Mr. Speaker, I want to focus on the last sentence of the member's presentation, where he said, “Stand up for veterans.”
I am curious how he can say something like that, when over 10 years all the Conservative government did was strip away benefits and services from veterans. The Conservatives killed the lifetime pensions for veterans, closed nine offices, fired 900 employees from Veterans Affairs and had to have the courts order them to pay veterans the money they were owed. In fact, at the time, Judge Robert Barnes said that the clawbacks created by the Conservative government had a “particularly harsh effect on the most seriously disabled CF members”, and that he rejected the measures “unreservedly”.
How can the member say we need to stand up for veterans in Canada, when the record of the Conservative government over 10 years was so abysmal?