Mr. Chair, first of all, I'd like to express for the record that the official Conservative opposition was prepared to support Bill C-12, the veterans budget, when presented as a stand-alone bill in the House, a bill which we applauded, which the veterans deeply recognized as timely, and which would have been very effective in ensuring that the funds allotted to them would have been out the door sooner.
With regard to this first amendment, the Liberal government has changed the formula for the earnings loss benefit from 75% of a corporal's salary as the minimum to 90% of a senior private's salary. This could result in lower payout for veterans. While the Liberals are claiming that they are increasing the earnings loss benefit, lowering the minimum benefit threshold to a senior private's salary instead of a basic corporal's salary will result in a significant reduction in the benefits received by the most vulnerable injured veterans. This amendment would safeguard the financial support from the earnings loss benefit to ensure that it could not be lowered for any veteran.
The earnings loss benefit is an important source of support for our veterans who were injured through their service to Canada. It's important that the Liberal government's budget not in real effect reduce this benefit to veterans who served in the lower ranks of the Canadian Armed Forces. Just recently, the veterans website was updated with the budget information. The rationale there was that they had to make this change because otherwise some veterans would be receiving more income than serving armed forces members, yet at the same time we are penalizing the lowest-income veterans, who are the most vulnerable.
This amendment would basically ensure that it would “not have the effect of reducing the imputed income to an amount less than the amount that would have been determined before the coming into force of section 82”.