Evidence of meeting #14 for Veterans Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was know.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Anders
That's done.
We've dealt with Mr. Sweet's intervention and now we're over to Mr. Valley.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You gave me a phrase earlier: “organized aggression”. I've been trying to organize my aggression since I got here today.
I learned a lot, as you can imagine. I wrote a lot of notes. I do that. I'm probably the only guy in the world who can read them, but that's okay. I have no intention of going through them at this point. I think I will pick up the pieces after we get to the other couple of bases and after we see the researcher's document. I learned a lot. It was a very valuable lesson.
I want to clarify. I don't blame anybody in this room for what happened, but I want to explain to you what happened. I understand there are reasons that people couldn't go, and why people weren't there was taken out of our hands and out of this room.
When we arrived in Comox, B.C., we did not even know that the rest of the people weren't going to be there. It was a bit of a surprise to us. That having been said, when we sat in on the first morning and the chairman opened the meeting, I'm guessing there were upwards of 50 people there. There were 12 spots around the table waiting for us. We know now why people couldn't go, but we did not know at the time.
Every one of us has sat in meetings at which you expect a lot of people to be present. There were 50 people there waiting to see us and we weren't there. I'm not blaming anybody, but I'm telling you what we did: we insulted everybody in that room.
It got better as we went along. Each meeting changed, for the reason that they briefed each other. When we arrived in Cold Lake, they knew everything that had been said the day before. It wasn't a repeat session. Every base got better and better, because they had the briefings from the other bases. These people were ready for us.
It was a shame that because of other considerations outside this committee we did not represent Parliament well. They had a lot to tell us. There were a lot of veterans. There were a lot of serving people. The people who presented to us in, I believe, Shearwater or Goose Bay are actually over there right now. They were on their days off. They're given so many days off before they actually ship out; they were on their days off and they came in because they wanted to talk to us and they wanted us to get it right in the future for them.
We saw some extremely emotional testimony. It was very powerful. It's only going to get better when we get to the other two bases, because they'll have all that information there, and I'm going to cut my arm off if I can't go to the next one because of some things that happened outside this room.
What happened to these people was absolutely disgusting . We did the best we could; we know there's nobody to blame in this room. The fact is, these people wanted to talk to us. I could not believe how much they wanted to talk to us, and over and over and over again they told us they are not there about policy. They want to do the job that's given to them. We've seen some who came back under extreme circumstances--wounded, whatever you want--and they believe in doing their job. Policy's not something they wanted to get into.
Again, I'm not blaming anybody in this room, but I was disgusted by what happened to us because of decisions made outside this room. We had a job to do. We questioned whether it was the right job to do; we know now it was, but what happened was still terrible. I don't blame anybody in this room, but those are the facts.
You all know, as I said, how embarrassing it is when you go into a room expecting some people to be there and they don't show up. Let's get it better the next time, and hopefully....
Again, these decisions are outside our hands, but what happened was terrible. I told you that at the time. I tried to control myself during the meetings as much as I could, because I knew I couldn't blame the people in this room. It still happened, and I'm sure you sensed it as we sat there.
The first morning he started with two of us. Brent was about an hour late. We did the best we could and we gathered up lots of information, but we insulted those people in those rooms through no fault of our own.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
I wasn't really following Mr. Valley. He clarified that there were two people. I thought there was a meeting at which none of us actually showed up. I hadn't heard about that. There were low numbers. There were two, and then Mr. St. Denis showed up. So that's fine. I just needed to clarify that.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Betty Hinton Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Did you have government and official opposition?
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON
We had the chairman, me, and Mr. Stoffer for the first morning. Brent joined us an hour late, maybe.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Betty Hinton Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
So you had government, official opposition, and another member of the opposition. I can understand what you're saying, but at least there was representation.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Anders
I think one of the great ironies of this is that we fought--I fought--to make sure we had the whole committee travel. As it turns out, we did have about half and half. It's the great irony of it all.
Anyhow, that kind of extinguishes--unless anybody else has something to add as a debrief with regard to this issue--the base visitations.
Michel, you can kind of take that into account with regard to what we're doing. I sense there are some committee members who would like to have the notes or whatever with regard to Melissa and what she did. Fair enough.
I'm just organizing in my mind how we're going to proceed with the rest of it.
Mr. Valley, go ahead.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON
After the last two bases, you're going to give us time to talk around this table--
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON
--just so we can put up some of the points we think we've gathered up?
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Anders
Just to clarify, we do have a draft report. These things are being added to the draft report. The situation we have with regard to Petawawa and Valcartier is still pending, and that's all part of the same report.
I realize there's a desire by members here to proceed with the report per se, but we don't want to close the report. We could present an interim report, if you wanted to, to the House of Commons. But we still want to, in a sense, probably keep it open so that we can go and visit Petawawa and Valcartier.
Mr. Perron.
4:10 p.m.
Bloc
Gilles-A. Perron Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Have you scheduled any dates for the trips to Petawawa and Valcartier? If so, I want to emphasize that we should wait to visit these bases before drafting the report.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Anders
I think that's wise, sir. Just to let you know, the two dates that I have before me right now are April 8 and April 15. April 8, of course, is for the one to Valcartier, and April 15 is for the one to Petawawa. The clerk informs me that to do that we have to pass these budgets adopted in committee.
I have a question for the clerk. Didn't we get budgets for these already?
February 28th, 2008 / 4:15 p.m.
The Clerk
The dates were pushed back.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Anders
I have to go back to the liaison committee because of the dates.
Do we want to have discussion of the motions? Does somebody need to move those first? Can I move those?
4:15 p.m.
The Clerk
You can move them.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
This is something about when we get to Petawawa. It's just a point of clarification.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
There's just one thing. As you know, Petawawa made the news last year, so when we went there....
I want to be very sensitive here. The women and children of the men who were killed overseas--remember that story about them not getting the help and stuff? I don't know if the women would be up to a committee meeting or not. I'm trying to be sensitive about this. If they won't, then that's the end of it. That's the story.
I don't know what the committee thinks about talking to them to find out what their experiences have been, a year later.
