I don't want to be partisan here, but as Louise and I were answering about moving Veterans Affairs from Charlottetown, the member, Sean Casey, gave us a very reproving look, and I think it has to be called out because that sort of look is just the beginning of the stigmatization that prevented us from getting care. It's the sort of look that says, “You have no right to step on my territory.” “There is no Gulf War syndrome,” Colonel Ken Scott would say, but he set up a clinic that would refer patients, which I was referred to, and I was told, “We don't believe in Gulf War syndrome, but we set up a clinic for Gulf War syndrome. Then, when you get there, we'll tell you there's no Gulf War syndrome.” Why do you think I didn't go to the clinic? It was so absurd. I want to say that I respect Sean Casey and I've worked with him in the past, but he has perverse incentives too.
What we really have to do, from a non-partisan basis, is look at priorities. The priority is that.... Everyone, every Canadian we ask to put on that uniform exercises their right and choice to join the military, but once you're in the military the powers of influence are so strong that we're willing to do stuff that sane people don't do: That's the definition of indoctrination. Yes, the immediate affront taken from our suggestion that we should move Charlottetown...there are compromises. You're all politicians here—there's a compromise. Move Charlottetown's Veterans Affairs headquarters out, with the decision-makers out, and put in equivalent job replacements from call centres that big cities or centres don't need.
We also know, in Charlottetown, that there's competition for skilled medical staff. Skilled medical staff are being poached by the provincial agencies, and anyone will tell you—it's the worst-guarded secret in the world—that Veterans Affairs is struggling to staff because of this cross-poaching that occurs. Moving Veterans Affairs out of Charlottetown would be a solution—where the decision-makers are there—and replace it with some other federal program that allows the same employment in the same area, and then Sean Casey doesn't have to give us that look anymore.
In terms of answering your question of where the big problem is, it's there: It's politics. It's money. All sacrifices that occur—they're sitting at this table, and that you guys have listened to for years—are occurring to preserve this system. It's now the turn of government and of Canadians to sacrifice on behalf of veterans. We upheld our end of the bargain. We have to have some sacrifices.
In the military—you've heard this often, again—when we join and are ordered to do something, we can't say no. Why is it that the public service can keep saying no to you? I don't understand that. I don't understand why more force isn't put. I don't understand why Parliament would not unanimously endorse a duty to care or a duty to inform. It's beyond me, and I don't know why, under these circumstances and with that lack of reciprocity, people would join the military.