Evidence of meeting #1 for Veterans Affairs in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Mr. Chair, if I may, I would like to move four motions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
Sure. I don't have them to share with the rest of the committee. To clarify, we're just putting them on notice. Is that correct?
Bloc
Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
They should have been translated and distributed to my colleagues, if I am not mistaken.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
Yes, the clerk did receive them just before the committee meeting but did not have an opportunity to review them as of yet. You can read them into the record right now.
Bloc
Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Perfect.
I will read it slowly to make sure that the interpretation is correct.
The first motion reads as follows:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee resume at the earliest opportunity its study on the backlog of disability benefit claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which it began in the 1st Session of the 43rd Parliament; that the committee give special consideration to the possibility of pre-approving all disability benefit claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs; and that the evidence and documents received by the committee at that time on the subject be taken into consideration by the committee in this session.
I will now continue with the other motions.
Am I reading at an appropriate speed?
Bloc
Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
It will be my pleasure.
The second motion reads as follows:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study on the quality of life of veterans in major centres and the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on them; that the committee devote a minimum of four (4) meetings to this study; and that the committee report its findings and recommendations to the House.
The third motion reads as follows:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study on administrative delays in processing files at Veterans Affairs Canada, including the differences in processing times between the files of English-speaking and French-speaking veterans; that the committee devote a minimum of two meetings to this study; and that the committee report its findings and recommendations to the House.
The fourth and final motion is the following:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study and make recommendations on the challenges and barriers faced by minority veterans (women, LGBTQ2+ and racialized veterans); that the committee give particular attention to the specific needs of veterans in these minority groups, as well as specific supports and services that could be provided by Veterans Affairs Canada; that the committee devote a minimum of three meetings to this study; and that the committee report its findings and recommendations to the House.
Those are the four motions I wanted to submit, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON
I need clarification from you. Are we proceeding with notices of motion here, or are these motions being tabled for debate right now? I don't understand how this process is playing out. I have motions for which I can give notice as well, and I'm prepared to do that, but are we going to be debating these four motions, the subsequent motions that I suspect will be coming from Ms. Blaney, and then the motions that I'll be putting forward? Are we debating them today, or are we just putting these motions on notice?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
I don't want to speak for Mr. Desilets, but I suspect that these are just to be put on notice. I think we agreed just a few moments ago that we needed to push MP Casey's motion to a subcommittee, and I think we should do that with all of these. If you want to read it into the record for the purpose of getting it on notice, we can definitely do that, but I think the commitment we just made was that we're going to move to subcommittee to deal with all of these in a substantive way, one by one, so that we can draw up that new road map for this committee.
Unfortunately, I don't have these motions to distribute. The clerk has them, but they haven't been translated, so I can't distribute the motions to even have us look through them with a fine-tooth comb. I'm definitely open to folks jumping in to move a notice of motion as Mr. Desilets just did, but I would recommend strongly that we move all of this to the subcommittee to discuss.
Does that answer your question, Mr. Brassard?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
Okay.
In terms of order, I have a couple of raised hands here. I have Rachel, Monsieur Brassard and then Sean Casey.
We'll go to you first, Rachel. Is this a motion or is this to discuss—
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
I have a motion to propose, but I'm more than happy, if I understand the clarity that I think I've reached, if we do that through the process and give the notice of motion to the clerk. Then we'd have a discussion during the appropriate time at the subcommittee meeting.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
If that's how that is going to work, then I think I will go through that process.
Thank you so much for those motions. I found some of them very thoughtful and I look forward to discussing them.
I recognize just how unprecedented these times are, in that we don't know a lot about when committees are going to be meeting. I know that the House staff is working very hard and I thank them so much for their incredible work to make sure we move as quickly as possible and get the committees up and running. I know that it will happen.
I am wondering, Chair, if you could just clarify for me that, as I think I'm hearing, our first meeting, once the whips make their agreement and send that out and it's public, will in fact be a meeting of the subcommittee, so that it can bring forward to the full committee recommendations about how to move forward. At that point, we can review all motions that have been put forward and perhaps amend and put together some that are similar and then present something to the larger committee.
I'm just looking for clarification.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
Yes, I would say that's the intent on how to move forward. The very next meeting would be a subcommittee meeting so that we can do this properly. I know through the clerk that we have received motions from other members, and we can circulate those in as quick a time as possible.
Mr. Brassard is next. Then I have MP Casey and MP Desilets.
Conservative
John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to run through these quickly. I think the clerk can confirm that she did receive our notices of motion as well as the translation of those motions. If she could just confirm that for the record, I would appreciate it.
The Clerk
Yes, Mr. Brassard, I have received your notices of motion. I have them in both languages, and if members wish, I could circulate them through the P9 addresses right now.
Conservative
John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON
Right.
Since I have the floor, I am going to read these notices of motion into the record in advance of their going into subcommittee.
Motion number one is “That pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), the committee undertake the study of the Supplementary Estimates (B) 2019-2020, and that the committee invite the Minister of Veterans Affairs and departmental officials to appear.”
I will note as well that the estimates, as I said earlier, were tabled September 30, and that pursuant to Standing Order 81(4) and the order made on Monday, April 20, each committee may consider and report or shall be deemed to have reported the same back to the House no later than Friday, November 27, 2020.
Therefore, I think it's important that we pursue the supplementary estimates in advance of that timeline of November 27, 2020.
The second motion for which I'm giving notice is “That as its first order of business and pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee conduct a study of the backlog of pending veteran disability benefit applications at Veterans Affairs Canada, and that no fewer than four meetings be devoted to this study.”
I want to commend Ms. Blaney for her question to the PBO on the backlog and the subsequent report that was issued last week, outlining that we are now upwards of 50,000 cases of veterans and their families not receiving adjudication or decisions on their claims. I think that is an extremely important study. We need to have witnesses and have the PBO come in, and I want to thank Ms. Blaney again for that.
The third notice of motion is “That pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study of the Royal Canadian Legion and other veteran organizations and their financial health during and after the COVID-19 crisis.”
The situation involving veterans' organizations such as the RCL has come to the attention of all Canadians. I know that Bill C-4 addresses some of the issue, but this is not a “just now” issue. It is going to be a long-standing problem across this country for these service organizations, including Dominion Command and the Royal Canadian Legion, to help veterans and their families as we move forward, because many of them are facing financial hardship. It's important that we look at these organizations and the impact of many of these service organizations not being able to function in their proper fashion. We need to study the impact on veterans and their families and on those organizations.
The final motion—and I'm glad to see Mr. Casey sees this as important—that is on notice is “That as the fourth order of business and pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study of (a) the efficacy and use of psychiatric service dogs by Canadian Armed Forces veterans to alleviate the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder; b) that the resources required by Veterans Affairs Canada to implement access to psychiatric service dogs; c) the challenges faced by veterans with psychiatric service dogs; and d) what should constitute minimum national standards for the training of PTSD psychiatric service dogs, and that no fewer than three meetings be devoted to this study."
As Ms. Casey indicated, this study was being done in a previous session of Parliament. We feel it is extremely important, and now is the time to continue that study.
Those are the notices of motions, Mr. Chair, that are in front of the committee. I'll be glad to speak to them as we move to subcommittee and figure out what the agenda is going to be, going forward.
Thank you for your time.