Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 25th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Yes.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

I have a point of order, sir. Mr. Chair, you were looking right at me, and my hand was up before Mr. Kitchen's hand—

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

The clerk took the order.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

You should correct it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

That's the way the list is.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

What is the list?

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mr. Kitchen is next, then Mr. Eyolfson, Mrs. Wagantall and Mr. Johns.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

That being the case, I think I'll continue to talk about how important this is, because I suspect I know what my Liberal colleague will do, which is to stop debate, which he has done on numerous occasions. When we get to his comments, he has said before to this committee, as he did last week, “I move to adjourn debate”.

When that happens, it's a deleterious motion. It gives clear direction to say that there will be no further debate. They vote to end debate and then we don't deal with the issue. It drops dead on the table, so to speak. I regret that other opposition members won't be able to speak to this before the government has a chance to shut down our conversation.

Of the many committees I've been on over my 11 years here on Parliament Hill—in a minority Liberal government, majority Conservative government, minority Conservative government and now a majority Liberal government—the obstruction that is happening right now in committees totally contradicts what this government said it was going to do. In fact, it has moved it to another level in some cases, of flexing their muscle as a voting machine to get what they want.

When we talk about supplementary estimates (B), every time this has come before any other committee I've been involved with, there has been no discussion of “Let's reconsider doing this” or “Let's reconsider calling the minister.” It's always, “Yes, let's get on with it. Let's get the minister here and let's scrutinize the spending as we should.”

These are taxpayers' dollars. These are the dollars that people at home have sent in to the government. It baffles me. It's the money of hard-working people who are honest and pay their taxes that's represented in the $323 million. Some of it might have been borrowed, because this government has a penchant for borrowing money they don't have. However, that said, it's money that we are accountable for—every one of us as a member of Parliament.

When I think back to the structures that have been put in place for us to have the honest truth about government and I hear the Parliamentary Budget Officer describe, in no uncertain terms in his report, that the future spending vis-à-vis the appropriations, supplementary estimates and the estimates, when they eventually get approved.... It's unconscionable to me that we would allow a committee to use their partisan bullying and not address it.

This is what they did last week. This is exactly what they did. They shut down debate.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, the member is repeating over and over again the same information.

I would like you to rule on that, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Why don't we have a bit of a break?

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Sounds good to me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Let's have a 10-minute coffee break.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

I call the meeting back to order.

Mr. McColeman, you still have the floor.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

The good news is that I think we can move on from this, but before we do that, I do want to give my colleague, who is second on the speakers list, the opportunity to make his comments. Then I believe it's Mr. Eyolfson after his comment.

I yield to Mr. Kitchen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mr. Kitchen, you have the floor.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here.

As we discussed last week, this issue of inviting the minister is an important issue. To be able to discuss the supplementary estimates and for us to scrutinize them before they're presented to the House is a tremendous responsibility on our part, as a committee, to make certain that we've looked at this the best we can for all our veterans.

When the Parliamentary Budget Officer came out with his report the other day, I received numerous phone calls from veterans within my riding, a lot of them concerned about what this meant and the huge implications it has. When I'm able to respond to those constituents of mine.... Actually, some of them are from outside my constituency and I just happen to know them, and they also called and had major concerns. In fact, among them was even one who is presently serving with the forces and about to be medically released. He has some major concerns, especially when he reads documents.... For example, I'll just quote here from the executive summary of the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report.

It says:

As presented below, PBO found that the Pension Act regime is the most generous for the veterans and the most expensive for the federal government. The Pension for Life regime is slightly more generous than the Veterans Well-being Act regime.

These veterans have big concerns about that. They have concerns about the most injured veterans being worse off now than they were before.

It's on my watch, as a new member of Parliament and a member of this committee. When I sit down and meet with veterans in Remembrance Day ceremonies, they say to me, what are you going to do for us? When I hear from an Afghan veteran who's returned, who would have taken a bullet for his colleague and his comrade at any time while serving, and even today, talk about what happened to one of his comrades who had an IED blow up and lost his legs, his statement to me is, “I need to be here”. And I believe we all need to be here, to speak on behalf and to represent these constituents.

I think it's incumbent upon us that we get the chance to talk about these supplementary estimates, and that we, as a committee, have the opportunity to put these questions, these hard questions, to the minister about the impact this is going to have on our veterans.

I thank you for the chance and the opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Mr. Eyolfson.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If I may offer a friendly amendment to the original motion, it's that the motion would now read:

That the committee invite the acting minister of Veterans Affairs to appear on the Supplementary Estimates (B) on February 25 or 27, 2019, or the subject matter of the Supplementary Estimates (B) 2018-19 and the subject matter of the Interim Estimates 2019-20 on March 18, 2019.

Is that an acceptable amendment to the original amendment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

There's the amendment. Is there discussion on that?

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

That's fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mr. Samson, did you have your hand up?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Yes, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Go ahead.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I'll go with this amendment, but I'm very saddened, because we were already in the calendar, which my colleagues across the floor know very well. The minister was due to come that March week as well, so the hour lost to the witnesses is sad because what we're accomplishing here today is exactly what was happening anyway.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Now we'll open it up.

Gord, your hand was up first.