Madam Speaker, we have been eagerly awaiting our opportunity to tell stories of local veterans in the House and to try to get them the services they need. I will be splitting my time with the member for Victoria.
Just days away is Remembrance Day. We will be celebrating and honouring the contribution of veterans. I will be standing with the Nanaimo—Ladysmith's Legions No. 256, Mt. Benson; No. 10 Harewood, in Nanaimo; No. 257 in Lantzville; No. 171 in Ladysmith; the Gabriola Islands veterans association; and Cedar Valley Memorial Gardens, all honouring and remembering the contribution of veterans. They all host us and facilitate the connection from young to old. I am looking very much forward to standing with them.
Veterans need parliamentarians to do our part to recognize and support those who have sacrificed for our country. There is clearly a debt owed, there is money in the till and sincere and vital promises have been made. Every year 3,000 veterans pass away, so let us get on with it and show that we truly support veterans everyday, not just on Remembrance Day.
On Friday, I was honoured to be in the Senate, along with my parents, for the armistice ceremony to recognize 100 years since the end of the great war, the war to end all wars. One of the quotes that moved us particularly was veterans noting that their fallen comrades said, “for their tomorrow we gave our today”. Just this year in a town hall the Prime Minister said, in response to a very angry question from the audience, that the reason the government was fighting veterans in court was veterans were “asking more than we can give”. That is a shocking thing to say, especially for those of us on the coast who do not support the Prime Minister's choice to buy a leaky old pipeline for $4.5 billion. Clearly, there is enough money to go around. What we hear everyday in our ridings is that veterans are not getting the support that they are owed.
We held a town hall along with Nanaimo Legion No. 10, during which veterans said that both Conservative and Liberal governments were “poisoning patriotism and the desire to serve our country.” They said. “Dealing with Veterans Affairs with PTSD is like being given a jigsaw puzzle and turning out the lights.”
These young veterans told me that they wanted a navigator to help with the tangled bureaucracy of PTSD treatment and to ensure that no veteran was discharged without pension and medical benefits already lined up. The Canadian Forces ombudsman echoed this in withering testimony to the Senate on March 8, saying that Canada was “not living up to our end of the bargain.” Our veterans deserve so much better.
Ken Young, a veteran in my riding. He is a brilliant and compassionate veterans advocate. He told me that someone he was working with who had ALS waited 16 weeks and still had no response to his phone call.
As NDP government leader Jagmeet Singh said:
Veterans shouldn't be put on hold for hours or redirected half a dozen times before they speak to the right person. And they shouldn't have to wait 6 months before receiving the benefits they rightly deserve, It's wrong to make our veterans wait for these services and it’s even worse that they’re being short-changed by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Today the New Democrats are taking over the agenda of the House with a fix as set out in the motion by my colleague, the member for Courtenay—Alberni, which is just north of me on Vancouver Island. He represents Parksville along with north and west Tofino. His motion, if passed by Parliament and implemented by the government, will dramatically improve the lives of Canada's veterans, at no additional costs to taxpayers. It seeks to solve two issues that have plagued the Department of Veterans Affairs under both Conservative and Liberal governments. It would end lapsed spending in the department by allowing this unspent money to be carried over to the next year and that would be for the sole purpose of improving services across the board for Canada's veterans and their families.
Here are some statistics since the Liberal government took power three years ago. The Liberals have only rehired 475 front-line staff at Veteran Affairs and just 260 case managers. They remain well short of the 25:1 ratio for which the Liberals themselves called.
The $372 million that has been allowed to lapse by the Liberals in their first three years could have been used to hire 5,716 full-time staff, enough to triple the number of staff working at the department. Honestly, this is what we need: to have a human voice to treat people with respect, the elders of our communities and the brave men and women coming home from the current modern wars, to take them by the hand and explain to them what they are entitled to so that nobody has to work out this maze of paperwork on their own.
I am hearing this a lot from my riding, that people are working hard. Mark Smith wrote me this year. He said, “Imagine being a 24 year old who has lost the use of both legs and suffer from the mental anguish that goes with the realization of being a 24 year old with no legs. Now receive a one time payout and a plane ticket home, imagine how fast that money disappears and imagine where that money went to.” He said about the Prime Minister, “He has stated that he has brought back life long pensions however only the most injured 75% plus will received approximately $2200 per month. This is outrageous.”
Another brave member of my community has fought Veterans Affairs for support after she, as a service person, was sexually assaulted by another service person. She has been trying to get help for a decade. It is a terrible problem.
A few wins have happened. The Canadian Medical Cannabis Council was very concerned about veterans who had been prescribed medical marijuana. In my riding of Nanaimo, Tilray is a licensed medical marijuana grower, a huge employer, a business that is deeply committed to research on the mental health side. I was sent a petition by constituents asking that Veterans Affairs cover the cost of medical marijuana extracts, because that is a more healthy way to take it. As a testament to the power of petitions and the work of the Canadian Medical Cannabis Council, the government changed that policy, so that was a win for us.
A great example of a service group is Vancouver Island Compassion Dogs. It straddles my riding and the riding of the member for Courtenay—Alberni. Together we visited this charity, which has paired 29 service men and women of the Canadian Forces, RCMP and veterans of foreign war with service dogs. It was inspiring to meet with these young men and women and see the effect that these service dogs have on them. There is a tremendous waiting list and it needs more funding and support, but we are very grateful to Vancouver Island Compassion Dogs and Barb and her whole team for the work that they do.
Another person in my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, Ken Osborn, has a six-foot bronzed wreath with contributions of Remembrance Day poppies from all over the country. He offered that to the government. He was not able to qualify for funding to have this beautiful and moving war memorial travel across the country. That was a great disappointment to him, but I understand a veterans office is going to house it so maybe we will be able to see it next year.
I also want to applaud the work of the Veterans Transition Network at the University of British Columbia that is doing a series of vignettes, a play called Contact! Unload that breaks open the taboo of talking about mental health and support for veterans.
We certainly have so much work to do here in Parliament. We should put our money where our mouth is and stop spending hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting veterans in court. We should tackle homelessness. To our shame, homelessness rates in Canada say there might be as many as 1,300 veterans living on the streets. That is certainly happening in Nanaimo. To our great shame, there are veterans living on Mount Benson. I thank the people who go out to support them. We should act on detox agents for veterans exposed to chemical defoliants. We should relax the regulations on access for veterans who served in the Korean War to long-term retirement and service beds. The work for us goes on and on.
Let us please vote in favour of my comrade's motion. It would fund, with no additional cost to taxpayers, the treatment and care that veterans so clearly need.