Veterans Affairs Committee on April 17th, 2007

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

That's my point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

There's a speaking order here. I'm just going to give a comment. We have a list here and there are some people being added to it.

I get the sense that there are two questions on the table that we're dealing with right now, and a couple of other ones come after that.

One of them is addressing some of the questions of what type of legal standing the document will have. I would be willing to undertake, on the committee's behalf, a letter asking the minister's office to lay out their rendition of that. That's one.

There's another issue about which I'm going to be blunt when I say it is, frankly, beneath us. It's this idea of renaming it, because at the end of the day, even if there is a vote taken in this committee to try to suggest a renaming of the document—

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

No, I'm going to speak. Ms. Guarnieri, I'm going to speak to this.

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Chair, you're misrepresenting what I said.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Ms. Guarnieri, I'm going to speak to this, please.

At the end of the day, if that were to be done, I would probably cast that aside if I were the Prime Minister or the department, because I don't think it serves the interests of the veterans who want redress to some of their concerns with regard to the department or other issues in the long term. Committee members can pursue that route if they so wish, but I would suggest to them that it's probably fruitless.

Mr. Valley.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Chairman, we have to quit spinning our wheels. We've asked before. I understand that it didn't happen at the last meeting, when I had other duties. But we asked repeatedly again this morning about the legality of using these words. I don't see us carrying this forward in any way unless we find out, unless we get some legal advice.

Can we use the word “rights” or not? What does it mean? What does it entail? We talked about the ombudsman. Is it legislated authority or not? Is it a heavy hand? What is it? Let's find out.

You were asked two meetings ago to bring somebody in. I understand that with the commitment we had at the last meeting we couldn't do it, but let's quit sitting around here talking about this, unless we're going to answer that question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Shipley.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I must have had a bit of a memory lapse, but the other part of it was that when we were looking at the wording of the two, they were very much similar. Behind each of these points, there will be backup. There already is backup, so that may also be the point that was brought forward by Albina earlier. What does it actually mean? That is something that's available also.

I would think it's the overlay, and if that's the mission or the bill of rights in terms of its opening statement, then that's what it is. The meat is in the backup of the points.

We had legal counsel here the last time, and we talked about what we had prepared. We were basically all in agreement on what we had prepared, in that this was what we wanted to outline, the draft. I'm actually glad we did that. What we had prepared in terms of our draft actually is reflected very much in the veterans bill that has come forward.

I'll just leave it again. It's up to the committee to make some decisions. Mr. Valley has raised an issue. If we want to stop it, we can do that. If we want to get some further information on it, we can do that also. But let's make a decision on where we want to go, so that we can move on and deal with this. We likely aren't going to deal with it further today, because we'll be asking for information to be brought forward, but if we want to move ahead of where we're going next in terms of the health care issues, let's set that agenda and move on with it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I thought of just one other thing as Mr. Shipley was speaking. Either you could have the chair, on behalf of the committee, draft a letter to Veterans Affairs and the minister asking for a clarification with regard to the legal implications; or we could actually have a lawyer or somebody from the department come to answer questions to that effect. I'm not sure which of those the committee would prefer.

Mr. Stoffer.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you.

Madam Hinton indicated earlier that if we could move on and deal with the health aspect of veterans, move on to that file, that would be the way to go.

I have a statement here by the Minister of Veterans Affairs, from April 13. It says: “...one of the first things I did upon becoming minister was an overview of all the health services to veterans, and that is one where we want to enhance it, to improve it, along with a lot of other things. I mean we can't do it all in one year, but when that report is in, which should be in within the year, we'll act on it.”

I assume Veterans Affairs already has a health review going on. He said it will be within the year, which should be fairly soon. My concern is that we tried to do the bill of rights, and the government announced it while we were discussing it. If we continue with the health services review, which could take a good while, is the government going to announce their health services review before we're finished again? Could this happen again?

It says right here that he said the report should be out within a year. What report is that? If Veterans Affairs is working on a report outside of this committee, they have the right to do that. But surely we should be addressed about the issue so that we're not duplicating any work and we're not spinning our wheels.

I'd like to know something in this regard. If we continue with the health services review, where is that review by Veterans Affairs? Is it already finished? Are they reviewing it? Are we going to get caught up again, as we just were? To be honest with you, that wouldn't make me very happy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Are you finished, Mr. Stoffer?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

I'm still happy, but yes, I'm done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Well, Mr. Stoffer, I don't have the magic answers to those questions.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

I know you don't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

However, on your point about the fruit, if you will, of our labour with regard to the veterans bill of rights....

Members, I realized this issue would be coming up this morning but I didn't actually have a chance to read the departmental version of this until this morning. After reading it, I think a lot of the concerns our committee has raised have actually been addressed.

We did have concerns with regard to what types of legal implications there would be, what types of encumberments, what types of financial arrangements the government would be involved in with regard to upholding some of those things that were in there, etc., and the practicality of those things. I think some of that was actually addressed somewhat. It tightened up the language a little.

I think there's a perfectly good question of whether or not we want to see a further definition of some of those things and to have somebody either come to appear before us or to have a letter written asking for clarification, and that's perfectly fair. I don't think it was unfruitful in terms of what we discussed.

Mr. St. Denis.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

There's a philosophy out there called living in the question, but I'd like to have us living in the answer if we could, as much as possible.

Can I read into the record a draft of a motion? Can I do that now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Yes.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

So I'm going to take a moment to read this draft:

WHEREAS there are a number of questions concerning a veterans bill of rights

AND WHEREAS a version was recently announced by the Prime Minister

Therefore, be it resolved that the Veterans Affairs Committee suspend or terminate

--pick the word, “suspend” or “terminate”--

its study on a bill of rights until such time as it receives a written response from the Minister of Veterans Affairs regarding

(1) the legal standing of any such bill of rights;

(2) does the Prime Minister's statement actually entail a bill of rights, or absent a legal standing, is it more appropriately described as a mission statement or a code of conflict;

and (3) whether the minister or government is open to suggestions on the said bill of rights inasmuch as it is now publicized on the department's website;

and finally, that the chair be asked to write to the minister conveying the spirit of this resolution.

That's just a proposal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I understand. I have a question for you, Mr. St. Denis. You said “code of conflict”. Did you mean code of conduct?

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

No, code of conduct.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

That's what I thought. Okay, now it makes more sense.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

He's thinking of the mood of the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right.

Well, I think this is way we would probably have to treat that. I consider that to be wording, even though you had trouble reading your own writing. But we accept that. I think with regard to motions we'd have to consider that at the next meeting. Anyway, I think that addresses a lot of the concerns the committee has expressed this morning.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I'll get it done up properly and give it to the clerk in the proper form.