Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Speaker and Madame O'Brien, thank you very much for coming today.
Sir, I fully respect what you've just said. If, in any way, the motion I presented was to detract at all from any other memorials or representations of veterans that were in this chamber, I would have withdrawn it in a heartbeat, or I would never have presented it.
This is the reason I did what I did—and I know Madame Hinton was on the same committee I was. When David Pratt was the chair of SCONDVA—at that time it was a combination—he asked, in a formal request, if Room 362 could be designated the War Room. This discussion at that time had brought up whether it would detract from the Memorial Chamber or anything else.
Really, the premise of it was that when people went into that room to discuss defence or veterans issues, they would see on the walls some significant history relating to the topics that were at hand.
When veterans came in here, all they really saw were four walls, and it was like this very sterile room to them. When we had that one meeting at night here with those veterans, for those of us who were here it was the most emotional meeting we ever had. I've never sat in a meeting for four hours and not said anything, just listened. It was really quite remarkable. The one thing I felt was lacking through the whole meeting was that this room should say something back to them. What we wanted to do, really the premise, was not to make it a memorial room, not to make it a room of comparative significance to the other memorials that are here. We wanted this to be a working room where veterans and their families, or people who are related to veterans, people who have veterans as a major issue in their lives, would come in and know that this room is significant because it displays the concerns veterans are facing, not just our World War veterans but our modern-day veterans as well and those who would come in down the road.
This is really a nice room to work in, as Mr. Valley said. It's handy, it's close, and it's there. It's easy for people to get to, and it's significant because it's in the same facility as the Memorial Chamber and others. But it was meant to be more of a working room, not a memorial room.
I hope I didn't confuse the issue by saying it would be a room of memory. It would be more or less a working room where people could go and feel comfortable. In other areas, in Valcartier where we were before, when we went into the rooms where soldiers were who are going to be leaving the military and going into the veterans affairs, the rooms all had portraits and paintings all over the place that made them feel comfortable that they were in a room of significance.
Really, that's what the premise was. I agree with my colleague that all we really wanted to do was display some artwork and basically say the same thing as we did for the War Room and make a room of significance for people when they came in, so they would know this is a room where other people have come in and spoken before, told their stories.
That's basically the premise of it. I respect and understand your point of view on that.