National Defence Committee on May 1st, 2013

Evidence of meeting #78 for National Defence in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was care.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Care of ill and injured Canadian Forces members

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Alexandra Heber Psychiatrist and Manager, Operational and Trauma Stress Support Centres, Department of National Defence

Huguette Gélinas Quebec Coordinator, Health Services Civilian-Military Cooperation, Canadian Forces, Department of National Defence

Derrick Gleed Board Vice-Chair and Chief Financial Officer, Wounded Warriors Canada

Phil Ralph Padre and Program Director, Regimental Chaplain, 32 Combat Regiment, Toronto, Wounded Warriors Canada

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON

I think the Auditor General did us all a great service yesterday with his observations with respect to the personnel and the deterioration of the equipment and particularly his concerns about the comments about the system failure. I'm given to understand, essentially the system can only track 25 incidents at a time, and I'm picking a number out of the air here. Frequently there are more than that. I think it's a very good motion, and I'll support it.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

Are there other comments?

Mr. Alexander.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Chris Alexander Conservative Ajax—Pickering, ON

We acknowledge the reasons mentioned by my colleague to justify this motion, but we will not support it, because the Auditor General is already appearing tomorrow, if I am not mistaken, before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. In our view, that is the usual way of proceeding when considering the Auditor General's reports. We will encourage our colleagues to give the NDP and the Liberal Party an opportunity to ask questions of the Auditor General on the chapters they are interested in. That is our tradition.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

Mr. Harris.

5:30 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

The public accounts committee, of course, deals with accounts and money generally, and will do so. They will be dealing with all 11 chapters of the Auditor General's report in a single meeting. Given the importance and the comprehensive nature of the report with respect to search and rescue....

If you're calling it a tradition, I don't think it's a tradition. If you're saying it is one and that's exclusive, I don't think it is exclusive.

Secondly, the fact that he's written a whole chapter on this one important issue and given it as one of his top three priorities.... It's one of these value-for-money audits. It's a management audit. There's a lot of information that is basically not accounts-related. It's related to the life and safety of people who require the service. As he said yesterday to the CBC, there are matters of life and death involved.

This committee, with its knowledge of Canadian Forces and operations, is ideally suited to deal with that.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

The bells are ringing. Can we dispose of this motion, or vote on it?

All in favour?

5:30 p.m.

NDP