Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to Bill C-37 today. I would like to echo some of the comments from the previous member about the importance of providing a welcome to our returning military members when they return home after a long career in the military.
Military pension modernization is sometimes not thought of as the most exciting topic in this place, but in fact it is extremely important to many people who live in my riding of Dartmouth, which is home to many military families, recent retirees from the military and, as I mentioned yesterday, many veterans.
We have a proud tradition of supporting our military, from standing at the docks to see the ships coming and going to and from the latest deployments to being out in full force at Remembrance Day, the Battle of Britain day and D-Day celebrations.
People in Dartmouth recognize the incredible commitment and sacrifice of our military personnel. They know that the men and women of our modern military spent a great deal of their time away from their families in the course of their work.
In fact, the Department of National Defence backgrounder on the bill illustrates the incredible change in our military's role. From 1948 to 1989, the Canadian Forces were deployed on 25 operations. Since then they have deployed over 65 times. That does not include the many training exercises and civilian emergencies such as the recent B.C. wildfires, which called personnel away for long periods of time.
I want to give hon. members an example of the effect of the multiple roles of our military. One of my constituents is in the air force. Two days after his son was born, Swissair flight 111 crashed off Peggy's Cove. He was one of the personnel in charge of retrieval operations. For the next three or four weeks he worked 16 hours a day supervising the retrieval of the plane, its contents and the bodies of the dead. He barely saw his newborn son and he certainly could not give his wife the support he would have liked to give her. That same constituent missed every one of his family's birthdays plus Christmas and Easter when, just two years later, he left for a deployment on Operation Apollo.
This life does not appeal to many of us. Frankly, I think that aspect of it does not appeal to my constituent either. We should be grateful that any of our citizens are willing to put their families through that kind of rigour, to move around the country and leave friends behind, to travel to foreign lands and to face daily danger.
In fact, we all know that our military is understaffed. Fewer and fewer people are willing to be in our military. Fewer and fewer Canadians make that decade long commitment that was once necessary to receive a pension, this at the same time that deployments are increasing. Again, DND points out that at any one time over one-third of its deployable force is either preparing for a mission, away on a mission or just returning.
We need a flexible pension plan that rewards Canadians willing to take on a military role. Instead of only supporting personnel who join the military at a young age and stay for a defined period of service, this new legislation will allow people to join the military for shorter periods of time and still generate pensionable earnings. It also allows breaks in military service without penalty.
Our military is changing and its role is also changing. These reforms of the pension plan for military personnel, both regular and reserve personnel, will help the military attract the best candidates. I think the military has had a bad rap over the years. Where it was once seen as an obvious choice for young people, now they are more likely to attend post-secondary or jump right into the work force.
Low pay, poor living conditions on bases and a draconian pension scheme that demanded lengthy terms of service could not compete with high salaries, stock options and more flexible work arrangements. Out of necessity, our military commanders have to recruit from non-traditional areas and they need the tools to attract the best candidates.
Finally, I want to comment on how important it is to our present military personnel to revitalize and fully staff our military.
I have lost track of how many leave-takings and joyous returns to the dock in Halifax I have had the honour of attending, but I do know that the experience of the constituent I mentioned earlier is not uncommon. Our military personnel are tired from constant deployments and operations. They have to use aging, outdated equipment and spend valuable time figuring out how to keep ships afloat, aircraft in the air, and vehicles moving, all of this during some of the most dangerous deployments Canadian soldiers have faced during peacetime.
Any measure that will encourage more skilled and qualified people to join the military is welcome, and that will allow military commanders to build up personnel capacity when needed to reduce the demand on regular forces.
Pension reform, as I mentioned earlier, is not the most interesting change that can be made, but it is an important one and we will be supporting the bill.