Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on this first day of Veterans' Week to speak to a motion that is exactly about trying to do more for Canada's veterans and trying to ensure that they get the services they need when they need them.
That is something we want to see done all year long, not just around Remembrance Day. One of the important elements of Remembrance Day is that it is an occasion for us to reflect on the horrors and sacrifices of war; to try, as best we can, especially those of us who have not participated, to understand what goes into that; and to renew our commitment to making peace in the world and building peace in the world. We should also renew our commitment to helping those who have been in conflict zones and have come back, whose lives and family members' lives are affected by that experience and the fallout from it.
That is why this is a very timely motion. It is not because it has to do with the services and that this is important to talk about around this time of year. It is important all year long. This is the time of year when we reflect and renew our commitment to doing better.
I am very proud to come from northeast Winnipeg, where there is a strong tradition of remembrance at our three legions: the Transcona Legion Branch 7, which is my home legion; the Elmwood Legion Branch 9; and the Prince Edward Legion 81. Beyond the traditional remembrance that has gone on in northeast Winnipeg, lately we have also been participating very heavily in organizing “No Stone Left Alone” ceremonies, thanks to the leadership of some members in our community, such as George McCall, with the Elmwood Legion, and Peter Martin, from the Transcona Legion. These are ceremonies that bring school-aged children to cemeteries where veterans are buried to lay poppies at gravesites. It is done to try to establish a connection between our youth and that memory, because as generations pass from the great wars, that connection gets harder and harder to maintain.
That is why we need to double down on our efforts and remember how horrible it is for young people, to be sure, and for all of us, when we get involved in very large conflicts, such as the First and Second World Wars. There is some great work going on in northeast Winnipeg to that effect.
It helps to set some of the context for today's motion. If we recall, in the last Parliament, the government's relationship with veterans was seriously strained. We all remember when the then Minister of Veterans Affairs insulted a group of veterans who had come to meet with him and essentially kicked them out of his office.
That was just the tip of the iceberg. That was a sign of disrespect, but when it came to policy, the former government was closing offices and letting staff go. It also decided to take on veterans in court. The Equitas Society said that there was a special covenant between the government and its veterans. The government of the day decided to take the position that this was not, in fact, the case and spent a lot of money fighting veterans in court. We also heard about the $1.1 billion in lapsed funding over the tenure of that government.
It was a campaign issue. It was a campaign issue in a way that, it is fair to say, veterans issues had not been before, not because it had not been discussed but because veterans groups were politically mobilized in a way the veterans community traditionally had not been, in part because they felt so mistreated by that particular government.
We saw the Liberals take up the issue on the campaign trail. With respect to the lapsed funding of the previous government, we heard the Prime Minister say on the campaign trail, “They left unspent more than $1 billion that Parliament allocated for veteran support. Canadians know that this is wrong.” That was something the Prime Minister said at the time he was running for the job.
He also said in the Liberal platform document that the Liberal plan would “ensure that no veteran has to fight the government for the support and compensation they have earned”, referring to the Equitas lawsuit. That is on page 49 of the Liberal platform, a memory perhaps some Liberals in the House have suppressed, because it is accompanied by a photo of the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.
The Liberals in government have been quite different from the Liberals on the campaign trail. Despite the Prime Minister saying that lapsed funding was something that was wrong, that needed to be addressed and that the department needed to work to ensure the money was spent properly, the Liberals have already lapsed $372 million in just three years.
Liberals are failing to meet 12 out of 24 self-identified service targets. For instance, only 43% of veterans who apply for disability benefits are hearing back within 16 weeks. Only 56% of veterans who apply for the earnings loss benefit hear back within the four weeks that has been set as a reasonable target. Forty-five per cent of veterans applying for the long-term care program are hearing back within 10 weeks and the rest hear back within a longer time period. Of course, we also know that the government, far from terminating the court battle against veterans, decided to keep it up after what was a very explicit promise to drop it. That is what the quote in the platform was about: that veterans should not have to fight the government to receive their benefits, but alas, here we are and that lawsuit continues and veterans are having to continue to fight the government in court.
What we are making today is quite a modest proposal to say that we know veterans are not being served in a way everybody in this House and in Canada would like them to be served, so we are trying to be constructive. We are trying to find a solution to enhance that service. Because of the $1.1 billion that lapsed under the Conservatives and the $327 million that has lapsed so far under the Liberals, we know there is reliably more money to spend within the existing Veterans Affairs envelope. We should be doing a better job of making sure that the money gets spent for the purposes intended, which is to serve veterans better.
When veterans are calling to receive information about how to apply for their benefits and are having to wait hours on the phone, we know it is because there are not enough people to answer the phone. The answer to that is to hire and train more people to do that work. That is not a great mystery, or I certainly hope it is not a great mystery to anybody in the House. If the question is where the money would come from or how we would find the money to do this, we know that in the last two years over $140 million has lapsed. A lot of people can be hired for that amount to answer a phone, listen compassionately and provide good advice on what those veterans need to do and where they need to go to access those services.
When we see tens of millions of dollars unspent year after year, it is not a quibble about accounting practices, which is what we have heard from the government today. I thank the government for its respect of our knowledge of good accounting, but I want it to know that this is not just our excellent accounting skills. It is not just a little quibble about how we label things. This is about the fact that there are not enough people to answer the phone to give the right advice to veterans who need to access services when we have the money to be able to hire and train those people, because we know each year tens of millions of dollars are going unspent.
My colleague from Courtenay—Alberni has quite rightly said that if we know the money is not going to be accessed and we know the services are not going to be accessed, and we have a long track record now of knowing that the money is not spent, then we should use it to hire staff to enable veterans to better access those services. That just makes sense.
It has been interesting to hear the debate today. It seems we are coming to a consensus that this is something everybody is going to support. I am very glad to hear it because it makes a lot of sense. Let us do this. Let us move forward. Let us try to minimize some of the cheap shots that have been going on today. This is a common sense idea. We know we can do better for Canada's veterans, and it is time we started doing it.