Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ladies, thank you for being here today.
In 2006 when I was first elected, I was put on this veterans affairs committee, and I think there are only four of us from that original new government committee--me, Mr. Stoffer, Mr. Gaudet, and Mr. Sweet. As a new member of this committee, I was quite excited that our minister and our government was moving forward with a veterans charter to better serve the needs of veterans. We also started on putting together an Office of the Veterans Ombudsman to assist veterans as they move forward trying to get a voice to get benefits. Then our government also supported extending the veterans independence program and added $350 million. That was all under the leadership of this committee and our minister, and I think the minister has veterans and those who serve Canadians at heart.
One thing about leadership is that it's about taking responsibility, even responsibility for bad public policy. Governments have had bad public policy. I can tell you, within two years of our government coming into being government, we did the Indian residential schools settlement. We did the Chinese tax settlement. We did the tainted blood settlement. These are outstanding items. There was also the agent orange. Those weren't compensations; they were settlements, saying, okay, there was bad public policy. But to go back and try to figure out the individual impact on lives is very difficult, because you can't measure some of that. It is so catastrophic for people.
I talked with a first nations chief. He told me he didn't know how to be a father. He was in a residential school. He was never mentored by a father, because he was in a school situation and taken away from his family. How do you compensate for those things?
It's similar with this issue here. The people who established the $20,000 are not mean people or bad people. They looked at the situation and tried their best to make these tough decisions. And dates have to be set. My mother-in-law was interned in a Japanese internment camp, and some of the stories and about the loss of life of family members there... They were compensated. Was that enough? No, it wasn't compensation. It was simply a recognition of bad government policy. It was a recognition, in making that statement, that we apologize. It was bad policy. We know it's wrong today, but it's so difficult to go back and really heal those wounds that you feel. What is enough? How long in the future do we go to compensate that or to even acknowledge it? You can't. It's impossible.
It's unfortunate these dates didn't necessarily align with some of the issues of each individual person who was involved with Gagetown, but dates have to be set. I've heard there are issues for people even with regard to the tainted blood settlement. But ultimately, we have to make those decisions.
As my colleague said, what would you suggest as a date? You really didn't suggest a date, because you realize how difficult it is to make that determination.
One of the things I would like to ask is, do any of you receive any benefit from Veterans Affairs other than what you're looking for here, in terms of compensation? During the time your spouse was alive, were you able to apply for any of those benefits, for instance, the veterans independence program, to assist you in staying in your own home, those types of things?