Mr. Speaker, I must say at the outset that I certainly appreciate the opportunity to speak to this very important legislation as the minister has just outlined. It will improve the pension benefits of members of the Canadian armed forces.
This is the first opportunity I have had since becoming the national defence critic for the official opposition to speak to defence related issues in the House of Commons.
In 1998 the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs released a report on the quality of life in the Canadian Forces. The report contained a recommendation that members of the reserve force in our military should also be eligible to receive benefits under the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act. Today, five years later, legislation to implement this recommendation as well as modernize and enhance pension benefits is finally working its way through Parliament.
Overall, the legislative changes contained within Bill C-37 are welcome. For that reason the Canadian Alliance will be supporting this progressive initiative that should have been done many years ago.
Once the legislation comes into effect, members of the Canadian Forces will be offered pension benefits which are more in line with what is offered to employees of the public service and the private sector. The new superannuation plan will calculate pension benefits using years of pensionable service instead of terms of service.
The legislation will allow members to obtain early access to benefits from the age of 50. Members who decide to leave the Canadian Forces will also be allowed to take the value of their pension with them. Members of the reserve force will finally be able to receive a proper pension benefit.
The inclusion of the reserve force is perhaps one of the more important changes contained within the legislation. The reserves have always been a critical component of our Canadian armed forces. It is about time the government acted to put in place some sort of substantive acknowledgment of their contribution to our military. I have always been more than a bit upset with how our reserves have been treated in the past.
I have already referred to my concerns about adequate communications with the contributors, the pensioners, in the future. My concern was not so much with consultations, which I readily acknowledge the minister mentioned in his remarks have been conducted up to this point. There has been widespread consultation, and I do not dispute for a moment the facts as the minister presented them that contributors and by and large stakeholders both in the reserves and the regular forces are very supportive of this legislation.
My concern is in the future, perhaps when the present minister is no longer the minister, that communication and any future regulations would actually be required to be communicated directly to the people that are affected. It is not necessarily today or even tomorrow, but years in the future.
Not long ago I was contacted by one of our true wartime heroes, Cliff Wenzel, a veteran who fought during several conflicts as a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He has also been awarded several decorations resulting from his service to our country. After serving some 20 years in the air force, Mr. Wenzel decided to apply for early retirement on a reduced pension and continue his involvement in the air force as a squadron leader in the auxiliary reserve.
For some strange reason still unknown to Mr. Wenzel, after some 40 years he was denied a reduced pension because his early retirement was deemed not in the public interest. According to the government, spending 10 years in the air force reserve was not in the public interest. This has left Mr. Wenzel with absolutely no pension, after spending a total of 30 years in the air force, 20 years in active regular service and 10 years in the reserve. Let us be clear. Mr. Wenzel served 20 years in the regular air force, another 10 years in the reserves, and the government has deemed his service to our country does not qualify him for an early reduced pension.
Unfortunately, over the past while there have been quite a few cases that are similar to Mr. Wenzel's where our veterans have received no benefits from the Canadian Forces. Major Bruce Henwood discovered to his amazement that he was not eligible for lump sum compensation after losing both his legs in Croatia. Last year the situation of Lieutenant Colonel Al Trotter was raised in the House by my colleague, the member for Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys, after he was denied a prisoner of war pension supplement.
These instances of outright neglect by the government unfortunately seem to be all too symptomatic of its overall disregard for our Canadian military. The government's disdain for our military extends beyond its poor treatment of our veterans even to the men and women who presently serve in the Canadian Forces.
As recently as last week I launched a campaign with the help of a military spouse, Ms. Sheri Gauthier, to protest impending rent increases for military housing units on base provided by the Canadian Forces Housing Agency. Sadly, many military families living in those housing units are forced to sacrifice their quality of life as all too often the homes are in disrepair and well below acceptable housing standards. Yet the government is imposing on many of the units substantial rent increases well above acceptable provincial levels.
It is simply unimaginable what some of our military families have to put up with when living in housing on base. Many of these families are tired of keeping quiet about the shoddy housing they are provided with. However the majority refuse to speak out for fear of reprisal.
If members of the House need further evidence, they need only travel down the road and visit CFB Rockcliffe, only a few minutes away from Parliament Hill. At a time when homelessness is such a serious concern, extra housing units at this base were offered to homeless individuals in the Ottawa area. However, if we can believe it, these homes are in such poor condition the city of Ottawa would not allow the homeless to move into them. It must have been quite disheartening for the military families who still reside there to be deemed to be the exception to the rule.
The long term neglect of our military personnel on the part of government needs to come to an end. The men and women who serve in the Canadian Forces are our military. Without them we cannot defend our borders, protect our country and assist those in need at home and abroad.
If the government wants to improve the sorry state of the Canadian Forces, it needs to stop its sorry treatment of our military personnel. To do this, the government should start by doing three things. First, it could start by paying our military personnel better wages. Second, it could start by investing in properly equipping our military with the tools they need to do their job. Third, the government needs to start giving our Canadian Forces personnel the proper respect and recognition they deserve for their hard work.
I was reading the local paper this morning at home before I came to work. I noticed in the letters to the editor section of the Ottawa Citizen that one of the letters talked about the moving service for the two soldiers who tragically recently lost their lives, Sergeant Short and Corporal Beerenfenger. I will quote from the letter in the Ottawa Citizen of Monday, October 20, 2003:
Lieutenant-General Rick Hillier, commander of the army, presided over the service and spoke with dignity, respect and compassion. A powerful speaker, he uttered the most truthful words: “It is the soldier, not the politician, who is the hero. It is the soldier, not the bureaucracy, that gives us democracy”.
That jumped out at me because I thought no truer words were ever spoken and only adds to the issue that I have with the government on how it treats our military.
The legislation we are debating today, Bill C-37, makes a positive improvement to the benefits our military personnel receive. There is no question of that. However, yet again I would argue that more needs to be done.
Men and women starting a career in the Canadian Forces certainly do not expect to be paid lavish wages. They do expect to be paid a fair salary that will allow them to maintain a reasonable lifestyle. With ever-increasing cost of living expenses such as car insurance, gas and now even rent, the salaries paid to our military personnel are being stretched thin. The government must ensure that the salaries paid to our Canadian Forces personnel are adequate and properly reflect their hard work and their service to our country.
We need only reflect back a couple of years ago. An exposé was done on one of our national newscasts and I do not remember whether it was CBC or CTV. It revealed a sad and humiliating spectacle of Canadian Forces families going to get their groceries at local food banks. They did not have adequate remuneration to actually buy groceries for their young children and I thought how sad. I know there have been improvements made since then, but much more needs to be done, and I think the minister would agree with that.
The men and women of the Canadian Forces do not ask for much, I argue. Day in and day out they perform their duties and carry out the tasks assigned to them and fulfill missions given to them by our government. All the while our Canadian Forces do an exemplary job and consistently exceed expectations. All they ask for in return is some recognition by their government of their job well done.
Earlier, I mentioned Mr. Cliff Wenzel, a retired air force pilot who wants more than anything else just some recognition by his government for his service in the reserves. He wants his government on the record stating that the 10 years he spent in the reserves was in the public interest.
Those in the military today want their government to be proud of the work they do, not ashamed of the fact that our military occasionally might have to use physical force to save the lives of innocent civilians while serving on peacekeeping missions overseas.
The folks who serve in our Canadian Forces do an excellent job. I cannot understand why the government will not give them more money so we can have resources to help those in need around the world.
Another area of improvement for our Canadian Forces involves a serious investment on the part of the government to provide our forces with the tools they need to do the jobs to which they are assigned. The equipment deficiencies of our military are so extensive that I could go on at length highlighting the serious need for reinvestment. I simply do not have enough time to go down the almost endless list of things that need replacing.
Instead, I will touch on the more important equipment procurement priorities. I appreciate that the minister is listening to my remarks. Perhaps during questions and answers he could bring the House and Canadians, who are watching the debate, up to speed on where we stand with procurement of some of the essential needs of our armed forces.
I, like so many others, have been going on ad nauseam about the maritime helicopter project. It still serves as the best example of a bungled procurement project to replace the fleet of aging Sea King helicopters. Our navy works tirelessly maintaining these aircraft to ensure they are safe and available for use when they are needed. The cost to keep these helicopters in the air well past their shelf lives is in the tens of millions of dollars a year.
For the past 10 years, ever since the government came to power in 1993, the pilots who fly these aircraft and the technicians who work to keep them in the air have been waiting patiently for their government to purchase new replacements. Needless to say, if the outgoing Prime Minister had not, “with a single stroke of his pen,” cancelled the original replacement contract, our service personnel would not have been left waiting for new aircraft and we would not be continuing to spend outrageous sums of money in an attempt to keep 40 year old helicopters in the air.
Likewise, the air force is confronting a similar problem with its primary workhorse aircraft that we continue to deploy around the globe, the C-130 Hercules. Currently, two-thirds of the fleet has been grounded periodically due to maintenance problems. The bulk of these planes, similar to the Sea Kings, are approaching 40 years in service.
Has the government stepped forward to address this serious problem? I would argue, not really. Instead of putting plans in place to purchase new replacement aircraft, the Minister of National Defence is scrounging for used parts, specifically airframes and the shells of the aircraft to keep them in the air.