Mr. Speaker, last Sunday I attended the service in remembrance of the 69th anniversary of D-Day. In attendance were members of the Mount Dennis and Silverthorn branches of the Legion, veterans, politicians of all stripes and air cadets from the 700 David Hornell VC Squadron.
In a very moving and poignant service, the Reverend Canon Allan Budzin remarked that we, as Canadians, ask a lot of our soldiers. He said we give our young men and women rifles and ask them to go to foreign lands and fight our enemies. Then when they return, we give them pencils and ask them to go and fight our bureaucracy.
It is a shame that we, as parliamentarians, cannot put aside our partisan bickering for a few moments and begin fixing the bureaucratic nightmare that awaits our veterans and their families as they grow old.
For some, it will be a minefield of government lawyers to fight, as it was for disabled vet Dennis Manuge. For others, it will be discovering too late that they fought in the wrong war to be given all the rights and privileges they deserve as our protectors.
Let us fix it now, lest we forget.