Mr. Speaker, I am being heckled. I cannot believe I am being heckled on a bill about veterans benefits. Here we are trying to have a thoughtful, considerate debate about a legitimate issue of great importance to the quality of the lives of our retired veterans, and I am being heckled by members of the Conservative Party. I know you will bring them to order, Mr. Speaker, if they get any further out of line.
I have a letter here from Mr. Tim Gale, who is a veteran. He lives in Hubbards, Nova Scotia, which I believe is somewhere along the south shore. I wish my colleagues from the Conservative Party who are making light of this initiative could hear the passionate representation in this letter from a former member of the armed forces.
Where do these people go for satisfaction except to their members of Parliament? These are people who fought for our country, fought for our democratic institutions, who have confidence that in their hour of need, if they cannot get any satisfaction out of the Department of Veterans Affairs, at least they can come to their MPs to put it on the table here and have a respectful debate about their issues.
I hope I have time to share with hon. members at least some of the tone, if not the whole content of the very passionate letter that Tim Gale wrote. He wrote, “As one of the approximately 80,000, plus, supporters of the Military and RCMP Veterans' Campaign Against Pension Benefit Reduction...I am interested in knowing if you and your party would support the provisions” put forward by the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore.
They view my colleague as their champion on this issue, again notwithstanding the disparaging remarks from colleagues in the Conservative Party. People have put their confidence in my colleague to aggressively put forward these points of view and have them debated before the House and this is their hour. This is not our hour of debate, this is the hour for which 80,000 Canadians have waited. I hope we can keep the tone in a respectful way that it deserves.
He goes on to say:
The former government argued that the reduction is fair in that it is comparable to that of the Public Service and private industry; failing to take into account that members of the Canadian Forces and the RCMP must be prepared to place their lives on the line in the maintenance of peace and security throughout Canada and abroad. It is this uniqueness that separates the Military and the RCMP from the Civil Service...
I see I am out of time. I am interested in hearing what my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore has to say in his summary remarks. I am glad to have had this opportunity to add my voice to this very noble initiative.