Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my good friend, someone whom I have great respect for, the hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George.
Before I stood up here today, I walked up to the third floor, as I often do. I went to the Memorial Chamber and looked at the Books of Remembrance. I do this because it serves as a reminder to me of the reason I have the privilege and the honour of sitting in our symbol of democracy. I do it often, out of respect for those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. I do it for their families. I certainly appreciate the service and sacrifices that our members of our military and their families have paid to this country.
It is a sad day in this country when veterans who are suffering from PTSD have to stand in line behind a convicted murderer who never served a day in his life, in order to receive PTSD benefits. I never thought we would get to this point, but here we are on an opposition day asking the government to do something very simple: to stop the benefits to police killer, Christopher Garnier.
Members can imagine my surprise last week when we stood in question period and asked the Prime Minister about this issue. I asked what I thought were very fair questions about how this could happen and what he was going to do to resolve it. Of course, the Prime Minister stood up, as we have heard during the debate today, and talked platitudes about veterans, and the Veterans Affairs minister stood up and gave an infomercial on all the things his government is doing. If we ask veterans, the Liberals are not doing by them very well. Veterans will tell us that.
I had a follow-up question about how he could justify a paying PTSD benefits to a person who had killed a police officer, and a volunteer firefighter as well, meaning someone would had actually worn two uniforms in her community. How could the Prime Minister justify paying those Veterans Affairs benefits for PTSD to someone after he had murdered a police officer, Catherine Campbell? The answer from the Prime Minister was absolutely ridiculous. He accused us of fearmongering, of being insensitive to the issue. He refused to answer the question. He actually sat down and did not answer the question in question period in the House, where the opposition is obligated to hold the government to account. The reaction across the country since then has been nothing but incredible in terms of the outrage against the Prime Minister, and now the Minister of Veterans Affairs, for refusing to answer the question.
It showed, as I have said many times in the House, that the Prime Minister and the current Liberal government do not want an opposition. They want an audience. I have news for the Prime Minister and the government: we are going to continue to push on those issues that are important to Canadians, and this one certainly is. It is why we are standing here today, all day in Parliament, asking the government to stop this incredibly egregious act of paying a benefit for PTSD to a convicted police murderer who has never served a day of his life, not even one single minute, in Canada's military and yet is receiving those benefits.
In fact, on that day, within that question I posed to the Prime Minister, I suggested a fact, that if a serving member of Canada's military were to commit a murder, not only would their benefits be lost, but so too would be the benefits of their family. Christopher Garnier was not a dependant, as defined under any benefits plan. Certainly under the plan for us here in Parliament, we are entitled to benefits for our dependants, as do many other workplaces. Those benefits are paid up to the age of 21, and in the case of their children being in post-secondary education, they get those benefits paid until their dependants are 25. They do not get them when they are 30. They are cut off.
It is a really simple solution on the part of the government. We are standing here today not only on behalf of veterans and their families, including the Campbell family and friends, but more importantly for Catherine Campbell herself, the police officer who was killed by Christopher Garnier in Truro, Nova Scotia, to say at all levels that this is wrong. We are asking the minister and the Prime Minister to act on this case, which is well within their prerogative.
The reaction has been swift across this country. In fact, when this case broke almost four weeks ago, Stephen McNeil, the Liberal premier of Nova Scotia, said that he was initially stunned and shocked by the department's help for Garnier. He made this point in recent conversations with the veterans affairs minister and another Nova Scotia minister, whose title I do not quite know at this point as he seems to hide a lot. He stated:
I don't believe anyone in their drafting of this policy to look after military families believed that it would be looking after a convicted killer in our province, and I strongly voiced that issue with the federal government and with my colleagues and they will look into it.
Look into it? It has been four weeks. We have heard from Catherine Campbell's aunt, who wrote publicly on Facebook that Garnier had twisted the system and that she was sickened by it. She wrote:
There are actual veterans who returned from war, or multiple wars, and they are killing themselves because they can’t get help for the PTSD they suffer from through no fault of their own!
Subsequent to Thursday, the reaction I have received has been swift. There has has been anger and disbelief from right across this country. A serving RCMP member, a former co-worker of Constable Campbell, talked about the fact that they have been trying to receive PTSD benefits for seven years. There is another one that said that they received a letter, a FOAD letter, which they referred to as an “f-off and die letter” from Veterans Affairs. These are the types of examples of what people are telling me and my colleagues right across this country.
I think it was best said by Medric Cousineau, whom I call a friend. He is an advocate for PTSD service dogs. He was interviewed recently, and said that what Garnier was suffering from was not PTSD, but remorse, remorse for killing Catherine Campbell, remorse for putting her body in a composting bin, and remorse for dumping the body under a bridge.
What have we heard from Nova Scotia MPs? Nothing. Not a single word. Some of them will stand up today and tout the government's success with veterans. As I said earlier, that is arguable. We have heard nothing from Nova Scotia MPs. They sat there like crickets, when they should feel outrage about this case, the same type of outrage caused by this murder and the same type of outrage right now in Nova Scotia because of the government's abject failure to deal with the situation and remedy it properly.
We heard earlier that the minister was talking about bumping this down to some mid-level bureaucrats, some mid-level area managers, to decide in the future. I have news for the minister: That department belongs to the Government of Canada, it belongs to the Parliament of Canada, and it belongs to the people of Canada. If the minister is not going to accept responsibility and make the right decision for the sake of the Campbell family or the veterans who have to stand behind Christopher Garnier to gain those benefits, if he is not going to accept responsibility for what goes on in his department, for running his department properly and for doing the right thing, then what need is there for him? I call on this minister, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, to resign his post and put someone in there who can do the job effectively.