Veterans Affairs Committee on April 14th, 2021

[Sean Bruyea]

I'm sorry, Mr. May.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

That's okay. I have to get in there because we're getting really close to time, and I promised that everyone would get an opportunity.

MP Blaney, you have two and a half minutes, please.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to close and say thank you so much to all of the witnesses today. What they shared with us was very profound.

With your leave, I would like to go to the motion. I think what we're hearing is so important. I think it's only reasonable and fair that the Department of Veterans Affairs has the ability to respond to this. I think a lot of us are looking for some of those responses.

I move the following:

That the Committee request, in writing, a response from the Minister of Veterans Affairs Canada to the testimony that was received on April 14 2021, including the brief sent by Sean Bruyea containing his recommendations, within 30 days of the date of this meeting.

If you need me to read that out again, Mr. Chair, please let me know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We will.

I will remind all members that we did not recommend a report to be done, so I think some clarification in terms of what you want them to respond specifically to....

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Chair, thank you for that.

The reason I'm proposing this motion is that we did not have that clarity. It would have been great if we'd had a report coming. We don't. I'm asking for Veterans Affairs to respond directly to this testimony and to the recommendations Mr. Bruyea has presented to us. How Veterans Affairs chooses to respond is up to them, I guess, but I'm hoping they will give us a response to what they heard and any feedback on actions they're taking to address some of these very important concerns.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Excellent.

For the sake of translation, would you mind repeating it at least one more time, please?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Absolutely. I move:

That the Committee request, in writing, a response from the Minister of Veterans Affairs Canada to the testimony that was received on April 14 2021, including the brief sent by Sean Bruyea containing his recommendations, within 30 days of the date of this meeting.

I'll have someone from my team send it to the clerk, if that's helpful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Yes, please.

Is there a need for anyone to get clarification on the motion that's before us?

Is there any discussion on the motion?

Seeing none, all those in favour of the motion....

I beg your pardon. I'm sorry, guys. I'm jumping the gun here. MP Casey had his hand up. I lost it in the decor of his background.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I am fine to support the motion.

The concern that I have—I'm not sure if it requires an amendment to the motion—is that in the course of testimony today, we heard testimony with respect to individual cases. Clearly, the department is not going to be able to respond to that testimony without some sort of a privacy waiver from the people who have given that testimony.

As I say, I think that the minister should be given an opportunity to respond to what has been heard today, but to a certain extent they will be limited without such a waiver. As long as we know that they will be subject to that limitation, then we go into this with our eyes open.

With that said, I will be supporting the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Is there any other discussion?

Seeing none, in this virtual format, I think it's just a matter of whether we have unanimous consent for the motion.

(Motion agreed to)

I want to thank all of the witnesses for being with us today. I appreciate the overwhelming sensitivity of each of your cases and the work that you're doing.

I can at least speak on behalf of the members of this committee that we are in agreement that improvement is needed and we need to continue to move on it.

The one issue I will comment on is Mr. Hunter's mention of the military not being able to go to the study that is currently being conducted. I can assure him that is in fact happening. Members of CAF have attended and will continue to attend those hearings on that incredibly important issue.

Again, thank you to all members of this committee. Thank you to the technical—

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, if you don't mind, if the committee clerk can send the wording of the motion around to all of the committee members so that we have record of it, I would appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Once it's been translated, we'll distribute it.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I see that Mr. Hunter has his hand up.

[Allan Hunter]

I would ask the indulgence of the committee to make sure that the witnesses get that as well.

Mr. May, on a point of clarification, I understand that the ability of women in the military to come forward is out there, from a theoretical sense. However, based on past history and what I've heard, it's one more time that they're being told to hurry up and wait, and here's another committee. The willingness of those victims who are traumatized is the biggest point that I would like to make.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I can't agree with you more.

Prior to this Parliament, I was the chair of the human resources committee, and we oversaw Bill C-65, which was on violence and harassment in the workforce. I can assure you, I'm very aware of the trepidation and challenges of coming forward, so are all of the members of this committee. A big thank you, sir, for the work that you do.

I will wrap up here by simply reminding everyone that on the 19th, we will not be having a meeting. Our next meeting will be April 21, which will be hearing from witnesses on the study of support services and veteran caregivers and families. It's our last meeting on that study.

Scot.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I may be out of order, but I want to thank Allan, Tina and Sean.

Tina, I'm going to follow up to see if the Auditor General's report for Veterans Affairs has been implemented. Somehow I doubt that they've done so.

Thanks so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much, everybody.

Thank you to all the folks in Ottawa who make it possible to be heard and to be seen.

I adjourn this meeting.