Mr. Speaker, I asked a question about veterans because I wanted to find out whether the Prime Minister and the Liberal cabinet intend to keep the election promise they made to restore lifelong pensions. Unfortunately, at the time, all they gave me was another general answer. They said that more details would follow.
They have given us those details, but unfortunately, veterans will have to wait until April 1, 2019, to get what they were promised during the election campaign. That seems like a long time to me. I would like to remind the parliamentary secretary that the election campaign took place in 2015. The Liberals will not fulfill their promise until 2019 and even then there will be a choice to make. The Liberals seem to want to save money at the expense of veterans by failing to implement the promised measure.
I think that the government's attitude toward this situation is totally unacceptable. During their careers, veterans became accustomed to discipline and structure, and when they are faced with such an unbelievable amount of government red tape, they always get discouraged. It saddens me that veterans always have to lug around three or four binders full of information about their case. They always have to fight to have their sacrifices recognized, even though they gave up dozens of years of their lives to serve our country. I will never understand this government's attitude.
It is high time the government kept its promises and perhaps it could do better than waiting until a year from now do to so. It is time to do some housecleaning. We need to stop forcing veterans to fight against their own government and against the country that they served with a pride and willingness rarely seen in other occupations. The government is making them wait and is not addressing the real problem, which is the endless red tape at the Department of Veterans Affairs. These men and women deserve better.
I would therefore like the parliamentary secretary to show that she is prepared to find solutions so that veterans are never again kept waiting and are shown more respect. The government has to stop keeping veterans waiting because many of them are suffering.