Mr. Chair, that is where the confusion lies because the government is now talking about a lifetime pension option, and that was never the promise that was made by the Prime Minister, nor was it something that the minister himself was promoting. The minister was in fact the key outreach to CAF veterans. In fact, he and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Canada-U.S. Relations spoke to a group of 800 in British Columbia just prior to the election and said that it is essential to fix the problem of restoring the lifelong pensions for veterans. When the minister said that, he was certainly talking of fully restoring lifelong pensions, not as an option, or at least that was the understanding among those in attendance.
Is the minister going to stand by the pledge that he wrote for his government or is the return to lifelong pensions just an option that, when amortized, could mean only a few hundred dollars a month for our veterans? Is that the sacred obligation that he speaks of?