Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from the NDP on being named “parliamentarian of the year”, if I am not mistaken. I am sure that everyone in the House will certainly join me in doing that.
We all bought into the new veterans charter. It was sold to all parties. We voted on it. No member from that time to now is to be excluded, myself included.
However, we have understood there are difficulties with it and we have seen that some changes are needed. I have heard from a lot of veterans that the old way was that they would be given a pension and there was no retraining, there were no other things available, and that maybe some of the things in the NVC should be kept, such as giving returning wounded soldiers a lump sum, but as well, giving them a monthly pension.
Just to clarify, the minister left out some of my comments when I quoted the executive director of Wounded Warriors when I was on Power & Politics.
In the letter that the Conservative Party sent out, it had “...” and left out some of what I said, which is a real shame on the Conservatives who tried to use that as a fundraising tool. Again that is certainly not respecting the veterans.
I am looking forward to working with the NDP, as well as the government, in order for us to come to some understanding that we need to make changes.
I proposed changes today. It is really a shame. Instead of hearing, “Yep, you got a good point there. We'd like to help you”, I got a personal attack again from the minister.