Debates of March 9th, 2017

Procedure and House Affairs

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

(Motion agreed to)

Business of Supply

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it, I believe you will find consent for the following motion:

That, at the conclusion of today's debate on the opposition motion in the name of the Member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, all questions necessary to dispose of the motion be deemed put and a recorded division deemed requested and deferred until Tuesday, March 21st, 2017, at the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to propose the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

(Motion agreed to)

Taxation

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by campers who stayed at the Holiday Beach campground in Whitefish, Ontario, which is located in the riding of Sudbury.

The petitioners call upon the government to ensure that campgrounds with fewer than five full-time, year-round employees will continue to be recognized and taxed as small businesses.

Newcomer Settlement Services

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, newcomer engagement and participation in society has been shown to be an important pillar for upholding our democracy and creating social capital. I proudly present a number of petitions forwarded to me by the multicultural society partnership led by the Okanagan Chinese Canadian Association that call upon the government to support and improve settlement services for newcomers.

International Development

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise today and present a petition spearheaded by RESULTS Canada and signed by dozens of Canadians from coast to coast to coast, which challenges our government to allocate 0.7% of gross national income towards official development assistance by the year 2020.

The Environment

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition from constituents from Richmond and around the Lower Mainland who are opposed to the Kinder Morgan pipeline. They are upset that the Liberals broke their promise in the last election and have now approved this pipeline despite saying they would not do so.

This petition is also accompanied by a pile of letters from students at the Chaffey-Burke Elementary School, who also support the petition.

Telecommunications

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to table a petition from residents of the municipality of Lac-Drolet who deplore the fact that an initial petition with 2,200 signatures could not be presented here in the House because it did not meet the requirements. They did their homework, however, and are now presenting a compliant petition to call on the Government of Canada to introduce legislation on cell coverage, so that all regions of Canada are provided with the same level of service as that in medium and large urban centres.

150th Anniversary of Confederation

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, commemorative medals have been issued by the Government of Canada on significant milestones in the country's history to recognize the contributions of everyday Canadians to their communities. These contributions mean so much to so many, but too often go unnoticed and unacknowledged.

A medal was issued for our Confederation in 1867, the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation in 1927, the Centennial in 1967, and the 125th anniversary in 1992. However, as part of the Liberal war on history, there will be no medal honouring the country-building contributions of Canadians on the 150th anniversary of Confederation. The tradition is being ignored and community-leading Canadians are being forgotten.

The petitioners from Wilkie, Saskatchewan, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, call upon the government to respect tradition and recognize deserving Canadians, and reverse its decision to cancel the commemorative medal for the 150th anniversary of Confederation.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Opposition Motion—Canadian Forces Tax Benefit

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

moved:

That the House call on the government to show support and appreciation for the brave men and women serving in the Canadian Armed Forces by reversing its decision to take away from the soldiers fighting against ISIS the tax benefit which provides them with $1,500 to $1,800 per month for the hardship and risk associated with their deployment, and to retroactively provide the payment to members stationed at Camp Arifjan whose tax relief was cancelled as of September 1, 2016.

I will be sharing my time this morning with my friend and colleague, the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.

Before I get into my comments, I want to extend our condolences to the friends, family, and service members who work as our SAR techs, our search and rescue technicians, for the loss yesterday of Master Corporal Alfred Barr. He was a member of 435 Squadron based out of 17 Wing Winnipeg. Master-Corporal Barr was on a training exercise near Yorkton, Saskatchewan, and there was an accident, which is going to be investigated. Our sincerest condolences go to his friends and family.

All of Canada knows that our SAR techs play an important role. They epitomize the bravery of our first responders as they rescue Canadians whether at sea, on land, in our lakes, or in the high Arctic. The 435 Squadron out of Winnipeg goes anywhere and everywhere to save those who need their assistance. It was an unfortunate accident and one that we are very saddened by.

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces are a part of Operation Impact. These troops are stationed in Kuwait and they are part of the fight against ISIS, the terrible terrorist organization that is wreaking havoc across the Middle East and is a threat to us here at home. It came to light to the opposition back in September that these soldiers have had their danger pay taken away from them.

Hardship allowances and danger pay benefits are given to troops when they are deployed and in operation. These troops are putting their lives on the line. Our air force members fly over enemy territory with the support of logistics officers. If it was not for our ground crews getting those planes in the air, whether to do reconnaissance missions, refuelling missions, or out there with our Auroras where the action is and feeding that intelligence to the overall operation, they would not be able to do the job that they do on the ground. It is important that we support these troops.

There is nothing to stop ISIS terrorists from walking across from Iraq and targeting Canadians, Americans, and other allies stationed in Kuwait. We know for a fact that as the fight in Mosul continues, ISIS is on the run. ISIS is being pushed out by Iraqi security forces and the peshmerga with the support of Canadian special operation forces and other allies. As those ISIS rats are fleeing from their holes in Mosul, they are trying to find other places of refuge and Kuwait has become an optimal target for them. We have over 300 Canadian Forces members stationed there.

It is important that Canadians understand that the hardship and risk allowance these soldiers receive, the tax-free income and bump up in pay, is not just about the risks these soldiers face by being deployed to a theatre of operations. It also takes into consideration the extra hardship that is placed upon their families back home, whether it is their parents, spouses, partners, or kids. They need to have the support because of the extra costs associated with their loved ones not being with them. These soldiers are gone for anywhere from six to eight months at a time and there are extra costs at home associated with things like yard maintenance, house upkeep, taking kids to hockey games, extra babysitting costs. Extra costs that usually do not exist are involved because of one of the spouses being deployed offshore.

This is about fairness. This is about making sure we have the benefits available to support the families who are at home. Without that family support, without that resource for the families, it is hard to find Canadians who want to serve and be deployed for the very reasons that we are talking about today.

Yesterday in the House, the minister was asked a question by the member for Lethbridge. The member asked whether or not there would be retroactive pay for those 15 members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are stationed at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.

I will quote what the minister said. This is from Hansard. He said:

I would also like to correct the member in terms of the previous government's actions on this. It actually sent troops into Kuwait without the tax-free allowance, something we had taken up.

That is the second time the minister has said this, and it is actually in contradiction to what the minister told me in the past in answering questions on the Order Paper. These were questions on the Order Paper that the minister himself has signed. It said we have documents signed and tabled by the minister saying that all Canadian Forces personnel serving at all Operation Impact Kuwait locations received tax relief effective from October 5, 2014, when we put our troops there, right to September 1, 2016, when he took that away from them. The fact is that tax relief was in place for the entire time we were in government.

Peter MacKay, one of our former ministers of defence, said this had come up on a couple of occasions in the past when we had troops in Afghanistan. The hardship panel, which is made up of civil servants from Foreign Affairs, Treasury Board, and National Defence, goes out there and assesses whether there is risk or hardship living conditions for which deployed troops should receive benefits. On the two occasions it came to the attention of Peter MacKay, he said no. He showed leadership. He said troops may not be down in Kandahar, but if they are up in Kabul they are still in harm's way and still supporting operations for our troops that are on the ground. That is leadership when someone just says no. It is a recommendation. It may be a policy decision by the civil service, but the minister always has the ministerial authority to say no, to say we are going to pay our troops equitably and fairly and recognize the danger they are in, in operations, and recognize the hardship their families are facing at home.

This decision took effect after our troops were already deployed, so they went over there on the promise that they were going to receive the tax breaks and the danger pay. It amounts to more than $1,500 a month, as high as $1,800 a month, which they lost after they deployed. They got there, and halfway through deployment, bang, the government made a decision. The minister did not stop it, and the money was taken right out of our troops' pockets, even though they were under the impression they were going to receive danger pay when they were at Camp Arifjan.

Family members started reaching out to us. It was first brought to our attention on September 2. One family member wrote that this treatment of our service men and women is embarrassing. Military life is exceptionally challenging: her husband makes far less money as a civil engineer in the army than he could in the private sector; their lifestyle is very unstable as they move often; and as he is regularly away for months at a time, her ability to build a career has been sacrificed because they are rarely in the same city for more than three years, and their ability to start a family has been inhibited again and again by the fact that her partner is away for extended periods of time.

She goes on to say that they choose this lifestyle anyway because they are passionate about Canada, a country worth working for, worth continuing to strengthen and build and worth sacrifice; and that to have someone pass a policy that impacts her family in such an essential manner without taking into consideration the implications on the families who readily sacrifice is shocking and disconcerting.

That was the first time we had outreach. Then more family members started reaching out to us in November, because it had not been repealed. They had reached out to Liberal members of Parliament and were getting no replies and no action. They continued to express their concerns that they were out of pocket and they were not getting what was promised to them when they deployed. One family member was told by the MP to go ahead and complain, that no one in Canada cares about them. That is disgusting. That was through one of the local newspapers.

These soldiers in Kuwait, in Camp Arifjan, deserve to be paid, not just have the danger pay reinstated, but retroactively reinstated right to September 1, when they were promised they would receive that pay when they were deployed.

On November 10, I wrote a letter to the minister. I tried to go through the appropriate route to see if he would address it. I did not receive a reply back from the minister. I then raised it with General Vance, the chief of the defence staff, when we were sitting at committee on November 15. I raised it with the minister at committee on December 1, and I still have not received a reply. Here we are today debating it, with no action from the government. I demand that the government retroactively reinstate the danger pay for all of our troops in Kuwait before it makes it an even bigger problem by taking away the danger pay from all of the 300 members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are stationed in Kuwait today.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I would like to add my comments to those of the member across the way when he made reference to the passing of Alfred Barr. The 435 search and rescue squadron was the squadron I belonged to when I served in the Canadian Forces, and I am very familiar with the sense of commitment that squadron has to the need for training, and to serve Canada as well as it does. Therefore, on behalf of the government, I express our condolences to the family and friends of 435 squadron.

I understand what the member across the way is saying. This is a government that genuinely cares about the Canadian Forces. We have seen significant investments made in upgrades to provide what our forces need for modern-day exercises.

My question for the member is this. Would he acknowledge that there is a sense of obligation that we have with our current Minister of National Defence, with his history, and the many members of this caucus? He made a comment that someone had complained to a member of Parliament and that the response from the member of Parliament was to go ahead and complain because no one really cares about it. I do not believe that any member—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I just want to remind members that there is only five minutes for questions and comments. Therefore, members are asked to keep their questions short, because we have to allow other people to also ask questions.

The hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to say to the member for Winnipeg North that it could have been a paraphrase in a newspaper based on discussions with local MPs.

However, at the same time, if the government cares about the men and women who are serving in the Armed Forces, it should support them and their families with the proper pay. It is unbelievable that there are members who sit on the other side in the government who have served in the Canadian Armed Forces and who are not out there advocating to correct this wrong. All members who serve, especially when deployed in operations, deserve to have the full suite of benefits provided to them as hardship pay and allowances. That danger pay is necessary not only for their own personal well-being and recognition of the sacrifice and danger that they are facing, but in support of the military families at home, the enablers of our men and women in uniform.

Therefore, I have to say this. The member should do the right thing: put his mouth to the ear of the President of the Treasury Board, the Minister of National Defence, and the Minister of Finance, reverse this terrible decision, and support our troops, because they are in harm's way because of the high terrorist threat activity that exists in Kuwait.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am always concerned when we get to a point where we are politicizing the treatment of people in our troops. I am sure that, despite the differences that are being expressed, all members of this House believe that we need to provide the troops the support, the training, and the equipment they need to do the difficult and dangerous work we ask them to do every day on our behalf.

However, I have to say that I always take a bit of pleasure in seeing the Liberals and Conservatives debating who did the worse job on this. The point has to be not who did the worse job but whether we will provide not just the danger pay in the field but the supports the troops need when they get back, the supports the families need when people return home with PTSD, the supports our veterans deserve, and the supports in making that transition to civilian life. Therefore, while the Conservatives may call out the Liberals on this particular point, there is a lot for all of us to answer for in the way we treat the members of the Canadian Armed Forces who serve us so well.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, my friend from the NDP and I serve together on the defence committee, and we do a lot of TV panels together. He has used that line before: who actually did a worse job. I can say that, when the Conservatives were in power, we never let this happen. When the Conservatives were in power, every single member who was deployed—whether it was to Afghanistan, to Operation Impact, or serving in operations anywhere else in the world that have danger associated with them—received the full suite of benefits. They received the tax reductions and the increased salaries of $1,500 to $1,800 a month in their pockets for their families. That is leadership. That is something I am proud of that we did as a government, and it is something that is lacking from the current government.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, who is not only an expert on defence matters, but also an authority on parliamentary procedure and a resource for newer members, such as myself. I admire him a great deal.

I would like to point out to anyone who may not already know that I spent most of my working life in the Canadian Forces. I was a reservist for 22 years. I commanded the Régiment de la Chaudière. I was also deployed to Cyprus under the UN flag, I participated in a NATO mission, and I taught at the École militaire in Paris. The world of the Canadian Forces is a world I know very well; I grew up in it.

I have also seen the sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform whose hearts are in the right place and who put their lives on the line in service of Canada to protect us and defend our values. I am one of their own. I am also a veteran.

Something else that is not well known outside the forces is that soldiers do not really have any input in the decision-making process. Once they are given an order, they have no choice but to follow through. They cannot say a word. A soldier is not unionized and does not have the right to reply. They have to take it or leave it. It is all or nothing, as the saying goes.

When soldiers are told that they are going to be deployed to the Middle East on a mission like Operation Impact to fight ISIS, they take a deep breath and go. They have no choice. That is how it goes.

In many cases, the soldier is the main, if not the sole, breadwinner in the family. Soldiers are often transferred from one base to another across the country, and it is very hard for the spouses to get work in their field. For every Canadian soldier deployed overseas there is a Canadian household that has to get by with one less person. It is challenging. I commend spouses of soldiers deployed overseas.

Our soldiers are not the only ones who make major sacrifices. Their spouses do too. Couples are separated for months, and soldiers' spouses do not know whether their partner will return from the mission or not. Now they have an additional source of stress: will they be able to make ends meet at the end of the month? When this cut is added to the rising energy bills in some provinces, I can completely understand why my brothers and sisters in arms and their spouses are stressed.

When we consider all of these factors, we can understand our soldiers' resentment and contempt. They are serving abroad in the fight against ISIS, a group that wants to put an end to the world as we know it, and their pay is being cut by up to $1,800 a month. The government is stabbing our soldiers in the back.

The Liberals waited until the soldiers had been deployed to announce that they would no longer be entitled to those benefits, but it gets worse. By withdrawing our CF-18s from the fight against ISIS terrorists and increasing the land component of the mission, the Liberals put our troops at increased risk. Now, the government is taking away the danger pay of soldiers deployed to dangerous areas.

I would also remind members that our partners in the alliance, the other countries fighting with us against ISIS, often share the same facilities with Canadians, which is a financial benefit to them because they have not had cuts.

The mission is then dangerous enough for an American soldier, but not for a Canadian soldier. This double standard shows just how much this Liberal government cares about our men and women in uniform. I would also like to point out that we have raised this issue with the minister several times.

My colleague from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman wrote to him last November to point out the egregious consequences of this decision. We also brought this issue to the Standing Committee on National Defence when the minister was testifying on the supplementary estimates. His only response was to ask his chief of the defence staff to look into it. For the minister, looking after our soldiers and their well-being means letting a subordinate deal with the issue.

How are the Liberals planning to fix the problem? By cutting compensation paid to all deployed soldiers. Apparently the Minister of National Defence does not have a lot of influence in cabinet. He has so little, in fact, that as of June, none of our soldiers will be entitled to danger pay. That will be cut off in June. None of the Operation Impact soldiers will be entitled to it. For crying out loud. That makes no sense.

Indeed, the minister is so powerful that, in September, he was unable to reverse the decision to cut the monthly pay and benefits of soldiers stationed at Camp Arifjan by $1,800. That is shameful. I am ashamed of this because it shows a lack of respect for our soldiers.

When we were in power, we made a point of simplifying the process to determine which benefits soldiers were entitled to before they were deployed. Soldiers sent to fight ISIS collected benefits for participating in a dangerous mission because they were entitled. All of our soldiers except those stationed in Qatar have been receiving danger-related benefits since the mission began. Where there is a will, there is a way.

If the Liberals do not believe me, they should listen to their own minister. He confirmed this himself in writing in part (h) of his response to Question No. 600:

All Canadian Armed Forces personnel serving at all Operation IMPACT Kuwait locations received Tax Relief effective 5 Oct 2014...to 1 Sept 2016.

All soldiers involved in the Iraqi deployment received this benefit. The minister therefore misled the House when he said that soldiers sent into Kuwait did not receive danger pay from the beginning of the mission. We have to wonder whether he is trying to hide his own incompetence or that of his colleagues.

This whole affair and these explanations leave me with one question in mind: who in this government is comfortable taking benefits away from our soldiers sent to the Middle East? We know that someone was comfortable with this decision, but we still do not know who. If this was a nuisance, this problem could have been solved relatively quickly, but that does not seem to be the case.

For months, the minister has been saying that he has tasked the chief of the defence staff with reviewing the matter. For months, all our deployed troops have lost their benefits. I will come back to my initial question: who, within this government is comfortable with this decision?

The Prime Minister has been awfully quiet on this. Is he comfortable with this decision? After all, the well-being of our troops seems to be the least of his concerns. He seems more interested in flying in Italian helicopters to visit the Aga Khan than concerning himself with our troops, who have the right to be treated fairly. This says a lot about the Prime Minister's priorities.

What about our millionaire Minister of Finance who is on a spending spree, a man of endless deficits, a man with money? Actually, he does not really have any money because it is future generations who will pay. These people do not care about that.

I do not understand how the government can be so despicable to Canadians who are fighting to eradicate ISIS. As Brian Mulroney said about apartheid, the Liberals are on the wrong side of history on this issue and will eventually be judged for their lack of respect.

Who is responsible for this lack of respect? Who thought it was the right decision to cut the benefits of our soldiers who have been sent on a mission to combat ISIS? Was it the Minister of Public Services and Procurement? She loves our troops so much, that she is happy to bleed our armed forces dry by forcing them to buy an interim fleet of outdated Super Hornets that the Royal Canadian Air Force does not need. That decision is going to cripple us for decades to come.

This government's motto seems to be to do less with more. The government is showing a blatant lack of respect for our men and women in uniform.

The reality is that every government member, from the first to the last, is responsible for this appalling situation. We need not look very far to understand why our armed forces are having so much trouble recruiting. Why would anyone want to work for an employer that cuts the salary of its employees after sending them halfway around the world to a place where many people want nothing more than to see them dead? That is what a Liberal government is.

Thanks to the previous government, the troops deployed throughout the Middle East, except those in Qatar, received a tax cut while they were deployed. At some point, the Liberals will have to explain to the children of this country what they have done and tell them that this was the best they could do.

I empathize with our troops and their spouses, who must now live with an unexpected pay cut. I am ashamed of Canada because of this government. I hope that the Liberals will wake up and fix this. If they do not, we will know for sure that they absolutely do not care about our men and women in uniform.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

He is evidently very familiar with this subject, and I commend him for sharing his knowledge with us. He is quite right to say that we cannot change the working conditions of someone who travelled far away to work in a danger zone. Naturally, we agree with him.

However, I remind him that it, even though he was not a member at the time, his party's government misled us by stating that it was not a dangerous mission and that it was sending soldiers there to provide support and training. That was a serious mistake, and the mission was underfunded.

I would like my colleague to comment on that.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

Even though I was not here at the time, we have always considered this mission to be dangerous. We sent our CF-18s to conduct air strikes and support other air forces. We were in a combat mission and that was clear to us.

It it true that the special forces deployed there were on a training mission. However, they were nonetheless deployed to a theatre of operations which we always considered to be a war zone. There was never any doubt about the level of danger and our troops received danger pay from the start.