Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2024

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

Thank you.

My next question will be for both of you.

It's very clear to me that the impact comes from Veterans Affairs, but the decision-making power is with DND. I think you guys have done a great job of explaining that and what needs to happen.

As my next question, what do you believe the barriers are to the Government of Canada recognizing Gulf War syndrome, as other countries have?

[Harold Davis]

That's a good question.

I'm not sure what the barrier is.

Well, I am sure I can guess. The barrier, to me, is that the Department of National Defence didn't make a decision back in 1990, 1992 or 1993 to recognize our service. That's the barrier right there. If the recommendation had to come from the Department of National Defence and had been given to the Minister of National Defence at the time, maybe it would have already been done and we wouldn't be sitting here rehashing what our Korean brothers and sisters had to do back in the fifties. Now we're sitting here.

What happens down the road when other groups show up here? What's going to happen in the future when the guys come back from Ukraine? We're just rehashing it. A policy should be put out there, one we can all turn around, read and understand. The way Mike was explaining battle honours, the procedures are already set up. You can tweak that and end up having the exact same thing to denote what type of service someone had. Did he have a special duty area, a special duty service or duty operator....?

I'm getting mixed up here, guys. I'm getting excited.

It can be done. To me, it starts with DND. They need to produce the policy directives on how they come out with these decisions.

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

With the Korean War veterans having to do this work and being successful, and the fact that, so many times, back in the nineties, there was acknowledgement on a metalevel but not on that policy.... Really, it's governments since the nineties that have not taken the opportunity, repeatedly. Here we are in 2024, and you're still not recognized.

I'm wondering what the emotional and mental impacts are, not only on yourselves but also on your families, because of this lack of recognition.

[Harold Davis]

That's a very loaded question for me, because I get....

Mike, take it. I can't do it. I can't answer the question.

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

Thank you. I'm sorry.

[Mike McGlennon]

Everything's personal. Each one of us is different from the other. We experience things in life differently. I'm proud of my service career. I'm proud of the places I went and the people I served with. I am joined to them for life.

You live in a mudhole, you sleep in the dirt and you eat cold meals. You endure hardship. You're separated from your families. It's Christmas, and it's like, “Oh, this sucks.”

It's not any one thing. It's just the impact that special duty service or wartime service has on you, because if you're out doing one of those, you're not at home. You're off somewhere with your peers, serving your country because your country asked you to go somewhere and do the country's business.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Okay. Thank you very much.

Now I'd like to invite Mr. Terry Dowdall to take his five minutes, please.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Harold.

I've had the opportunity to have you guys in my office for meetings, and you've certainly enlightened me on the issue. I want to thank you for your service and thank those in the audience as well, and I really thank you for bringing this issue forward. I'm sure that all of the other veterans who are watching today would probably give you a big shout-out for being here to continually push this issue.

You say that you started in 2017, I think. I've been on committees since I was elected in 2019. I don't know if you've thought of what we actually do and can accomplish in reality. The news part is good—the news story—but at the end of the day, I'm disappointed.

The minister has not met.... I hope that we will have the minister in here. The minister would be the one who would do the policy. It's not so much this committee.

We heard last week from Mr. Sampson, who happened to be here as well, that there are really two issues that he feels are probably the reason. One is that the current government might not recognize war in general; it's perhaps just not what they want to get out there. The second is the financials.

Sitting here, I'm of the belief, quite frankly, that they don't want to do it. Why do you think they don't want to support this? As a committee, I think everyone in this room is thankful for your service and believes in what you're saying, and you've met with many MPs.

Why do they not want to support this?

[Mike McGlennon]

Thank you for that question.

I'm a 66-year-old Canadian citizen. I grew up looking at history books in school and learning about Lester B. Pearson, the United Nations service, the blue berets and the good stuff that we've done in the world and that we continue to do. We're happy-go-lucky nice and polite Canadians and we do not do horrible things to each other. It's not going to happen.

Every time we raise into the consciousness of the country that “Oops, we've gone to war”, it's “Shh—don't tell anybody, and maybe they won't know and we won't upset them.” I think there's an element of that there, but—

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Do you not think that the individuals who are are here...? I'm not on the government side. Hopefully, I will be at some point in time. I know that if I get a question or if there's something I feel strongly about, I.... Should they not be pushing harder on the minister and saying that this is something they're hearing in their ridings and that this is important?

You had a great comment: “I don't give a—”. I won't fill in that word. Why do they...? I hear that at the Legions. I'm from a base town—Angus, Ontario, for CFB Borden—and I hear that.

The role of the individual is to push for that. You've met some of these MPs. I'm just saying point-blank that I don't think they want to do it.

[Mike McGlennon]

In the military population today, in the 2021 census, there were 450,000 of us or something—regular force and then reserve force—so add another 100,000 people to that number. As a community, the military community is getting smaller as this country grows to 42 million or 43 million people. You're not seeing me. We're less and less.

In the First World War, it was.... What was the number? Was it one in...?

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

You talk to people here. It should have changed.

My colleague wants one last question. It will be a quick question.

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

Thank you so much, Chair.

I want to get clarity on this. You indicated that in 1993 you got battle recognition, and in 1992 medals were presented to the Korean War veterans for their wartime service.

Does this not tell you that for the Prime Minister to make that happen, he had to work with DND? There needed to be some significant interaction to create this policy, if it didn't already exist, so why can it not be done now?

You indicated that there's no process in place. That's your impression. How can that be when this has happened already? Do you not think DND has the capability even right now to make this happen?

[Mike McGlennon]

I can only guess that it's politics or something that evolved. You can do anything very quickly if you're motivated, but I don't believe we've found any policies in place. What the government did with the Korea guys.... I haven't found anything. I don't know.

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

You haven't been told or shown anything?

[Mike McGlennon]

We haven't been shown it at all. No one's opened the window.

[Harold Davis]

We can't find out how they got it done because the Library of Parliament is.... It's so old that it's not online anymore, so I can't reference it.

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

I have a friend over there. We'll see.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

For the last questions, I invite Ms. Hepfner to close this out.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know the Conservatives are trying really hard to make the government look bad, but I just want to point out that the reason we have a former parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs here is she remains engaged, and she's been arguing with....

[An hon. member]

It was defence.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Defence. Thank you.

Anyway, I just want to give a shout-out to my colleague for taking the time and being here. We have an extra member today because she is engaged and she cares.

We've all agreed to bring in the Minister of National Defence. I have a meeting coming up with you in my office, so I don't want to leave the impression that we don't care and we haven't been hearing you.

Harold, you gave an excellent summary of what you think the process should look like with regard to battle honours. Could you expand on that or talk a bit about it? If there is no process or policy, maybe both of you could weigh in on what it should ideally look like.

[Harold Davis]

I'm going to pass it to Mike, because Mike has been researching battle honours, how they have been delivered and what the procedures are. He's better placed to answer that question than I am.

[Mike McGlennon]

In some ways, that's above our pay grades, but if I were to visualize it in my head, and you created a committee, you'd look at whether it should be inside National Defence or outside. I don't think they've been handling the topic properly.

Anyway, you could think of putting a veteran on it, putting a military historian on it and putting a prominent Canadian on it who has no skin in the game. Make it fair. Make it transparent. They would be given a list of criteria. They'd look at it and go, “Ding, ding, ding”—yes or no.

That process would transparent to the veteran community, so I could go off on the Hill and go to Haiti, and I'd have an opinion. National Defence, or wherever this process is going to exist or be placed, would make it evident to me and say, “No, Mike. We disagree with you. Get lost,” or, “Yes, we do. We have a wartime service event”, and it would be done. It wouldn't be putting this responsibility on the backs of the veterans, which is the current situation.

I am walking on a worn garden path that veterans have walked before me. If you don't solve this problem for us or think about the future, I know some other veterans who might be headed in your direction, whom I can't speak for officially.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Do you want to add anything to that, Harold?