Veterans Affairs Committee on March 27th, 2014

[Michael Blais]

It has to be written in stone that there's no clawback there though because—

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes, I agree.

[Sylvain Chartrand]

Can I add something? We should consider, as Senator Collins mentioned yesterday, a universal way of doing things. There is Bill 1 that was introduced, I think, in Alberta. If you're a policeman, a firefighter, a paramedic, if you develop PTSD automatically it is deemed to be service attributable.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Do you people ever have a purpose—

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

I'm sorry, Laurie, we are over, as interesting as it is.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Answer it to the next guy. Do you think we'll ever have a perfect system?

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

What he was saying is there's a list of services—do you want to repeat what you said about those services?

[Sylvain Chartrand]

Yes, there is a Bill 1 which I think is in Alberta. They are introducing legislation that states if you are a police officer, a paramedic, or ambulance worker, if you develop PTSD, let's say, that is automatically deemed service-related. That's it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

It gets interesting now because I have about five names. They're going to all speak at the same time here, but the one that sort of stands out is Mr. Opitz, so I'm going to assume—

[An hon. member]

He's going to give me his first minute.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Yes, he has my first minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

I knew it was going to get confusing.

You have a minute.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Never say I didn't help the air force.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

This is a question that we couldn't get on the record last time, but do you think we'll ever have a perfect system or will it always be a work in progress? We'd love a perfect system.

[Michael Blais]

With good will, yes, there will be a perfect system, but there has to be good will. There has to be this non-partisan stuff going on. There has to be a willingness for all parties to embrace our veterans and put aside ideology as far as financial or whatever goes. Once the moment that we, as a nation, that you, as a parliament, say it doesn't matter what the cost is, the need justifies the cost, the cost justifies the need.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I admire your idealism.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Mr. Opitz, if Mr. Hawn is now on silent mode you can carry on.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I have my five minutes then.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you, I have a couple of things. Certainly, I agree with Mr. Hawn because those of us who are veterans in this House work very hard on veterans' issues. Obviously we're highly concerned about it. This is something that is foremost in our minds and we do want to improve the system. There is room for a substantial amount of improvement. Nobody has said there isn't. We've always said that. The minister has said that. He is on record as saying that, but we continue to find those ways to do that. In our economic action plan we just added another $108 million to that, and that's very substantial. The minister himself is.... That's why this committee is doing what it's doing to examine all these issues, and you, gentlemen, are here to assist us to do that.

Mike, you and I know each other from before I even got this job.

It's all good. I heard you mention General Semianiw. I didn't catch in what context you were talking about him, but he's an excellent general, an officer I once worked for. He's one of our finest.

Mike, just for you, quickly, do you think the military should be unionized?

[Michael Blais]

Yes, I do, and I know that may sound like a very extraordinary comment, and I'm not saying that I think it should be unionized in the sense that there's evil going on there and the troops are being oppressed, etc. My greatest concern is the focus of the Legion and the traditional veterans' organizations that once stood up for our veterans. When we have organizations that have lost their way, where they compare the sacrifice to a civilian level, when they are not speaking up for the military in a sense of where it should be, yes, I do.

But I don't think it should be called a union though. It should be an association that has standing with DND, that has standing with Veterans Affairs Canada, that can work with good, open dialogue with both to attain the positive results that they need. I don't think it has to be adversarial. I would never condone a protest as the unions do or whatever in front of DND. I don't think that's the appropriate response.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

You want an association with left and right of arcs.

[Michael Blais]

I think there's a need.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Kovacs, over to you, sir, I understand that you teach at the University of Ottawa. Is that correct?

[Jerry Kovacs]

Not at the moment....

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay, but you were in the law department.

[Jerry Kovacs]

I was in the department of social sciences. I taught law courses in the department of social sciences.