Madam Speaker, we are all extremely fortunate to even be in this room. It is the work our men and women in uniform have done throughout the world that has given us the ability to even have this discussion today.
I want to acknowledge the fact that the member is willing to be critical even of the previous government and the work it did on this file. The member was quoted as saying, in October, “The previous government had lost and had become disconnected with the veterans, lost a lot of the trust. It is very fair criticism. I'll accept the criticism.” I appreciate the fact that he said that.
In his comments, the member said that things may not have been as great as they could have been. That implies that things were pretty good, but they were not. We had what was called the new veterans charter, which was a living document, which was not touched once by the previous government. We saw offices closed. We saw more and more services being taken away from veterans. The reality of the situation is that right now we are fighting our way back, trying to get back—