Veterans Affairs Committee on March 18th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Casey.

We're still discussing. Are there any other interventions on that?

Go ahead, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

We wouldn't support adding any additional witnesses until the ministers who have actual knowledge of the time period we're talking about but refuse to come to this committee choose to come.

We won't be supporting bringing any additional witnesses in.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, is he asking for a sub-subamendment to add that as a condition? I just want to know.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I'm just indicating that we won't be supporting it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Seeing no further debate, we will go to a vote on Mr. Sarai's subamendment.

(Subamendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

We will now continue the debate on Mr. Casey's amendment, as amended by Mr. Sarai's and Ms. Blaney's subamendments.

Mr. May, you have the floor.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think we've landed in the right spot with this in making sure that these witnesses will be heard. If the letter proves to be insufficient, we'll have the opportunity now to call them forward. However, it does pain me to suggest that we extend this even further. The women's study is in front of us. I don't know why it is not the priority of the opposition at this point to get to that, but it's clearly not, and I think it's important that I reiterate it. The work of this committee is to get these studies to the House and get the recommendations to the government in a timely fashion, and that is being threatened right now.

It's important that with the subamendment that was just passed.... As many of you know—all of you have been in committees for a while now—questions come up even after interventions from witnesses, and I suspect there will be questions from the letter we'll receive, hopefully in a timely fashion, from those who are tasked with building this monument for our veterans. I suspect we'll have that opportunity, but I would strongly encourage this committee to move off this issue and move towards the women's study report we have in front of us. That's what veterans are asking us to do. That's what veterans are waiting for. We also have many other studies in front of us, including some that I've gone into great detail in the past to remind this committee about. We need to get to those studies.

Mr. Chair, as you rightly pointed out at the beginning of this meeting, we have a very limited number of meetings left. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you said 16, which may sound like a lot, for those at home, but when you consider the runway we have in front of us and consider the slate of agreed-upon motions that are in front of us, it's not. I can tell you that we will not get done what we should have been able to get done because of the mission creep on this study.

We all know that governing and the work we do up here are about making choices. We know that the opposition is making a very clear choice here to push for this study, push for, again, an opportunity in their minds to embarrass the government and stall this committee. I was very pleased to hear Mr. Casey's intervention today suggesting that despite our inability in this committee to get things done, the national capital region is not in any way hampered by that. I hope that is comfort to veterans who are watching this. I think we need to continue to encourage the national capital region to do the work they are entrusted to do and make sure they have the resources necessary to do that work and continue that work.

We know that much has gone into the design and planning, and we started from a really rough spot. We know the previous government's choice to put this monument under a bridge was not well thought out. I've talked to veterans who had written letters to the previous government asking the government to please reconsider this, and I think it's imperative that we recognize that there's a lot of trust we need to build back on this project. There's a lot of concern out there that this project is sliding again. I am looking forward to that letter from the National Capital Commission and to being able to show veterans that this work is moving forward in a timely fashion.

That said, I had hoped that over the two-week break the opposition on this committee would have reflected on some of the interventions that I and my colleagues made in previous meetings when discussing this and would have recognized the importance of this committee and the importance that veterans place on this committee. Often in committee, we question whether anybody is paying attention. I've been the chair of a committee and I've talked to people about—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

I'm sorry you guys thought that was funny, but I assure you that it's not to veterans; I assure you they are paying attention. As the chair of this committee for a couple of years, I learned very quickly how much of an audience there actually is for this committee, how important this committee is and how diligently members watch these proceedings.

The opposition clearly sees that as a joke. They're laughing and chatting over me right now, but it's not a joke. It's incredibly important to keep that in mind as we're doing this work in public, which is not the convention. The convention typically is to do this work in camera so that we can have challenging conversations—and tough conversations, sometimes—to get to the right spot and do what's best for the subject matter of the day.

By us doing this in public, I hope that people start to recognize this and start to encourage their members of Parliament to move on, to get to a point where we can really focus on the strong issues of the day that veterans face and that we rededicate ourselves to getting back on track to start producing some tangible recommendations to the government.

I'll tell you that this particular issue we've studied at length. The minister has been here a couple of times on this issue. I think extending this, making it into a much bigger thing, is something I warned about right from the very beginning, and I will continue to say how unfortunate that is, given how much is in front of us and how much we still have yet to do.

None of us are here forever and we have a limited time to the work the people of our particular constituencies send us here to do. I'll be honest with you: I will not look back on these last couple of months fondly as a part of my career that.... It won't make into my memoirs. Let's just put it that way.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

That was funny. I'll give you that, Mr. Tolmie.

I'll give Fraser a minute to recover from that one.

It's true, and I hope none of us think that way. I hope none of us look at this as something that we should be proud of. I think we have to get back on track. I think it is an unfortunate reality that the opposition wants to make this into something it's not. We need to refocus.

I gave Mr. Tolmie some time to recover, but I am still getting heckled a bit.

I think it's important that—

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

That was beautiful. I was complimenting you.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that. That's how it was intended.

I think it's incredibly imperative that we move off of this and that, regardless of what occurs with these motions and amendments, we do not prioritize it. This should not be the priority of our government; this should not be the priority of the opposition.

I know how this started. I was here. We said that this was potentially a slippery slope, but I think it's incredibly important that folks.... We have a little time left today, and we're going to be off for two more weeks. I really call on all members to reflect on and speak to veterans and ask them what the priority is for them, because that's what we've been doing on this side of the House. I'll tell you that it's not this.

I will conclude by thanking veterans, again, for their patience on this issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Bryan May.

On the list I have Mr. Casey and Ms. Blaney, and to close, maybe we will have Ms. Hepfner.

Mr. Casey, the floor is yours.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I want to thank Ms. Blaney for her support of Mr. Sarai's subamendment. I think we've essentially almost come back to where we started with having a letter—and a witness, potentially, if the letter doesn't provide a satisfactory result.

There are a couple of major benefits from this approach, and that's why I am speaking in favour of the adoption of the subamended amendment.

One is that it puts a whole lot less pressure on the letter because we have a fallback. While I went through at some length what we would want to see in a letter that might be put forward to supplant a witness, I don't think we need to be as prescriptive because we have the built-in safety valve of inviting the author of the letter to come here.

I would also like to address one of Mr. Richards' comments. He stated, in his rationale for opposing this amendment, that the Conservatives won't be agreeing to any further witnesses until we have heard from the ministers directly involved. I think that perhaps presents an excellent opportunity for the committee to break through this impasse. If the primary preoccupation of the Conservatives is to bring the relevant ministers before the committee, I don't think there is any disagreement on that. The disagreement is on the fishing expedition that follows.

In terms of the viva voce testimony of the relevant ministers, if that is the focus, I think there is a path to resolution here, and I'd be most interested in exploring that. I'm not sure that an in-session public meeting is the place to explore that, unless others feel differently. However, I would be quite happy to hear from my Conservative friends as to whether a piecemeal approach, one where we go forward with what we can agree upon and agree to park what we can't agree upon and argue about it later, if necessary.... That's basically the approach we took with this amendment, and we could it take with the overall motion.

I offer that as an olive branch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Casey.

Ms. Blaney, it's your turn now.

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

Thank you, Chair, for your patience through all of this.

There were a lot of votes. My knee hurts. I was getting a bit sore walking back and forth to vote, but there you are; that's pretty fun.

I'm taking this as an opportunity to read the report about women veterans again. I was recently recognized by women in the defence world because of this work, but it's not public yet and that worries me greatly.

I am finding it hard to listen to the back-and-forth between the Conservatives and the Liberals about who did worse in the role they played with veterans. I don't know if that's why we're here. I just want to be clear that I need to get this report done. We have a commitment to women to get this done. This matters more to me than anything else I've ever done in this committee. It means that much to me.

If we cannot get this resolved, I'm going to encourage people to use other ways to get the answers they need, and I will be looking toward supporting an adjournment. If all this is going to be is a back-and-forth about the monument and we're not going to get where we need to get, I cannot sacrifice the work we did for women veterans because of that. I just want to be really clear with the committee that this is the direction I'm starting to go in, and I'm hoping we can get somewhere.

I will repeat this again: We heard in testimony on this monument that, even though we keep hearing the Liberals say it was veterans who responded, we have no clear way of knowing what happened, and that does bother me. I trust veterans. I believe that if veterans know they're being asked a question, they are going to step up and are going to answer. There's a confusing lack of communication for me, because I have also heard very clearly, as I think everyone on this committee has, that veterans often feel they are not connected to these systems.

When we were talking about the services to support veterans with rehabilitation being moved to the private sector, we heard very clearly that a lot of them had no idea this process was going to happen. We heard the ministry say that, yes, she sent out information. One of the things I proposed is that a letter should be sent, or something more physical.

We are not doing our job in this country for veterans with regard to connecting with them, so I don't buy what I'm hearing from the Liberal side. I don't even know that big drama was hidden behind this. I don't know what's behind it, but at this point, I'm having to make a difficult decision. I'm going to choose the women. I'm going to choose them every single time.

I just want the committee to know that I hope we can get this figured out. If we cannot get this figured out, I'm willing to adjourn to get this work done. I also want the committee to know I'm willing to come back, but I am going to prioritize the women.

I think this is an impossible decision and it's not right that I have to make it, but as I said earlier, I will choose the women every single time. They've been made invisible and I will not continue to support that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Blaney.

We all know how important that study is for all members here. We were so happy to do that study, and there was collegiality among us when we did it. As you know, we have a lot of recommendations, and we hope that those recommendations can be implemented for women.

I said it was going to take three meetings, but the analyst told me that we will have more than four meetings to finish the study on women.

Ms. Hepfner, you have the floor.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to say how much I appreciate the intervention from Ms. Blaney. I wasn't here for the testimony on either of those studies, but I would really like to get to the women's study as well.

I really appreciated the comments from my colleague Mr. May. I think it's clear from the interventions we heard today and from the behaviour of the Conservatives that they don't want to accomplish anything at this committee. They're just trying to obstruct us.

I think Mr. May also made a very good point about the nature of this debate, so I would like to move that we continue this discussion in camera.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Committee members, I'll have to deal right away with the request that we go in camera. So I will ask the clerk to please put this motion to a vote.

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

I have a question. Do we go in camera right now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

No, we're going to vote to go in camera or not.

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

My understanding is that in the past, on this committee, we couldn't make that kind of switch because it takes work to do that. We could not move from public to in camera, or the other way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I understand, but as I was told, we have that motion on the table and we can't discuss it. We have to go right away to a vote.