Mr. Speaker, I come back to the question I asked on November 26, 2012, concerning the transparency of the National Defence and Canadian Forces Ombudsman. He did not seem to have access to the documents he needed to fulfill his mandate effectively and conduct his investigations.
The Minister of National Defence's response was:
…we continue to work very productively with the ombudsman's office and we will do so within his mandate and within the law. It is that simple. That is what would be expected.
And yet, it is not only the ombudsman's office that has difficulty accessing the information needed to do the work. For example, the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer seems to be having the same problems. He also has difficulty getting access to figures to determine where cuts were made in the departments and how they were targeted. If there are cuts, he really must have the documents that go along with them.
Despite repeated requests, the Conservatives refuse to be transparent. Yet, the very foundation of any democratic system rests on the ability of parliamentarians to monitor government spending. Instead, and this seems to be common practice at the Department of National Defence, the government is spending millions of taxpayer dollars to pay private auditing firms, even though there are parliamentary officers who could do the job. For instance, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the Auditor General or the ombudsman are all here for the same reason: to conduct such audits and produce studies depending on the situation.
We have nothing against independent audits; on the contrary. However, when officers of Parliament provide independent analyses, the government should support their efforts instead of questioning their math skills or not providing the necessary documents.
The government is paying private firms to do work that has already been done, and the only reason is so they can keep the reports in the hands of the departments and manipulate the information more easily in the House. At the end of the day, it is a huge waste of time, money and resources.
The treatment of reservists is an important issue for all parliamentarians, or at least I hope it is, and the question I asked was about health care for reservists. The ombudsman's report followed up on the recommendations made in the 2008 report. I would like to state that most of these recommendations are apparently being implemented, and that is a good thing.
However, there has been no action on recommendation 10: “...that the Accidental Dismemberment Insurance Plan be changed...to ensure that all Canadian Forces members receive the same compensation for the same injury”. I am not sure that there have been any improvements or updates.
This recommendation refers to reservists serving in Afghanistan alongside regular forces. However, there is serious inequity in their treatment if they are injured or mutilated. The Forces' Accidental Dismemberment Insurance Plan provides a lump sum payment that is different for a reservist than for a regular forces member. The insurance is not the same. If a class A reservist and a regular forces member each lost a hand, the reservist would receive compensation of $50,000 and the regular forces member would receive $125,000, or 2.5 times as much.
I would like my colleague to tell me about changes that have been made.