Veterans Affairs Committee on April 24th, 2007

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you very much. This has been very interesting and I have learned a lot.

Here is another suggestion. Pascale told us that it was hard to recruit practising psychologists or psychiatrists, and that it was especially difficult to find competent psychologists who could be trained. We could speak to psychologists' associations in different provinces and ask them to train young professionals with a view to counselling military personnel. Most psychology graduates fresh out of university have a general background.

[Marc-André Dufour]

Indeed, there is no connection between the university and military worlds. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you very much.

I'm intrigued. Did I actually hear you say that psychologists cost $250,000 to $300,000?

[Maj Chantal Descôteaux]

That's for psychiatrists, doctors.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

That's fascinating. Wow. Is that for the military base ones?

[Margaret Ramsay]

Yes. These are civilian psychiatrists who we're hiring.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you very much.

Witnesses, we have one other person who will ask questions, potentially, but his motion is being dealt with. It's a committee business thing.

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

If there's consensus, we can deal with my questions with other witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

That's fine.

We have some committee business to deal with. So thank you very much for your testimony here today. I know I always learn things from your presentations. What I take from today is that one of these days I'm going to visit Valcartier to see the base.

Thank you very much for appearing and giving us some sense of changes we can make to the programs and various things.

We'll take a five-minute break.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

We're going to deal with Mrs. Hinton's motion.

Gilles has raised an issue about a report, concurrence, etc., but I'm going to ask that he have a written motion for that. We'll deal with it at a subsequent meeting.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I can give committee members my point of view. Rather than discussing it here, we can talk about it outside of the meeting. I will officially present a motion to that effect. This morning, I discussed with the chairman the fact that the report on an ombudsman should be adopted in the House. But we can talk about that another time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

The clerk has pointed out that we have a teleconference at the next meeting at 9:30, so from 9 to 9:30 we have a half hour. If Mr. Perron likes he can put it forward. I hope it's done in a written format. I think it's an interesting concept, but today we're dealing with this motion.

Mrs. Hinton has notice of motion:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 97.1 (1), the Committee present a report to the House requesting an extra 30 sitting day extension to complete its consideration of bill C-287 - An Act respecting a National Peacekeepers' Day.

Do you wish to speak to it?

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Do I wish to speak to it? Well, yes.

It's pretty straightforward. I think it's important for us as a committee, since it was referred to us as a committee, to discuss Mr. St. Denis' private member's bill. Because of our agenda we haven't gotten to it yet. In order to get to it, we require a 30-day extension.

I think any member who puts forward a private member's bill has the right to have that bill discussed in committee when it's sent to committee, and we've done a disservice to Mr. St. Denis if we don't do that, so I'm asking for a 30-day extension so that we can have it on the agenda and discuss it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Go ahead, Mr. St. Denis.

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

First I have a procedural or technical question to the clerk. What is the date by which the committee needs to dispense with it, as we sit here now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I believe it's May 2.

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

It's May 2; okay. How many meeting days do we have between now and May 2?

There are two—Thursday and Tuesday. Okay. Are there witnesses set up for Thursday and Tuesday?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Alexandre Roger]

There are only witnesses set up for next Thursday, which is the teleconference.

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

Is Tuesday open, then?

[The Clerk]

Next Thursday is open as well.

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

So the Tuesday coming is open. That's May 1.

[The Clerk]

That's right.

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

Personally, I think all business is important. You could make a ranking if you felt like it, but in the case of private members' bills, it's not that the committee needs to judge the merit of a bill; it has a duty to deal with private members' legislation as it comes. I don't know if there's an opening Tuesday. I would actually say to Betty that I imagine it won't take more than one meeting to yea or nay this bill; we could deal with it Tuesday and we wouldn't need to suspend.

If we suspend it for another 30 days, we're into June, and then who knows how long that can go on? I would actually not agree with Betty on this point, personally.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

My understanding is that if I don't put forward this motion and ask for the 30-day extension, we're not going to be able to get an opportunity to discuss it. I haven't a problem with next Tuesday or next Thursday—it's fine with me—but if this motion doesn't pass, then you may not have that opportunity. I'm trying to give you insurance that we will discuss this.

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

Absent a motion to this effect, the committee will be deemed to have reported it, so my bill is not lost, regardless.