Debates of Feb. 15th, 2018

Opposition Motion—Veterans Affairs

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her service to Canada as a lieutenant-colonel in the air force. I also want to say that I feel sorry for her, because she is one of the members who shilled for the Prime Minister about these supposed new funds. We all know the profile of these funds. A lot of them are amortized into the future and do not actually kick in and really start benefiting veterans until 2019. We know that most of the programs have remodelled, repackaged, and reprofiled those dollars.

On that basis, veterans have seen through the facade and are going to hold the government to account.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am standing today to speak to the Conservative opposition motion, which states:

That the House call on the Prime Minister to apologize to veterans for his insensitive comments at a recent town hall in Edmonton and show veterans the respect that they deserve by fulfilling his campaign promise to them, when he said on August 24, 2015, that “If I earn the right

Here I would have used the word “privilege”.

to serve this country as your Prime Minister, no veteran will be forced to fight their own government for the support and compensation they have earned”.

Conservatives believe that Canada and its veterans have a covenant and that the government should be committed to providing the best services possible for veterans and their families, in recognition of their incredible service to Canada. The Prime Minister promised veterans during the election campaign that no veterans would be forced to fight their own government for the support and compensation they have earned.

The Equitas team was called to Ottawa shortly after the Liberal election win, because it had supported the Prime Minister's very public commitments to it. Members of the team were greeted by the Minister of Veterans Affairs, expecting to work together to see the Liberal promise acted upon in a co-operative atmosphere, only to be left standing in the presence of the government's lawyer, who was there, once again, to engage them in the courts.

I fully understand why Canadian veterans came out in support of the Liberals in the election campaign. Equitas did its due diligence in asking each party what its position was on its demand for lifelong pensions, tax free, with no clawbacks and no adjustment without legislation in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister made a verbal promise, with a hand on his heart. Veteran to veteran, this would seem like a binding commitment, similar to the verbal commitment the Conservative minister at the time made to veterans that Conservatives would step back from the court proceedings.

Clearly, there was no intention to follow through by the Liberals. They accomplished what they wanted: the support of veterans and Canadians who thought Liberals meant what they said.

The Prime Minister must do the honourable thing and apologize to veterans for breaking his promises to them. To veterans, honour and honesty are prerequisites to care, compassion, and respect. Perhaps this is why veterans are so disenchanted with the Prime Minister and the ministers to date at Veterans Affairs.

Justin Trudeau promised that veterans would never be forced to fight their own government for the support and compensation they earned. He has broken that promise. He promised Canadians that if they voted for him, he would re-establish lifelong pensions for injured veterans. He has broken that promise. It is the Prime Minister's responsibility to fulfill the promises he made to veterans during the 2015 election.

As I speak to this motion today, I want to be clear that I am speaking on behalf of veterans and will be sharing many of their words on this issue, as it deeply concerns them. I am speaking on behalf of those I have come to know as witnesses at committee, many of whom have testified over and over again. In 10 years, after 14-plus reports on transition and 190 recommendations, again the mandate of the current veterans affairs committee has been to study the challenges to transition, not once but twice, with the second currently in process.

I am also speaking on behalf of those I met as I travelled across western Canada, from the island to Manitoba, at legion halls and round tables. I am speaking on behalf of so many who, although they cannot afford to do this, come to the Hill regularly to hold rallies, like the one today to bring attention to their disbelief in the arrogance of the Prime Minister's statement to an injured veteran in Edmonton confessing that they are asking for more than the government can give.

We can safely affirm that the Prime Minister's priorities for spending Canadian taxpayers' hard-earned money were never focused on Canadians and veterans but only on his own global ambitions.

David Bona, a long-serving veteran of the Canadian Airborne, who served in Somalia, who has suffered physical, mental, and emotional scars from his service, is a very strong advocate challenging the government on behalf of his fellow servicemen and women, veterans, and their families, and I am honoured to call him my friend.

Yesterday, he wrote to me saying, “When I first heard that statement, I just could not believe he said that. I was in complete disbelief. By that simple statement, Mr. Trudeau has shown how little he values the sacrifice, the emotional and physical price”.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order. I did not interrupt the first time. However, on the second occasion, this is just a reminder to switch gears, when those names appear, to either the title of the hon. member or to his or her riding name.

Just for the purpose of the citation, the member did mention that it was included in a quote. However, even when a member's name is incorporated in a quotation, the member can certainly use the quotation but must make a change with respect to that. One cannot do indirectly what we are prohibited from doing directly. That is just a reminder to the hon. member.

The hon. member for Yorkton—Melville.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. Two years in, and I am still learning.

Gary Westholm, who is a friend and member advocating for practical changes to the JPSU on behalf of our serving members and veterans who have fallen at home as a result of suicide, had this to say. “One has to wonder, then, how the previous pension system was affordable for the tens of thousands of injured from World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the October Crisis, countless United Nations deployments, through depressions, financial collapse, global insecurity, and half the Afghanistan War. It was also affordable on the Liberal election trail of 2015, but somehow now, in 2018, at a time when the people of Canada are benefiting from the sacrifices of their military families in other areas, the return to the previous system becomes something too costly to consider. Yes, there was something recently tabled that may benefit a very small group of veterans. Even the ombudsmen's offices haven not been given the details, but that comes across as an attempt to claim that something was done to relieve the government of its real responsibilities. I suggest the pension system has been deemed too costly to consider by the government if it takes monies away from projects they now deem as more important than veterans.”

Speaking to Marc-André Cossette at CBC News, Dick Groot, a veteran, said, “We want to go back to being human.”

Trevor Sanderson said, “We're not asking for a lot. We're only asking to feel normal again.”

Brock Blaszczyk, speaking to Global News, served in Afghanistan for less than a year when he was injured in an explosion and lost his leg. He said:

Enough is enough.... it's not all fine and dandy in the veterans world like it's made out to be.....

Even though I'm a hundred per cent disabled, according to Veterans Affairs Canada's standards, I don't qualify [for the new Pensions for life benefit] because I work.... I have a...job.... because of my own determination.... I have to support my family.... I can't live off of nothing.

Gary Walbourne, the Canadian Forces ombudsman, has said, “We do not need another study into transition.”

Aaron Bedard, a disabled Afghanistan veteran, of Veteran Guerrilla Radio, said in response to watching the vote last night and the defeat of the member for Barrie—Innisfil's bill, said, “I watched this clean through, watching a government and veterans within that government defeat a bill to show the government genuinely cares about veterans. Each and every one of those veterans in that party stood up to say nay and defeat this bill. It's enough to make me want to just burst into flames. It's one of those moments where I want to throw my medals in the garbage. [The Minister of Veterans Affairs] did it with a smile.”

Dwight McMahon said, “People, the thing is that [the Prime Minister] thinks our veterans are asking for more than what his government can give. The real problem is Canadians are asking [the Prime Minister] to properly run Canada, which is more than he can give.... There is a lot more to being a Prime Minister than taking selfies and throwing money around and trying to look good on the world stage.”

Veterans are feeling winded, dismayed, hurt, angry, devalued, misunderstood, and emotionally and spiritually exhausted by the fight they now find themselves in. Why? It is because the Prime Minister has broken his promise that veterans would never be forced to fight their own government for the support and compensation they have earned. The Prime Minister broke his promise that if veterans voted for him, he would re-establish lifelong pensions for injured veterans.

I know that the Prime Minister and all the Liberals on the other side of the aisle are seeing and feeling a storm brewing. Perhaps it is too late for an apology.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the member on a number of counts. Today, I listened to many Conservatives and it is virtually the same lines. They bring up different quotes from some veterans and I appreciate listening to them, but I reflect on the years I was in opposition.

If I contrast the six years in which I was in opposition when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, it is night and day. There were cuts during the Harper regime. Here we have seen literally hundreds of millions of dollars added. We have seen the reopening of offices, the hiring of hundreds of individuals, the pension for life option. Those were all realized within two years. In 10 years, the Conservative government could not do that.

We want to be as apolitical as we can. I like to think that all of us care deeply and are passionate about our veterans, but surely the Conservative Party would recognize it is indisputable that the level of increase is real and tangible. It is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the government continues to make promise after promise, because it is putting money toward our veterans but everything is off in the future. Even on their suggestion as to what would be a lifelong pension, our veterans have come out very strongly to say the Liberals have broken the promise that the Prime Minister made during the election. With his hand on his heart, he said what he would do for those individuals, for Equitas, when they came forward and supported him in the election.

The Prime Minister has broken his promises. He is the one who has to be held to account by our veterans and they will be doing that.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech. We have to appreciate the intellectual honesty behind her claim that veterans deserve our admiration and congratulations, and that we must address their needs in such a situation. They have made the greatest sacrifice, and the least their country can do is give them what they are owed. I truly admire what my hon. colleague said.

However, I wonder whether she is aware that Mr. Blaszczyk's situation can be traced back to the Conservative government. Yes, he may be utterly disappointed with a broken promise. However, this can be traced back to quite some time before the election campaign. It can be traced back to the Conservative government, and the blame lies at her party's doorstep. The issue of compensation goes back to the Conservative government.

Was my colleague aware of that?

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I was certainly aware of the issues with Equitas when our government was in power. I am very proud of the work that our minister did in the last few months before the election was called, when he was able to work with them and put that whole situation into abeyance until the election was completed.

It is at that point that Equitas came forward to every party and asked them what their response would be to them. We continued to be honest with them in that circumstance and did not make lofty promises that were never intended to be filled by a government that took advantage of them. That is the issue today and that is the issue that is boiling within the veterans community.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would say at the outset I am splitting my time with the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

What I cannot say at the outset is the traditional phrase that I am pleased to be rising to speak to this motion, because I am not. It is never a good day when we have to rise in the House and speak to a motion on the failures of our government toward Canadian veterans.

Frankly, I am not thrilled to join the debate today, which has largely been an exercise in finger-pointing between the Conservatives and the Liberals about who has been the bigger failure to our veterans.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order. The audio is not working.

The audio is working now. The hon. member can pick up where he left off, and we will not take any time away from him.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure exactly when things cut out, but I will say again that it is not particularly pleasing to have to join a finger-pointing debate about whether the Liberals or the Conservatives have been the bigger failure to our veterans.

However, it was a sad moment for Canada when our Prime Minister responded to a veteran at the town hall in Edmonton with what he called an honest answer, when he said, “Why are we still fighting certain veterans groups in court? Because they are asking for more than we are able to give right now.” Apart from the tone deafness of his response to a veteran who was disabled and clearly sacrificed so much for his country, it evades the real question here. It is not a question of how much we can afford. It is a question of our priorities as a country. When we hear the Prime Minister say, “We can't afford this”, what he is really saying is “This is not important to me. Something else is more important.” That was an embarrassing moment, not just for the Prime Minister but for the entire country.

Let us look at the Liberal priorities. I want to start off with a look at two competing broken promises. It is not hard to find broken promises, so I am just going to focus on two. I would like to compare the promise to restore veterans benefits to those who are disabled and saying that veterans will never have to “fight the government” to get something that they've already earned, on the one hand, with the government's promise to do away with the stock option loophole for wealthy Canadians on the other.

The stock option deduction is beyond understanding for most people. It is an obscure tax benefit for rich Canadians, which costs us about $500 million per year. These executives take stock in lieu of pay, and therefore, escape taxation on a large portion of their income. In fact, the stock option loophole seems to make up about 25% of the obscene incomes of top CEOs in Canada, and 92% of the benefits of this go to the top 10% of income earners.

What does this have to do with veterans? Here is a promise the Prime Minister broke. He decided we could clearly afford to continue giving $500 million a year to the richest 10% of Canadians, but he could not afford to keep his promise to veterans. That is what I mean when I talk about priorities.

In the 2015 campaign, the Liberals clearly promised to start taxing those stock options that exceeded $100,000. They have not even done that. What we in the New Democratic Party have said is that this is a stock option that was created for start-up companies, and that is not what it is being used for now, so let us eliminate this tax loophole for all those other CEOs who are using it and limit it to only those start-up companies that it was supposed to benefit in the beginning. That would give us probably close to $500 million a year, which we could invest in veterans' benefits.

The Liberal list of things they are giving us in this debate are things they are promising to do, but still have not done. The lifetime pensions they are talking about clearly do not restore benefits to the levels that existed before they were cut by the Conservatives, but also they do not exist yet. They are still a future promise. We still have to wait before they are going to get around to doing these pensions.

Despite the finger-pointing at previous Conservative governments, even if much of it is richly deserved, it is clear the government is not going to keep its own promises to veterans, and that is what it needs to focus on. The Liberals should stop focusing on what the Conservatives did or did not do, and focus on what they are not doing now for veterans. They still are, as a government, fighting disabled veterans in court. Their pension promise will be three years late, and it will not restore benefits to the previous levels. It is clearly going to be a matter of very complex examples, which they are giving us here, of what the maximum benefits might be, but lesser benefits to actual disabled veterans than they were promised by the Liberals when they were running for office.

There are a lot of things we could talk about other than the specific promise to disabled veterans, because the other thing the Prime Minister indicated before he was Prime Minister was that he believed there was a sacred obligation to those who served, to make sure we provide the supports they need after they have finished their service.

I want to talk about two things that the government has not talked about specifically but are equally important in my riding. They are part of that implied promise to those who serve that we have an obligation to them when they get home. These two things are the question of veterans' homelessness and the question of mental health supports within the Canadian Forces and for Canadian veterans.

When it comes to homeless veterans, what do we know? The numbers are not exactly clear. Veterans Affairs Canada admits it has 785 homeless veterans in its database. Past studies have suggested that the true figure is closer to 3,000. Why is that 3,000 figure so much higher? I believe and I know in my riding it is because many veterans are reluctant to admit their situation is so dire.

It is clear in my riding that in addition to those who are visible on the streets of greater Victoria and in addition to those who are living in tents in the rural areas, there are many hundreds more veterans who are escaping homelessness only by sleeping on the couches and in the basements of their friends and relatives. This is something that we should all be ashamed of in this country.

When it comes to homeless veterans, what do we have from the Liberals? We just have platitudes about how the situation should not exist. Here is a news flash from those who work with veterans on the ground: homelessness does exist among those veterans. The Liberals have been promising a plan for over two years to deal with veterans' homelessness. Here it is, a cold February, and veterans are camping out in protest here in Ottawa. Now the Liberals have said we can expect the plan in the fall of this year, which means we will probably go through another winter without any real action on veterans' homelessness.

The national homelessness strategy released by the Liberals last fall said things like “veteran homelessness is unacceptable” and “one homeless veteran is too many”. These are the kinds of platitudes that do nothing to address the real problems that veterans in my riding face every day and these sentiments will not get a single veteran housed.

In my riding, the only ones to act have been the veterans themselves. Members of the Langford Legion and other concerned community members set up a non-profit foundation in 2009, which runs programs for homeless veterans. They regularly provide supportive housing for up to a dozen or more homeless vets in my community. They have an eight-bed, free-standing complex called Cockrell House, which provides assisted living with the supports that they need. They have another two units at another location. One would say, 10 to 12, that is not very many, but that is 10 to 12 more than the government has supported in my riding. The number the government supports is zero.

The people who are financing this project, the BC/Yukon Legion Foundation, has bought the project and is paying the operating costs, and other volunteer groups like the Esquimalt Lions Club, one of the prominent builders in the community Russ Ridley, and the City of Colwood. While Cockrell House reports that Veterans Affairs Canada does co-operate well and helps them get veterans into programs, the amount of government funding that Cockrell House gets is zero. It does not get a dime. In my riding, it is the local veterans that are actually trying to take care of those who are in need and are homeless.

The second area I want to talk quickly about, where Liberals are failing to serve members of the Canadian Forces and veterans, is mental health services.

On February 21 at 7 p.m. at the Pro Patria Legion in Victoria, I will be attending the second Candlelight Ceremony in Memory of Soldiers of Suicide. This is a ceremony that will coincide with ceremonies in many ridings and communities across the country to raise awareness of PTSD and of those who have lost their personal battles with PTSD and to try to address the isolation and the loneliness and the stigma that the families feel after those suicides.

Hopefully these events will help lift the veil of silence on PTSD-related suicides. Once again, we thank volunteers Megan Willet Hiltz and Jim MacMillan-Murphy for organizing this event. I encourage people in greater Victoria to attend this event and others to attend similar events across the country.

When it comes to the Canadian Forces and our veterans, we must make sure that our troops have the equipment, training, and support they need to do the difficult and dangerous work we ask them to do each and every day on our behalf.

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member has articulated his concerns, and I appreciate that.

Our government has invested $10 billion in two years. How did we invest those dollars? We invested them after consultation with veterans and their families. We invested in things like increasing compensation for pain and suffering, increasing income replacement, reopening offices, hiring 460 staff, providing education benefits, and supporting family and caregivers. We did not just come up with those things. We came up with them after consulting with veterans and their families. That is $10 billion in two years.

The member also mention mental health, and we are all concerned about that. We invested $17.5 million over four years to establish centres of excellence on post-traumatic stress disorder.

Does the member not acknowledge the significant investment this government has made and the importance of consultation with veterans in making those investments?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member's questions is an example of what we are dealing with today. This is what the government has decided that it can afford, and this is exactly the answer the Prime Minister gave to veterans, that so many in my riding find unacceptable.

Yes, the government has started to restore some of the things that were cut away, but to say that this is enough, to say that the Liberals have kept their promises, and to say that the fundamental obligations that exist are there is hard for veterans in my riding to accept. They still see that they have to fight the government in court. They still see the big gaps on homelessness and mental health that exist in my riding.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what I hear from my constituents, in response to the Prime Minister saying that veterans are asking for more than the government can give them, is that it does not reflect at all their own values. I am confident this is the same with my colleague's constituents.

My constituents see the Liberals spending billions of dollars in other countries, millions of dollars on reintegrating terrorists, and millions of dollars on a skating rink. It is not at all the case that they believe the government does not have enough to reflect their level of concern, of compassion and respect for the service of all of our veterans. I agree with our colleague that this is a matter of priorities.

In 2015, all members unanimously supported the concepts of fairness, dignity and respectful treatment of veterans through the sacred covenant by making that law. However, the other night the NDP voted with us to support making that ethos law. Meanwhile, every Liberal member voted against it. Maybe the member will expand on his comments about the difference between what the Liberals say and what they do, and touch again on this issue of priorities.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her advocacy in the House for veterans. I appreciate the work she has done. She has invited me to join the finger pointing and I will not do that.

The question for veterans is this. They are used to serving their country and it is very hard for them to have to stand up in public and ask for what they have already earned. It is not something they want to do. Therefore, when the government gives me a list of things it has done and implies that they are acceptable to veterans, we have to remind people that veterans are not used to saying, “I'm not being treated fairly.” They are used to serving their country and doing it without complaint. It is up to the rest of us to ensure we keep our obligations to those who have served.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the veterans and the men and women who are currently active in the Canadian Armed Forces for their contribution.

I had the honour of meeting a veteran from the Winnipeg area, Trevor Sanderson. He is in Ottawa today. Along the lines that my colleague was suggesting, he was trying to get beyond the partisan debate and suggest some real concrete solutions. Veterans are protesting here today. They are quite clear that notwithstanding some of the things the government is doing, they are clearly not satisfied. He was talking about getting veterans and front-line veterans affairs workers together to look at the needs and how to address them.

What we heard in the House today in contrast is a very partisan debate of two governments, one that started a lawsuit against veterans and one that is continuing it. How do we get past that and get down to the kinds of things that Trevor Sanderson was talking about today?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member reinforces the point I was trying to make. Whatever Conservatives did in the past and whatever the Liberals have failed to do now, veterans are asking us to look at the real problems they are facing in communities all across our country. They want us to get busy on working to solve those problems with them and to stop fighting them, to stop opposing them, and to stop accusing them of asking for too much.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Calgary Shepard, Taxation; the hon. member for Edmonton West, Taxation; the hon. member for Bow River, Health.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on this subject.

I had the opportunity to serve in the Canadian Armed Forces from 2002 to 2006. I then chose to serve my country in another way by becoming a member of Parliament, but I will always remember what I did. I will also remember the friends I made, the conversations we had, and their daily struggles. Even though I am now an MP, I am still close to them because the experience we shared in the armed forces is hard to explain to people who have not gone through it. If we take the time to listen to veterans and understand their reality, we can put forward measures that really work for them.

I would like to talk about some of the symbols of the armed forces because we sometimes forget what they signify. One of the symbols people tend to associate with the military is identification tags. Few people really know what they mean. Soldiers' names and serial numbers are stamped on dog tags because there is a risk they could die in an explosion or under other circumstances in which a plastic identification card would be destroyed.

The person's religion is also stamped on the tag because things can happen very fast and religious rites sometimes have to be administered before death. If a soldier cannot tell anyone what faith they belong to, that information can be found on the tag. Finally, the tag includes the person's blood type because there is not always time to test for that when an urgent transfusion is needed.

Mr. Speaker, do you know of many jobs where the worker needs to wear a metal tag so they can be identified in case they die in an explosion, since a plastic ID card would be destroyed?

Are there any other jobs where the worker's blood type has to be engraved on their identification tag in case they are seriously injured and need a blood transfusion in a combat situation?

Are there any other jobs where the worker's religious affiliation has to be engraved on their identification tag so their wishes can be honoured in case they die?

I do not know of any other job where people voluntarily expose themselves to so many dangers. Death is not the only danger. There is also the possibility of losing a part of themselves. When a soldier goes out on the battlefield, they know that they will never be the same. They know that what they are going to experience and learn will change them for life. When they joined the forces, some people were well aware that their mental health could be affected. However, they believed that it was important to have people doing this job. It takes people who are capable of handling what comes with the job. Not everyone can handle it, but it is absolutely essential to have people who are prepared to defend themselves.

If these people had not fought, we would not have the society and the rights we have today, and we would not have been protected as we were. I could not have raised my children the way I have been doing. I might not even have been born. Given how much our soldiers are affected, we have no choice but to recognize the value of what they do for our society.

The Prime Minister made a clear, specific promise that members of the military would no longer have to fight the government. The Prime Minister himself said this. It was in the Liberals' election platform; they said it themselves. However, now they are telling veterans that they are asking for more than we can give them. This response is completely unacceptable.

Veterans have given more than they felt capable of giving. Some of them never thought they were capable of doing certain things and yet they managed to do them for this country. They fought for freedom. They gave more than they were able to give, and the government is refusing to give them what they deserve.

I have seen veterans walking around with binders filled to the brim with such papers as military records and correspondence. Is it normal for veterans to need four or five two-inch binders to carry their military records just to get the compensation they are entitled to? These people learned how to fight. I am sure that most of them, even if they left the armed forces 20 years ago, would still be able to disassemble and reassemble a weapon, blindfolded, in less than five minutes. However, they are now being told to do something they have never been trained for. They are being told that they are going to fight the government, and that they will go crazy trying to figure out how we can fail so badly at taking care of people. They will be left to wait in limbo for months before they know what is going on, and they will not be able to move forward.

It is important to understand that these people have been trained to react to situations quickly and adapt plans and strategies accordingly. Now they are being forced to wait for months before finding out what is going to happen. During that time, they cannot make a plan. Waiting alone is intolerable, especially for people who are used to taking action, reacting to situations, and devising alternate strategies. They are being subjected to endless delays.

We keep hearing about ridiculous situations. For example, a veteran whose leg was amputated was asked if he is still injured. Legs do not grow back. Is there any need to ask a veteran with an amputated limb to confirm that the limb is still amputated because it has been three years since anyone checked in? This kind of thing happens all the time, and it is ridiculous. We need to put an end to this excessive red tape. We need a more human approach at Veterans Affairs.

The government's treatment of veterans is not about funding; it is about behaviour. When the government talks about how much money was invested in a given year, it is not really talking about actions taken or how veterans are being treated. When the government gets stuck on numbers, does that do anything to help veterans? No. When people's files are thousands of pages thick and they are about to lose their homes and Veterans Affairs is making them wait, that is not respectful.

We should take a different approach from the very beginning and ask veterans what we can do to help them. We need to be much more proactive and show them the same respect they showed when they were asked to go into battle and they agreed, asking merely what they could do to help their country and promising to do their very best. The government, meanwhile, is doing the exact opposite. I am outraged that Veterans Affairs is questioning the connection between a back injury suffered by a soldier with 30 years of experience in the infantry and military service. That individual spent most of his life, 30 years, walking around with 80 pounds of equipment on his back, not counting his weapons and ammunition, and then the department has the nerve to claim that his injury has nothing to do with his military service. What is wrong with this picture?

We need to refocus the debate. The Prime Minister made some promises and he has an obligation to keep them. His promises are not just about the numbers. This is about the government's attitude towards veterans.

We need to examine how we act towards veterans, how we treat them, and how we respect them by addressing their problems. Once we change that, we can really move things forward for our veterans.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about the importance of having respect. I came to understand that even more when I participated with the military in the Nijmegen march about the respect they received and the respect they showed to others.

When someone looks a person in the eye and says that he is going to fix the person's problems, makes a promise, and then comes to Ottawa and breaks that promise knowing full well he never intended to keep that promise, is that showing respect? How do the veterans and the members of the military feel when they see this happening to them in this instance?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one is not being respectful if one breaks one's promises. If the Prime Minister did not intend to do what he said he was going to do, then he should simply not have said it. It is simple. He simply should not have looked people in the eye and lied as he promised to do something that he was not going to do. He is not even trying right now. That is the problem. It is disrespectful. If the Liberals are not going to do what they said they were going to, then they simply should not have said they would do it in the first place. That way they would not create false expectations.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, to pick up on the member's points, obviously I disagree with much of what was said. The member talks about respect. Was it respect when the Conservatives closed down those offices? We reopened those offices. That is a service. That is face-to-face contact. Money does matter, and this government has provided additional hundreds of millions of dollars in further compensation.

Members of the NDP like to click their feet together, wave a wand, and think everything can be resolved just like that. Life does not work that way. NDP governments have experienced that first-hand. At the end of the day, I think the NDP nationally promised under half a billion dollars. We have committed over $10 billion. We have delivered on services and the financial resources to make a difference.

To try to imply that the Prime Minister does not care about our vets is just wrong. We have a Prime Minister and a government that have the backs of our vets.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy that I never served with the member opposite.

I am not the one who said those things. It was the Prime Minister. He is the one who said that veterans were asking for more than the government could give. Those are his words. He said them on camera.

Why can I not say that he disrespected veterans, when he was caught on video doing so at a town hall? I did not force him to say that. The Prime Minister said it. He has to take responsibility for what he said, which was not respectful to veterans.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my NDP colleague. I really enjoyed her speech, particularly when she spoke about respect.

It is too bad that the members opposite do not understand that respect does not necessarily involve money. It comes from the heart. It does not do any good to say that the Conservatives did not do this or that. We are not the ones who said those things. It was the Prime Minister.

The member spoke earlier about how she served in the military from 2002 to 2006. Can she tell me how things were at that time and how the governments treated soldiers?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that has nothing to do with the issue at hand, but since the hon. member asked, I will tell her.

I served from 2002 to 2006. It was toward the end of the Liberal's run after a decade of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. I can say that there was massive disinvestment in the armed forces. We regularly ran into problems such as finding boots in the right size.

Training was done with pathetic equipment. It was totally ridiculous. Training was not adapted to the new combat reality.

I am listening to the Liberal members talking, but I experienced the end of the Liberal reign when they were rather callous about the equipment and appropriate training.

In my opinion, mistakes were made in the funding of our armed forces in the past. We must move forward. I cannot say who in particular made the most mistakes.