the member defend the position of closing the office in Sydney that services so many veterans? Cape Breton has been one of the biggest contributors to any war movement in the last 100 years.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for raising that issue.

In fact, I have enjoyed my discussions with Mr. Clarke on this very issue. After we listened to his input and the minister made the change, I called Mr. Clarke at home to tell him that we would be transferring a caseworker, maybe even the one he was used to dealing with, to the Service Canada office.

Those stand-alone VAC offices did not deliver care to our veterans; I have heard some members refer to them as hospitals. They provided administrative support.

Now, if veterans go into the Service Canada offices, and I invite that member to do this, there is a separate kiosk in Sydney manned by an experienced Veterans Affairs caseworker. In that Sydney office, there were only about 8 to 10 people in per day, so one person to help with the administration is sufficient.

The member has highlighted the Legions, and I would bet that for decades most veterans on Cape Breton Island, in greater Sydney, have been using their veterans service officers at the legion. If there are issues that they are having, we should work on those. The Auditor General is referring to their work.

I would like the member to get out and meet with those Legions, and let us see how we can make sure that they continue to do the leadership job that they have been doing.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary has been referring to the bill as Bill C-11, but it is actually Bill C-27.

However, I would like to ask member, when he was parliamentary secretary and the government closed the Windsor office, how many clients had to go to London for their service? How many clients specifically from Windsor lost service?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I had a great visit to Windsor, where I met with a number of veterans on this specific issue, including a veteran the member knows well, Bruce Moncur, whom I consider a friend and who is an advocate on these issues.

However, to answer the member's question directly, there were fewer than 150 case-managed veterans in that wider area.

There are only 7,500 veterans across Canada who have a case manager. A case manager is assigned based on the complexity of a case on a variety of subjects, including mental health or medical issues. Therefore, within the catchment, there would be fewer than 150 case-managed veterans, which is why on most days there would be less than 10 people in that physical office. If there are only 150 people who might be using the office on a regular basis, how many are going to go in on the same day?

In Windsor, as the member knows, one of the experienced caseworkers from the Veterans Affairs office is now in the Service Canada office. I cannot remember if the Service Canada office is in the same building in Windsor, but I think it is nearby, and it can handle any of the folks who come in. They have the experience in that office, and they can give the same level of administrative support.

Change is hard, but a lot of the younger veterans tend not to go into the bricks and mortar offices anyway. Therefore, we have been doing the My VAC online account, where a number of Afghanistan veterans have registered to have their cases managed online. It is not about doing it just the way it was done in the 1950s; it is about serving veterans from the ages of 20 to 90.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, regarding the bill itself, we recognize some of the best examples, such as Commissionaires Manitoba, and those who hire individuals who have retired from the forces. There is a great asset there, and members of our forces bring that to the table. That is really what the bill is about in terms of the government. However, it is interesting that the government is laying off tens of thousands of civil servants while promoting this particular bill.

I will push that to the side because the member wants to focus on the massive cuts, which is what it is. He stands up and can put all the colour that he wants to it, but the bottom line is that the government has cut services to veterans through offices all across the country, and at the same time hundreds of millions dollars were lapsed and not spent.

My question to the member is very specific. He cannot tell this House that people were not using that office, because that would be wrong. People were using the office. Why does he believe that the Prime Minister chose to make those cuts to services for veterans at the same time that it was not spending hundreds of millions of dollars?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is so much in there that I am not sure where to start. However, I would like to show the member that veterans have been hired in the last few years.

I had the honour of speaking on a panel for military families support, with Dominique Kowlessar, who was wounded in his service in Afghanistan and now works in the federal government. He is a tremendous leader.

There are real opportunities right now. What we would do with Bill C-27—and I thank my opposition friend for correcting me, as I had spoken on Bill C-11—is to make sure that it is a top priority, so we could get more Dominiques.

I appreciate my friend's work. We have hosted events for veterans on the Hill together. He served in the forces, and I appreciate it. However, he knows very well that when it comes to lapses, they only exist because we did not hit our estimate.

For example, if a Canadian household estimates that it is going to spend $2,000 on Manitoba Hydro in a year and it comes in under that, it does not ask Manitoba Hydro for the difference. No. That household had not paid for it; it was an estimate. The member knows that.

There was a $100 million lapsed in the last year of the Martin government.

The lapse is mainly due to the fact that not enough veterans are accessing the services, and some of our World War II and Korean War veterans are passing away.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to split my time with the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

I am pleased to rise on a subject that hits close to me.

Bill C-27 is a missed opportunity. Bill C-11 was significantly flawed, and Bill C-27 is flawed as well. There may be some improvements for veterans services at some point, but they will be almost accidental.

I take issue with the parliamentary secretary when he says that to show leadership, we just have to pass the bill. I think he said “symbolism”. No, we need legislation that works for our veterans. We need legislation that would actually get them employed. We need legislation that would change their lives. We need legislation that would let them and their families reach their full potential. We do not need legislation that is just symbolic, like words on a piece of paper, and then put on a shelf somewhere in a book of legislation. It has to translate to something real.

I grew up with some of this. My grandfather was John Clifford Addison. He died on HMS Scorpion during the fall of Burma. My grandmother in London married Fred Attwood, who became my grandfather. He came over to Canada, and he was lucky he came to Canada. I say he was lucky because he had transferable skills. He had been an electrician on a number of different naval ships, including HMS Ark Royal. He got a job at Hiram Walker. Being an electrician gave him a great skill set, and the company needed people.

Before I came to this place, I used to work on behalf of persons with disabilities at the Association for Persons with Physical Disabilities of Windsor and Essex County. I dealt with people with different types of disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, brain injury, and a number of different things.

The investment in that program was made during the Mike Harris years. We had to prove, and we did prove, that the government saved money by making a mild investment into the association to have that program running. It was just myself working for the association, and later on we grew to two. We protected the program by showing the type of services offered, whether it was resumé writing, life skills, or on-the-job training. I would go on site and work with an individual, and this gradually paid off over time. I am raising this point because that type of support system was necessary for those individuals to maintain their employment. It also led to better workplaces. Later on I did the same type of work with Youth At Risk. The investment was significant.

Bill C-27 contains some provisions, such as the five-year sunset clause, that could cause structural problems if people need to be retrained. Some people cannot get trained in five years because they need post-secondary education or because the job requires additional education on top of that. If someone is suffering from some sort of problem, he or she might not be capable of taking a full course load 100% of the time, so that individual might divide it up, whether it is college or university or some type of training. I do not like this element of the legislation.

It is important to note that the veterans affairs office was closed in Windsor. I take issue with that, because we have in my riding the Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment and HMCS Hunter, two armed forces units that have been strong for this country.

We were recruited heavily for Afghanistan. I remember the billboards. Members of the recruitment office attended festivals, fairs, and a number of different places where that would not normally be seen because Windsor had high unemployment. Windsor has contributed quite a bit, and to lose our veterans office is a shame. According to government data, the office had 2,600 clients with over 4,000 inquiries, generally speaking, so people have been affected by the closure of the office.

It is important for people to understand what a veterans office does. These offices help our veterans facilitate their lives so they can focus on looking for employment or getting into educational programs. I am not speaking only of World War II vets, Korea vets, or our men and women in peace missions. I am also speaking of our Afghanistan vets and Gulf War vets.

They had a choice, and losing that office was significant. Yes, one staff person was moved over and there is a kiosk. Great. That is not enough. That is not good enough. There were 14 effective people. It was not just me saying it. The Legion was saying no, the North Wall Riders were saying no, Afghanistan veterans were saying no, and the City of Windsor resolutions were saying no, all at a time when there was over $1 billion in available funds for veterans.

What were employees doing at the veterans office? They were helping people with pensions, disability or death benefits, economic support in the form of allowances, and health care benefits and services; assessment services for Canadian Forces and Merchant Navy veterans who served in the First World War, Second World War, the Korean War, and the other wars that have taken place, including Afghanistan; civilian war allowances for wartime services; and assistance with filing forms. Those are just some of the things veterans actually got in the Windsor veterans office.

The government closed a bunch of offices around the country, and New Democrats asked what the savings were, because according to the government, it had to close the offices out of fiscal prudence. What did it save? In Charlottetown, it saved less than $1 million; in Corner Brook, it saved around $360,000; in Sydney, it saved less than $1 million; in Windsor, it saved less than $1 million; in Thunder Bay, it saved $650,000; in Kelowna, it saved $667,000; for Prince George, data was not available; in Saskatoon, it saved less than $1 million; and in Brandon, it saved just over $300,000.

That is what happened, and now there is a contraction of other civil service jobs and positions. In Windsor, the most efficient service station in terms of sorting mail at Canada Post, which won awards, was packed up and moved to London, Ontario. Now the mail goes to London on trucks and comes back after being sorted. It is terribly inefficient, and we lost a bunch of jobs. There are also the impending cuts in home delivery. Again, these are missed opportunities for veterans to be part of the civil service.

The Veterans Affairs offices closed, as I talked about already. Veterans could have worked there, but they are closed. The Canadian Forces recruitment office was the first to go. After being poached for so many years, the recruitment office was closed, so there are no jobs there for veterans.

The consulate office in Detroit was a great opportunity. That was a very effective office and did a lot of good work in economic development. A lot of veterans with international experience would be well suited to serve in that office, especially in the Windsor-Detroit corridor.

There is a new border crossing. We have many languages and some of the most diverse cultures in the country and the world. Language skills would have been great, very effective, and important for our economy. There are cuts coming to VIA Rail, and there have been cuts to Service Canada as well.

The bill truly is a missed opportunity. It is a missed opportunity, because structurally, it is set up in a way that is not going to take full advantage of what we could do for veterans. I am sad about that. I am sad that we are not going to improve that. Again, this cannot be symbolic; it has to have real results. Maybe the government will actually measure the results and do the right thing to fix the legislation when it fails.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

There is no doubt that with Bill C-27, the government has once again created a huge gap between the reality my colleague mentioned, that is, the many cuts to the public service where our veterans should have been able to find work, and this bill, which suggests that these veterans can go work in the public service.

My colleague talked about that during his speech, but he did not mention the fact that the government did not include the RCMP in this bill. What are my colleague's thoughts on that?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was remiss. It was in my notes to mention that, but I did not.

I think it is unfortunate that the RCMP are not included, because it is a profession with unusual risks and challenges. I think we could do better by including them in the bill, especially given the fact that they have also been asked to go into other theatres internationally to assist with training and development. That could bring some really good skill sets to the table. I am puzzled as to why the RCMP have not been part of this. I wish they were.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened intently to the debate and appreciate the member's contribution to it.

I would note that his neighbour, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, has a veteran working in his office, so in fact, New Democrats offices in that area are an example of the opportunities for our veterans to work with the government.

I will ask the member this question, and it is an important question. In opposition, it is easy to just oppose, but in government, we have to ask, “Can we do things better? Can we reach more veterans? Can we address rising needs?” I think we all, in this House, agree that mental health is one of those rising needs.

Should a government continue to keep open a few offices that were seeing a declining use of administrative support only, with fewer, in some cases, than 10 people in them a day, when there are other government offices nearby that did not exist when they were opened in the 1950s, or should there be a move to open 17, soon to be 25, operational stress injury clinics to deliver front-line health care to veterans who are suffering?

How would the hon. member answer that question?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bruce Moncur has contributed quite a bit to veterans services. That is the gentleman the hon. member was referring to. I have his paper that outlines the extra cost for veterans travelling, which they will have to front themselves. Often going from places like Thunder Bay to Winnipeg can cost over $1,000.

It is a false choice to suggest that we have to close our veterans offices so we can open up new clinics. There is money there. There is over $1 billion. It is about choices. It is also about respect. It is about going to a community like Windsor, asking the men and women there to serve, and then taking away a service they want.

Generally speaking, there were around 4,000-plus inquiries at the Windsor office per year. Inquiries came from physical visits, emails, and phone calls, but service delivery was being provided by people in confidence.

Now veterans have to go out to Service Canada offices. If they have to deal with stigma, they have to go see a person, and everyone knows. In a small community like Windsor, with 200,000 people, we know each other. We know our histories, we know our issues, and we know our challenges. For the amount of money, the million dollars, the government saved, for the grief it causes people, I say congratulations.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in favour of Bill C-27 at third reading. However, like my colleague from Windsor West, who just finished speaking, I regard it as a positive, but also largely a missed opportunity.

My riding in Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca is what most would call a military riding. Together, the base and shipyards make up the largest employment site in my riding. I do not want to neglect to mention that health care and education are also large employers, and in those areas the provincial government is the main employer. I should also mention the very vibrant small business dominated tourism industry. My point here is that the base and shipyards are at the heart of my riding.

As the home of Canada's Pacific fleet, we have 4,000 active members stationed at CFB Esquimalt and there are an additional 2,000 civilian employees at the base. When we add on another 600 and soon to be 1,000 people working in the shipyards, we have nearly 7,000 people commuting to work everyday in the centre of my riding.

I do not want to veer off-track here. I will save for another day the discussion of ensuring the federal government and VIA Rail keep their promise to get the E&N railway up and running again so we can help get those people to work. Another day, we can talk about things like HOV lanes to help with the traffic.

What the employment structure of my riding means in terms of this bill is that I have a riding with lots of veterans. Many of them served at CFB Esquimalt, coming originally from all over the country and then staying on after leaving the forces, either for better job prospects than at home or maybe in some cases because it does not snow very often in my riding, but most often because their spouses and families have put down roots in Victoria. It also means we have a lot of injured and disabled veterans in greater Victoria, again both because of the availability of medical services and also, for those with mobility challenges, the lack of snow is a significant factor.

Unfortunately, it is a fact that the federal government is now a shrinking employer in my riding. With nearly 37,000 jobs already lost across the country, we are only going to see more shrinkage in federal employment. I say “unfortunately” for two reasons.

One is that almost all of these were good, family supporting jobs that contributed to a healthy community, and those jobs will no longer be available to veterans in my community.

The other reason is the loss of federal jobs almost always means a loss of federal services locally, like my colleague from Windsor West was discussing with the closure of the veterans office. In fact, in my riding we have just learned that we are about to be the next to lose more federal jobs, as home delivery of mail is up for elimination early in the next year in my riding. When Canada Post officials say that no jobs will be lost, what it means is it will do its best to ensure it keeps its existing employees. The positions, those good-paying, stable jobs will be lost in my community and, again, they are jobs that were often very valuable to veterans who wanted to stay in greater Victoria.

The result of the shrinking public service combined with the shrinking employment in crown corporations, like Canada Post, creates what economists like to call a more competitive job market. In plain English, that means it is tougher for everyone to find a job. It will be tougher for veterans in my riding, but especially for injured veterans, and it will be tougher for everyone to find a full-time, permanent job that pays a living wage.

Let me be clear. Before I begin talking about some of the concerns I have about Bill C-27, I do support this bill, even if the result ends up being just one more injured vet getting a good job in my riding. I hoped this bill would do more than that, but I fear its results will be quite limited.

The bill is in fact quite narrow in its proposed impact. Not only will the bill's potential impact be limited to those who want to work in the public service, but its impact is further limited to those who already have the qualifications often required for public service employment, like post-secondary degrees. There is no provision in this bill for those who might want to retrain to get those better jobs in the public service, and the length of the qualification period for being on the priority list also works against those veterans who want to retrain.

While I would like to believe that public service employers already place a high value on veterans' military experience in providing good employees with positive qualities like an understanding of the value of discipline and the value of teamwork, clearly this is not always the case. I accept that this bill will help bridge that gap by giving explicit priority to injured veterans.

We hope the Conservative government's intention with this bill is not simply to mask the general shortcomings of its programs for veterans and, even more specifically, the limited success of its career transition services. The minister has already received useful advice on how to improve transition services for veterans from both the Veterans Ombudsman and the Auditor General. There are many good recommendations from both of these officers of Parliament: the Veterans' Ombudsman's report in 2013 and the Auditor General's report in the fall of 2012. Unfortunately, these good recommendations are still awaiting adoption by the government.

Today, Auditor General Michael Ferguson released his report on mental health services for veterans, something that is very closely related to the ability to get good family-supporting jobs. His conclusion is that there are too many barriers to veterans receiving mental health services, and that waits for both assessments and services are far too long.

Some of the things he talked about seem like they should be easily fixable. I hope that the Minister of Veterans Affairs and the Minister of National Defence will act quickly to end the delays in transferring records from the Canadian Forces and DND to Veterans Affairs. Ferguson noted that it still takes 16 weeks to get records transferred and that nothing can happen on a file in terms of getting veterans services until those records are transferred.

He also criticized the application process for disability benefits at Veterans Affairs as too slow and unnecessarily complicated. I hope the minister will act quickly on the recommendation to simplify the application process. Ferguson noted that the wait for an assessment, once records have already been transferred, can take another four months. Therefore, the average wait time for a referral is three months, not the three weeks the department set as its own service standard.

Until veterans get the services they need to deal with their physical disabilities or with their stress-related injuries, they cannot really get started on these employment placement programs. Certainly, we can all agree that taking eight months for the assessment that establishes that a veteran is even eligible for services, before any treatment can actually start, is far too long.

Even once that assessment is finished, the delays are not over. The wait for treatment at the operational and trauma stress support centres, where mental health services for conditions such as PTSD are delivered is nearly two months at more than half the centres.

Therefore, I was glad to hear the government announce additional funding for mental health services for veterans yesterday, but I am sorry to see that it was done only in the face of the impending report from the Auditor General that points out the lack of services and the failings of the government in this area.

While I do support the bill, limited as it is, it remains clear that the government could have gone much further. It could have looked beyond the small number of veterans in transition who have the qualifications, training, and experience necessary to pursue a job in the public service.

The bill does, however, contain a flaw that we in the NDP have opposed wherever it has appeared. Specifically, the bill creates several categories of veterans depending on where and how long they have served. It even creates separate categories of surviving spouses, with differential benefits and qualifications, based on where and how long their spouses served. This violates what should be a basic principle. We in the NDP have always argued that a veteran is a veteran, and we will continue to do so. Also, the bill excludes ex-RCMP members. We can see very little reason for treating ex-RCMP members differently from Canadian Forces veterans.

However, I do not want to lose sight of the chief virtue of the bill, which is giving the highest priority to injured vets for public service jobs. Nor do I wish to diminish the importance of lengthening the eligibility period for placements from two to five years. These are significant improvements. However, we also have to remember that the existing priority hiring program has managed to find jobs for only a little over half of those added to the priority list each year. Between 50% and 80% of those hired each year were hired by DND. In my riding that is significant, because there are a lot of civilian employees of DND, but most other government departments have hired fewer than 10 vets under this program. The government can and must do better.

When I talk with veterans about employment for injured vets, they have a lot of other concerns on their minds before the priority placement program. That became very clear when the NDP leader and I sat down at the Esquimalt Legion last year to talk face to face with injured vets. The vets started with a condemnation of the unseemly rush to get injured Canadian Forces members out of the forces. Also, they always touched on the number of homeless vets in my riding who are either couch surfing or living in basements or garages of family and friends, or living in tents in the bush in rural parts of my riding.

My recent conversations with injured vets have included questions about how the Conservative minister could have returned $1.1 billion to the treasury last year, unexpended.

Let me just make one last statement on Bill C-27. I hope that we will honour our veterans by giving them the assistance they need and deserve in return for their service to Canada, whether it is injured vets getting back to work or those who have left us getting the respect they deserve with assistance for a dignified burial.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my friend represents a constituency on Vancouver Island that has a great number of active and serving members, as well as those who have sought to retire.

I was reading the Auditor General's report and there is one aspect that I wanted to ask him about. The Auditor General, quite rightly and quite importantly, points out that the delays in services to veterans, particularly mental health services, are causing a great deal of harm to those who have already been harmed, particularly when it comes to mental health and PTSD issues.

With connection to this piece of legislation, as my colleague pointed out in his speech, we have seen the government rush to make a whole series of spending announcements to blunt this criticism. We can understand why veterans may be a little skeptical, because they have seen these announcements before. I think that “skeptical” is the appropriate word, because they have seen the announcements and then proof that the services are not there.

The government has put forward a program that may help veterans find jobs. Is there not a connection between those who need and are seeking mental services and their ability to acquire and retain a job in the private sector, having come out of the military? It is a cultural shift already to go into the private sector. Many veterans tell us about this. If they are also dealing with mental health issues and the services have been delayed, is it not incumbent upon the government to have full responsibility to our brave men and women?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I touched on briefly in my speech, I do think there is a direct connection here. If those who have suffered either physical or emotional injuries as a part of their service to Canada cannot get these taken care of, they cannot really move on to that transition to civilian life and those good jobs.

Again, when we sat down with injured veterans in my riding, they actually believed that when the government budgeted money to spend on veterans, it meant that it would spend that money on veterans. They did not believe that at the end of the year, over a billion dollars would be returned to the Treasury Board, especially when we have many cases in my riding where we have to work with veterans to get very basic things. We just recently won a case for a veteran to get a crown on his tooth, something that would seem to be essential to people's lives. They are seeing that billion dollars returned to the treasury when they are being told that the government cannot afford to help them out with those basics.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Minister of State and Chief Government Whip]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I have about 8,000 or 9,000 veterans in my riding. I have CFB Comox in my riding. I deal with veterans' issues all the time.

The characterization that I heard from the opposition just now was that a billion dollars was returned this year or from last year. I am sorry, but that is a cumulative number. It is an average of 4% that is being unspent. We have to budget according to the fact that all of our statutory requirements will be taken up, so this is a normal way to budget, making sure that all of the funds are in place.

The mental health of our veterans is vital. I am working with people all of the time, as the member for the southern part of Vancouver Island is.

This should be characterized as the government's major, positive changes, as opposed to what I am hearing from the member. We are doing what we can, and I think that we have accomplished a lot. There is more to do. There will always be more to do. That is in the nature of a comment, rather than a question.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. Chief Government Whip for his question. I have a great deal of respect for him as a representative of his riding. I know that he regularly comes down to Victoria to participate in events honouring veterans.

I apologize if, in the heat of the moment, I misspoke about the term over which the money had been saved, but it is still $1.1 billion that would have been spent on veterans. From talking to veterans in my riding, it is their perception that this money was planned for benefits for veterans and ought to have been spent on them, because they face long waiting lists to get the benefits they really deserve.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Resuming debate. Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that we see the clock at 5:30 p.m.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.