Mr. Speaker, better late than never. Our government has just realized, a half-century after the fact, that various categories of Canadian civilians, including firefighters and members of the Red Cross, shared the same merits and the same hazards during the second world war and the Korean war as uniformed personnel. Yet they not been entitled before now to the pensions and other benefits that are a concrete indication of the national gratitude enjoyed by war veterans.
Bill C-41, which we are considering at the moment, is intended, and I congratulate myself on this, to correct this injustice, but it achieves this end only partially, as I will soon show.
Another category of deserving civilian fighters has waited 55 years for recognition. I am speaking of the sailors of the merchant marine. The injustice they suffered has now been corrected.
The bill before us today concerns other categories of civilians serving abroad. They are primarily the members of the Corps of Canadian Fire Fighters for Service in the United Kingdom. These men helped fight the fires ignited nightly by the German bombardment of London, in particular, during the first two years of the war.
Others benefiting from the bill are the Canadian members of the voluntary aid detachment of the British Red Cross during the first world war. It took 82 years to remember them.
Welfare workers and voluntary aid workers in the second world war and the Korean war are also finally being recognized.
Not forgotten either are the civilian pilots in the Ferry Command, who often at the risk of their lives convoyed aircraft built here and destined for the European front between Canada and Great Britain.
The members of these various categories of civilians deserving of recognition by their country are, under this bill, being accorded the same treatment as military veterans and therefore are entitled to a pension. As many of them are dead, their widows will benefit. And if the widow is dead, no one will benefit.
The problem is that this good legislation will not be retroactive. It does not provide any compensation for the 55 years during which all these brave people were forgotten by their government.
This is an injustice. From the moment we recognize that these people are entitled to national recognition just like military personnel, who have been getting pensions since the end of the war, it is totally unfair to make them pay for the fact that the government waited for over half a century before acknowledging their contribution and thus their rights to national recognition.
I do not find it acceptable for the government to permit itself what would be considered a reprehensible abuse of power, had it been an individual's treatment of his employees. Can anyone imagine the head of a firm admitting that some of his staff had been unfairly treated for years and agreeing to remedy the situation only if the remedy were not retroactive?
But this principle of obvious equity does not seem popular with the government, if we are to judge by its reaction to the Canadian Human Rights Commission ruling ordering it to compensate those of its employees who, because they were women, had for years been paid less than their male counterparts. It will be recalled that Ottawa held out against making these retroactive payments for a long time. It only did so because it was forced to by the tribunal.
The purpose of Bill C-41 is to correct another anomaly and this is a good thing. This one involves members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are still serving but are suffering from service related disabilities. These men and women are not currently entitled to disability pension before their release. This situation is going to be corrected. We need hardly say that we are in favour of this provision of the bill.
However, we could not understand why clause 46 excluded the RCMP from this measure. I called on the government to withdraw this provision from the bill. We are pleased to hear that it just amended the act accordingly.
Another anomaly was also corrected. As the result of an error for which the recipient is in no way responsible, a veteran might receive a higher amount of pension than his entitlement for a certain period of time. Until now, when the error was detected, the person concerned was required to pay back the overpayment under conditions and a deadline that might be prejudicial to his quality of life. From now on, the victims of these administrative errors will be treated more humanely. We approve of this provision, while once again regretting that it has been so long in coming.
To summarize and to conclude, we support this piece of legislation, but we regret that it comes some 50 years too late and that it does not provide for the payment of an indemnity to recipients for this delay. However, as I said at the start, better late than never, and we will support this bill.