Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and for the work he does on the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. He is a huge asset to that committee. When this bill was being studied, he proposed several amendments that were rejected out of hand.
My colleague is correct. The government is all smoke and mirrors when it comes to veterans affairs. For months, it repeated that it had invested $5 billion to help veterans since it came to power, even though that was untrue. It was $4 billion, since $1 billion was diverted and returned to the treasury. We could have used some of that money to hire staff to help veterans or military members who are struggling with service-related mental health problems.
The National Defence and Canadian Forces Ombudsman mentioned many times in previous reports that about 100 medical employees were needed to help people struggling with mental health problems. However, as we are seeing today, the government simply said that it would accept the recommendations in the report, but then it turned a blind eye to the issue. The government simply looks the other way and avoids the problems.
The government has shown in many ways that it has no regard for the mental health of veterans and it is not interested in helping them deal with this issue . The Auditor General's report today made it very clear that the way this government treats veterans is absolutely disgusting.