Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 27th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Stoffer has been on the committee for a while, and he's always very diligent about bringing up the issue of Shearwater, I can assure you.

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

Yes, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I do draw a distinction, though, between Shearwater and Halifax in the sense that there is a separate facility.

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

At any rate, there's talk about which one in Newfoundland and Labrador—

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

What about Shilo in Manitoba?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

The debate could go on forever.

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

We have a week.

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

A week. Okay.

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

I was wondering, one, what the time is that we plan to have away, and two, the number that we actually want to visit within that time across Canada.

I mean, that's what it boils down to. You're not going to get away longer than the five days of the week.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Let's just get down to brass tacks for a second, on record, Mr. Stoffer.

My guess is that we're probably not going to be able to fit this in before Christmas.

Number two, if we do this, I don't imagine there's much interest in travelling in the middle of January and over your Christmas break. I'm guessing that's the case.

Number three, when we come back, as you know, it gets pretty busy and hectic around here, and there will be the budget coming down and all that type of stuff. So I'm guessing if we're going to do travelling like this, if we get support from the whips to do it, it would be probably first, craziest scenario, second week, and that's about what we have to play with.

So the question is how many of those things can you do in a week's travel time or what have you? That's really what we're looking at. We have to keep those things in mind. You can't visit everything. You have to make a choice.

Mr. Stoffer, and Mrs. Hinton.

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

I would say that a simplification for Alberta would be to go to the PPCLI base in Edmonton, because the extra travel to Cold Lake is quite timely. If you go right to Edmonton, you'll be able to possibly invite someone from Cold Lake down there. Then you can encapsulate it all right there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I'm going to suggest to you, Mr. Stoffer, that if you want Shearwater, you'd better be okay with Cold Lake.

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

I don't mind.

I'm just thinking of the time to get there and back.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right. Enough said.

Go ahead, Ms. Hinton.

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

Gee, that was pretty tough talk there.

I thought I was going to do something pretty simple. I was going to ask if there was agreement on Comox, Cold Lake, Petawawa, and Valcartier. Then we could debate Gander, or however we want to do it.

I'm looking at the clock, knowing that there are more people than just I who have to go to a meeting at 1 o'clock. I'd like to try to simplify this if we can. There seems to be agreement in this committee that we're going to go to these bases—but which bases are we going to go to?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

We have all the hands coming up now.

We go to Mr. Valley and then to Mr. St. Denis.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

I would guess that Petawawa and Valcartier could be day trips. I would suggest that we pick four bases to visit during the first or second week and that we arrive at four bases spread across the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Yes, I don't think—

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

We can do the other two from here on a committee day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Just to clarify, Mr. Valley, are you suggesting four bases in addition to Valcartier and Petawawa?

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

That's right.

Valcartier and Petawawa could be dealt with right from here on a committee day, I would assume. Let's pick four bases across Canada and take one week and do it. We all need to be home on Friday afternoon. We all have other duties back in our ridings. Let's just pick four bases: one on each coast and two in the middle.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Okay.

I'm going to have to write some of these down to make sense of this.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

I think she's in agreement with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Yes. I think there is general agreement with that.

I'm just trying to get a sense of the one suggestion.

Mr. Shipley, can you read your list again, please, sir?