Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to ask a further question of my colleague.
The member is aware, as are all Canadians, of the very stressful and dangerous position that we put our service personnel in on their missions. Yesterday a member spoke very eloquently about his trip to Afghanistan and how it was a dangerous situation for him to even exit the plane at the airport. In fact, I believe there were some delays even in landing the plane at the airport.
He also mentioned the fact that the soldiers slept in tents and that there was always a fear of rockets hitting the soldiers on base. There is also the high death rate in Afghanistan right now with people being victims of the roadside bombs.
A lot of people would not want to be in this situation. The personnel could easily stay home, especially the reservists, get regular 9 to 5 jobs, sleep in their beds at night and have weekends off, but those military members put themselves at great risk when they go overseas. When they do have traumatic experiences, many of them come back with post-traumatic stress disorder, alcohol problems and drug abuse problems. Suicide rates can also be an issue.
This is a very serious issue. Those people deserve proper benefits. Yesterday, the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore mentioned a list of items that the government promised before it was elected government and then reneged on them. He talked about the food bank for veterans in Calgary, which the Prime Minister attended for a photo op just a couple of weeks ago. He talked about homeless shelters for veterans. That should never happen in a country like this.
The government has made promises. It promised to resolve the agent orange issue in New Brunswick. That was not entirely resolved to the satisfaction of the military personnel. The government also made other promises and it took very tentative steps.
Yet when it comes to the photo ops and the ceremonies, the government is there, right up front, taking credit and trying to present itself as being very supportive of the military and the military personnel. However, when the rubber hits the road, when it comes down to bringing in proper legislation that will help the military and the military families, where is the government? It is not here.
When it does have a chance to do something, it brings in Bill C-13. The argument has been made that this did not have to be a bill, that it could have been done through regulations or order-in-council. It is an important measure, but it only involves 50 or 60 people at a cost of $600,000 per year.
It is a first step, but we do not want the government to stop there. We want it to proceed and deal in a methodical way with all the other listed issues outlined by the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore in his excellent speech yesterday.
Would the member like to make any further comments on that?