Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the statistical unpacking of the financial supports that back up the veterans budget.
I met a veteran coming back through upstate New York because he could not afford to travel through Canada on his way to Alberta to work. He told the story of a young 19-year-old who had fallen off scaffolding in the oil patch and was getting more compensation after working six months of his life on a job site than he was getting after serving 24 years in the military and encountering an explosion in Afghanistan that resulted in hearing loss, a disability in his arm, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
He said that after 24 years of serving his country, he could barely get a meeting with veterans affairs, and when he did, he barely got enough compensation. He said he had to go and work in Alberta to save the family farm in Nova Scotia.
How does the member opposite reconcile that life with the statements he just made? How does he reconcile that suffering with the supposed generosity of the government, especially when it is backdropped against the scores and scores of veterans who have protested the inadequacy of the government response to the very real life conditions they are facing on a daily and yearly basis?