Veterans Affairs Committee on March 29th, 2022

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Are we talking about one out of two applications being approved? Personally, I have no idea.

[Sayward Montague]

I'm not able to comment on that, but I would definitely like to know the answer.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Agreed.

Can you tell us more about your project or request to create an office of equity?

You mentioned it earlier, but you can take the last minute of my time to outline this proposal.

[Sayward Montague]

In addition to the remarks we made earlier, the Veterans Affairs' Office of Women and LGBTQ Veterans was a most welcome addition. It is staffed by some very good people who truly want to make a difference. At this point, we believe it is time to examine the need for an office of equity and what's truly needed.

It's become clear throughout different pieces of reporting—again I'll mention some of the reports that have come before this committee—that there are other factors that come into play that originate with intersectionality and identity. Your experience as a service member and in becoming a veteran might mean the supports you may need are about more than women and LGBTQ+ members. There are also impacts on Black, indigenous and other people of colour and how they have experienced life in the military.

Approaching this from an equity angle would zoom out a little bit and enable us to understand where other impacts are that aren't necessarily being seen. We've had some documentation and information about women veterans, francophone—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

[Sayward Montague]

Sorry, I'll stop.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much.

I'd like to invite MP Rachel Blaney for two and a half minutes.

Please go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to come back to Ms. Montague, if I may.

I know that one of the biggest challenges that I hear about is women who are released from the military because of injuries and other things that happen to them during their service to our country. We also know that, of course.... I really appreciated it when you talked about that. If you don't measure it, it's hard to know what's going on. A lot of women—all women—are measured through the lens of a male body. We know that often one of the impacts of that is that they are released and they are not recognized as having service-related injuries because that model for them isn't clearly there.

I'm just wondering if you could speak to what ways we need to see change happen to make sure the systems are not gender blind and are not blind to all equity-seeking groups.

[Sayward Montague]

Thank you.

One of the ways that it can become realized is what we mentioned in our brief about cross-departmental coordination and leaning into expertise that exists in other areas of government. National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces are beginning to do work on some of the upstream impacts that are occurring in terms—I'll use the example—of the impact of some service aspects on women's health and women's health outcomes.

There could certainly be a coordination role between National Defence, Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Canada, because what happens with National Defence and the armed forces upstream becomes a downstream issue. Better coordination on that side of things....

There's certainly expertise that can be drawn on from the Health minister. For example, women and gender equity could also play a role in that to ensure that there are tools to support swift adjudication and decisions on claims.

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

I think one of the challenges that we hear again and again is that relationship through the transition process from one department to the other department.

You spoke about how there's some work being done. Are the abilities for translating that help from one department to another strong enough, or is there anything that we could look at differently to make that a smoother process?

[Sayward Montague]

As an outsider, I believe that there could be additional supports or measures put in place to make that a smoother and more supported process.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much.

Now let's go to Mr. Caputo for five minutes.

The floor is yours.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

The motion I would like to move is as follows, Mr. Chair:

That, given that Juno Beach is one of the most sacred places in Canadian military history, the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs objects to plans to develop the area immediately adjacent to the Juno Beach Centre, expresses its support for the Save Juno Beach campaign in Canada, calls on the government to provide financial support for the Juno Beach Centre Association in order to protect the integrity of Canada's primary site of Second World War commemoration overseas, and reports this motion to the House of Commons.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Monsieur Dubourg....

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

Go ahead, MP Samson.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you, and I want thank Mr. Caputo for his motion.

I think Mr. Caputo will be very happy with my suggestion. I leave that to his determination, of course, but I'd like to add something to the motion as an amendment that I believe would add tools to the tool box, if you want.

I'll just go to the piece of the phrase, “Save Juno Beach campaign in Canada, calls on the government to provide financial support”. I'd like to add two words, “or other” support. Financial support could be one, but there could be others added because, as we know, we have the minister going out there in a week or so, and I know there are discussions with the French government and diplomatic discussions. There are all kinds of other tools, so I'm okay if we leave in the word “finance” but simply add, “or other support” because I don't want to limit ourselves to that. I want to enrich it so we can go further.

I believe Mr. Caputo would agree to that. At least I'm risking myself on this one.

Thank you.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Mr. Caputo.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I think that's likely fine.

If we really want to cover it off, we could put “and/or” if that would satisfy Mr. Samson.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Yes.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Okay.

I agree to that agreement.

I guess we have to have unanimous consent for it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Yes, we have to consult the team.

Do we have unanimous consent?

Perfect.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Motion as amended agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

This is very good.

Thank you so much.

We still have five more minutes. I can split that time in two.

There are two and a half minutes for you, and two and a half minutes for MP Rechie Valdez.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I have a really lengthy, “saturated” question, you might say. I'm going to give my time to Anna Roberts.