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.