Evidence of meeting #2 for Veterans Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bloc.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
A bill of rights would be my first vote, then the ombudsman, and then the VIP.
May 16th, 2006 / 4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Mayes Conservative Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
My first choice is a bill of rights for veterans, and my second choice is the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, and I have the Royal Canadian Legion cenotaph as my third.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
Gilles-A. Perron Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
I didn't give a ranking. I gave you a lunch, but I didn't rank it.
4:15 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
Gilles-A. Perron Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
My first choice would be post-traumatic stress disorder. My second would be the ombudsman file, while my third would be the pension plan.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Anders
Okay, because with yours, I think I wrote down four. Now if you can read those--I apologize again--I'll circle the ones I had.
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
Gilles-A. Perron Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
My priorities, yes, okay.
My first choice is stress post-traumatique, my second choice is the ombudsman, and my third choice is the pension.
I'm talking more specifically about the disability pension plan.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Anders
There you go.
I think at this stage we have everybody except for me, because I haven't chipped into this yet. I'm going to make this easy, because I'm just going to look over the check marks here and probably go with the ones that....
It seems as though we have a very clear indication that the veterans bill of rights is ranking highly, as is the ombudsman, as is the VIP program. So just for the sake of making it easy, I'm going to go with those as my three choices. That way we have six under the veterans independence program, we have six under ombudsman, and we have five under bill of rights. So there you go. I think those are our top issues. Fair enough?
Yes.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
I have a point of order, Mr. Chairman.
Before I leave, I'd like to introduce to the committee two outstanding young Americans over here who are visiting us on an intern program. We have Jacqueline from Kentucky and Josh from Michigan. They're just in the back right over there. Folks, welcome to Ottawa.
4:15 p.m.
Some hon. members
Hear, hear!
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
There are about 50 of them here, scrambling around the Hill, infiltrating the Canadian parliamentary system, spying on us. So be very careful.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Anders
I've had some Michigan students in my office as well. They're a good bunch.
I think we now have a sense of what the top three issues are that we want to be dealing with. We know the minister is going to be coming in on the next Tuesday, two weeks today. We have the Australian Prime Minister and therefore no committee meeting this Thursday. I guess we're going to be waiting to hear, and to perhaps undergo some negotiations on, what some of the other members may want with regard to the time allocations for witnesses.
Unless there's anything else, I think we'll move to adjourn the meeting.
The meeting is adjourned.
