Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 10th, 2009

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I thought I was broadening.... It would make it easier.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay.

Mr. McColeman.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Two things. First of all, what Mr. Oliphant said did not match my wording. He said chemical spraying of “agents” such as Agent Orange.

[An hon. member]

It's “substances”.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

I just want to be clear that--

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

So chemical spraying of “substances” such as Agent Orange between 1956 and 84.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Okay. The first question I have is why the timeframe? My sense from the witnesses we heard in committee was that these are issues that extend to today.

[An hon. member]

Was that a question?

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I have a speakers list, though, Mr. McColeman.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

I'm sorry, I thought I could ask a question.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

We'll go through it and then if Mr. Oliphant wants to respond....

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

The materials I read focused on 1956 to 1984. We did hear from the Widows on the Warpath that some spraying has happened after that. I haven't heard that anywhere else.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Committee members, I know there's a desire to respond as there are interjections, but to be faithful to my job I need to follow a speakers list. Please try to restrain yourself. If you'd like, just put up your hand and I'll put you on the list. You'll have the chance to answer at that time.

Mr. Lobb will be next.

Mr. Storseth, on a point of order.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

To speed things up, if we could get unanimous consent of the committee I wonder if we could give the chair the ability to allow the mover to respond to the question. Is there any possibility of that?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

If there's unanimous consent of the committee, I would certainly allow that there be some dialogue, and the chairman will try to deal with that.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

As the mover of the amendment, I would see that “to the present” could be quite a friendly amendment. I would be fine with that. It could be “1956 to the present”. That would be fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

It looks like there is consent.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

So that becomes the new amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

All right.

Mr. Lahaie.

[The Clerk]

The amendment is to insert the words after “into the”, “chemical spraying of substances such as Agent Orange between 1956 and the present at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown.”

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Mayes.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, we've limited this motion to Canadian Forces Base Gagetown. Are there other Canadian Forces bases that have had spray applied? Who knows?

So I really think the amendment.... If you're going to look at this with a broad brush, you should eliminate the word “Gagetown”. But you know, it's always disappointing to me when colleagues use issues like this one to bring political conflict into public policy.

The policy with regard to Gagetown resulted from consultation and professional recommendations by ministerial staff. It's public policy. Not only was the process followed, but it ensured that the terms and outcomes are sound. It also has the approval of elected representatives as a component. This issue's not new. We're not looking at something new. This has been looked at before. And the purpose of an inquiry is to find fault in either the principles or the process or the policy, and I do not believe there is any fault in the process or the policy. So I can't support any part of this motion because of that.

One thing that I have found in this job that is really difficult to deal with is that 80% of my work is to explain to people the word “no”. The fact is, eventually there have to be decisions that we stand by, and we have to say no. This is the policy. This is the decision that was made by your government, regardless of which party is dealing with it. We find people who are not necessarily happy with these policy decisions of government. What they do is they wait until there's a new government or a new MP. I found that after I was elected I had all the old files coming back to see if they'd get a different answer, and I'm sure all of you have experienced that in your political careers.

Ultimately, I found out that the word “no” was expressed because this had all been looked into by professional staff. It was a determination by elected people, and we have to stand by that. Really, that's all we're going to do here--rehash all the information, all the material that was dealt with previously by those who have had equal knowledge and common sense to what we have around this table, and by the same competent staff who deal with these issues. They will look at the same issues and listen to the same witnesses, and ultimately we're going to come up with the same conclusions, I believe.

If we go to some of the comments by Mr. Stoffer, when he talked about there being 3,000 children who could be--

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

That's 300,000.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Yes, and you start multiplying that by $20,000, which was the settlement. We're looking at $60 billion or more. And let's face it, not everybody was satisfied with the $20,000. They want more. We eventually have to say no, and we have to leave this alone.