Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Mr. Minister.
I want to ask you about your trip to Charlottetown last month. I asked you about it in question period, but I think the time restriction didn't allow you to give a complete answer.
Last month, you went to Charlottetown and you contacted the local media to tell them that you were going to do an interview with them on a Friday afternoon, which would be embargoed until five o'clock. Your employees were aware of this plan but had no idea why you were coming to town under a cloak of secrecy, where there was only going to be publicity at five o'clock. You would understand, given the cutbacks within your department and the disproportionate cutbacks in the civil service in my province, that people were clean terrified.
Sir, whoever gave you that advice, I presume, were from Ottawa because they clearly don't know the state of stress within the national headquarters over the cutbacks that have happened. Probably the worst thing you could say in Charlottetown is, “I'm from Ottawa and I'm here to help”.
So when you came to Charlottetown, sir, you made two announcements that were embargoed until five o'clock on a Friday afternoon. I have here the coverage from The Guardian. Of the two announcements you made, one was about the opening of an access office. What you didn't say and what I would invite you to clarify here today is that the access office is going to replace a district office and you will have two full-time equivalents in that access office. I would ask you to confirm that the staffing of the office will be two full-time equivalents.
The other thing you said, and I'm reading from The Guardian now, is that you announced Friday:
...three new director general positions within Veterans Affairs Canada will be posted to Charlottetown. The director general of communications, director general of finance and director general of Canada Remembers positions within the department will all be posted externally and those who are chosen for these positions will have to live and work in P.E.I.
I invite you today to clarify what you said in the local media, because you know and I know that these are not new positions. You know and I know that two of these positions have always been based in Charlottetown, and you announced back in May that the third one was coming and it hasn't happened yet.
You have a Mr. Schwenker who stalks me on Twitter, and every time I say something that he thinks is inaccurate, he corrects it. Apparently he doesn't know to contact The Guardian to correct these inaccuracies, so I'm asking you to do it.
These are my two questions. Will you confirm that the access office will have only two full-time equivalents? Will you now correct the record with respect to your announcement on these supposedly new director general positions?
Thank you, sir.