Evidence of meeting #108 for Veterans Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was benefits.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
Mr. Desilets, I think you added the National Defence minister, but not the Veterans Affairs minister. I think that's what Mr. Richards is trying to do.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Okay.
Mr. Richards's proposed amendment is on the table to invite the Minister of Veterans Affairs to appear for this study. I would ask the clerk to now proceed with the vote.
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you to the clerk. Mr. Richards' amendment has therefore been agreed to.
Let us now move on to Mr. Desilets's duly amended motion.
We will now vote once again on this amended motion.
I would ask the clerk to be clear.
(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
The motion as amended has therefore been agreed to.
Let us continue.
Given the time, I'd like to ask members of the committee and also the witnesses—maybe they have other engagements—if we can do eight or 10 minutes to conclude this panel. Are there any objections?
There are no objections. Witnesses, is it okay for you too?
I'm going to give five minutes to Mr. Desilets and five minutes to Ms. Blaney, and we're going to conclude the panel.
Mr. Desilets, you have the floor.
Bloc
Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Once again, I'm sorry that it took so long.
Senator Patterson, in your opinion, is it absolutely necessary to declare war on another country for it to be considered wartime service?
Senator, Ontario, CSG
Thank you very much. I think that's a very pertinent question.
In preparation to come here, I did a little bit of research. I'm going to go back to one of the previous questions. We have the legislative view of it, which is the declaration of war under the law of international armed conflict. It certainly talks about a beginning and an end, but it's a legal entity. When you start breaking it down into, effectively, the administrative processes that fall under the National Defence Act or the veterans charter, etc., this is where it becomes a noun.
Bear with me here. I thought, what is war? There is nothing that we have heard from any of your witnesses that tells you that you do not bleed red, no matter what legislation calls it. I know that sounds pretty harsh, but in the impact on families and members from injury and death, it doesn't matter what we legally call it, so I thought I'd give you a couple of interesting points.
In the Oxford dictionary, “war”, as a noun, is a conflict carried out by force of arms between nations or between parties against each other, so basically that includes the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Kosovo. Do you see where I'm going here?
What I also thought was interesting is that we know that from 1945 on, when Canada then looked at the UN charter and it became “police action” and other names, we understand that it was to walk away from global conflict as we had known it, but did you know that under the UN charter, they define war not as a declaration but as an action?
Interestingly, they define war as any conflict that meets the criteria of armed conflict according to the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols.
As a health services person in the Persian conflict, I wore a red cross, and those Royal Canadian Regiment soldiers provided force protection for us because I was only to raise by arm in defence, as opposed to any other reason.
They talk about additional protocols: “An armed conflict exists when there is a resort to armed force between States (international armed conflict) or protracted violence between government authorities and organized armed groups within a State (non-international armed conflict)”.
Why does this matter? It matters because it talks about the actions that take place. If we were to take the legislation and apply it to those of us who have served, you can be a war veteran if, administratively, we write the definition of “war” in there, but when they look at “special duty area”.... Again, I'm not an expert in this. We need very clever people who write regulations and the policies that fall out of it, along with the Veterans Well-being Act, but when you look at a special duty area—and there are all sorts of other things that come with it—why can you not have...? If I use all of the examples provided by my colleagues here and the many places that we've been, they get a war designation.
From a benefit perspective, we can do it one way, but from the commemoration perspective of a war veteran, we are asking to be recognized for the ultimate sacrifice to our country.
Why are we in dispute? It's because it's very hard to define the family that we create and the environments that we go into in a bureaucratic process. It's about recognition. It's about dignity. It's about justice.
There is potential, and I think it's worth looking into bringing the noun “war” into the regulation at the policy level, making an assessment and seeing if that works. Take it out of legislation and put it into a lower level.
Thank you.
Bloc
Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you, Senator Patterson.
You have really done your homework. I really appreciate the idea of the impact of armed conflicts.
Our understanding is that the legislation will have to be amended to achieve a measure of equity.
How would the Senate react if it received legislative amendments?
Senator, Ontario, CSG
That's a good question.
I will bracket where I would have to recuse myself from voting, because of course I would benefit from any of this, so I want to put that on the table right away.
Here in the House of Commons, when it comes to the people who are veterans and serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces and the RCMP, you care. We know that. I think it would be received well.
The question is whether it is a government bill or a private member's bill. From where is it going to come at us? Again, as we've just been through, these are the processes of Parliament that matter as well.
On a reception perspective, I think there would be good reception. Again, this is about recognition, commemoration, dignity and respect, and then the insurance principles you talked about can be dealt with later.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you, Mr. Desilets.
Now let's go to Ms. Rachel Blaney for five minutes.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you so much, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here and, of course, for your service to our country. I'm sorry you don't get a bit more time to share your stories, but welcome to Parliament. Here we are.
I'm going to come to the senator first.
I really appreciated your recommendation around having the committee study the equivalency between the two acts. The part I found particularly intriguing is that veterans should be invited to a round table to inform this study. One of the challenges we hear from veterans again and again is that they often don't know what they can apply for and that they don't understand the changes.
I'm wondering if you think it would be appropriate for VAC to do some of that work—to sit down with veterans and go through the process of understanding the different benefits, while getting feedback from the people from the wars you're talking about. They are left out and not acknowledged in the way they need to be.
Senator, Ontario, CSG
Thank you for the question.
I want you to know that there have been at least 35 SDAs since World War II. There were two wars, and Korea. They were designated as wars. There are many living veterans. As we always say, “Nothing about us without us.” We sit at this lofty level in Canada, making policy, but we don't always know the lived experience.
I'll go back to the concept of having the women veterans council advise the minister. I think that is a very good idea—a veterans advisory council or special group on benefits and harmonizations. It would be of great value because, as we heard, there are mixed experiences with Veterans Affairs. There are some good Veterans Affairs experiences. I believe they're willing to listen, so I like your recommendation.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you for that.
I understand you have quite a bit of experience addressing Gulf War illness. I'm wondering if you could talk a little about what the work you've done looks like, and what happened.
What we've heard from testimony as well is that Gulf War illness is not acknowledged. There's a desire for that to be understood by Canadians a lot more, so I think your work would really help the committee understand next steps and the recommendations we should make in that context.
Senator, Ontario, CSG
Thank you for the question.
As I said, I was a nursing officer. When I came back, I ended up as the head nurse on the floor that ran the Gulf War clinic for the Canadian Armed Forces. Retired Colonel Ken Scott was the internal medicine specialist who did the assessments. This was driven by the fact that other allied nations were saying, “We're getting a funny constellation of symptoms coming together, and we want to know what they're linked to.” On my floor, people would come in from all across the country. That's when we still had military hospitals. They would go through a full battery of tests to make sure it was not some underlying condition. As you know, it's a disputed syndrome. What is it? How does it work?
One of the challenges is that we don't invest in research. I'm going back to that again. If you want a Canadian solution, it's easy to say, “No, we need the data. Do the research.” Moving forward, other countries have done a wealth of investigation. They've looked at things. Is it a form of post-traumatic stress syndrome? No. However, there are still these outlying things. They've done more work. If we in Canada want to get on this, we need to put some investment into proper research, because it will become hidden.
The challenges in a country like Canada that continue to drive us forward.... We say, “Fire and forget. It's over. Move on to the next issue and the next war.” If you want to look back at it retrospectively, invest in research that is gender-based—disaggregated—in order to see what the delta is, because this is an occupational health issue.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you.
In that context, I'm going to stop asking questions and move that the testimony of retired navy Lieutenant Louise Richard from March 19, 2013, at ACVA be adopted into the study on wartime service veterans
To give context, she specifically talked about Gulf War illness. I want to make sure we have that testimony on record if we need to access it during the report.
Hopefully, we can just move to a vote.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Ms. Blaney, we don't really have too much time, but I can ask members quickly what their thoughts on that are.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
It's just so we have access to that testimony.
Of course, my team sent it out to everyone and we were given ample opportunity to review it. The context is specifically with the Gulf War illness. She spoke about it in that testimony, so if we can't get her in front of the committee, it would be good to have access to it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Yes. Do you agree on that?
Do you have something to say, Mr. Desilets?
Bloc
Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
I'm not sure I understand correctly. I understand what was said, but I don't see why we need to vote.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
I have to say to you and Ms. Blaney that you are allowed to present motions like that, but colleagues don't even have a copy in—
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
They have a copy. Yes, they do. I emailed it out about three weeks ago. I sent it to every single member. I've had conversations with every party. I know there was some concern of context from the Conservatives, which is why I've given the context that she testified specifically about Gulf War syndrome.
We know we have a limited amount of time. It's just testimony from 2013. It's just allowing us to be able to access it.
Hopefully we can just call the vote to move forward. This is something that everybody had access to.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Yes, I understand that, Ms. Blaney, but I'm in a situation where, first of all, we have the interpreters until 1:20. That's 20 minutes more, because we went longer and I asked for unanimous consent to—
