Madam Speaker, about a month ago, members in this House found out that a man who was convicted of murdering a female police officer and desecrating her body had claimed that he suffered from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, from the act of his committing the murder. This is a man who has never served a second in Canada's military, yet we found out a month ago that he was receiving private health care services from Veterans Affairs to treat his PTSD which he incurred in the act of killing a female police officer. That is wrong. There is no equivocation on it. That is not something that should be happening.
The motion before us today asks the House to instruct the Minister of Veterans Affairs to revoke the benefits for this man. Let us get into the reasons why.
First of all, I do not think there is anyone who is listening to this who thinks that somebody who has never served a day in his life in Canada's military, who has suffered PTSD from his own atrocious criminal act, should be receiving benefits reserved for our men and women who have fought for our country. This is not somebody who fought for our country. This is not someone who served our country. This is somebody who committed such a vile act against one of Canada's citizens that he has been convicted of a serious crime and is serving punishment for it. For him to receive benefits is wrong. It is flat out wrong. This should not be happening. My colleagues should support this motion because he should not be receiving benefits.
Let us get into more technical details.
First of all, he already has access to mental health benefits. For my colleagues who might not be aware of this, the Corrections and Conditional Release Act states that the service shall provide every inmate with “reasonable access to non-essential mental health care that will contribute to the inmate’s rehabilitation and successful reintegration into the community.”
This man already has access to these services and yet he is getting priority benefits that are reserved for veterans and their families. Does he have an affiliation with Canada's armed forces? Sure, but does that make it right that a man who has committed a very serious offence has access to those benefits? No, it does not.
Our responsibility in this place is to correct wrongs when they happen. This policy should not allow this man to receive these benefits. Whose responsibility is it to fix that? It is the responsibility of the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Every single one of the Liberals who have spoken in here today, three years after receiving their mandate, have stood up and said that it is Stephen Harper's fault. They have said that it is Stephen Harper's fault that a man who was convicted of murder is receiving PTSD benefits from Veterans Affairs. Come on. Nobody believes that. Even Liberals are going to be hard pressed to believe that. Any Liberal member who stands up in here is saying, “Oh, it is Stephen Harper's fault.” Come on. They should do their jobs. The Liberals are three years into their mandate.
This morning, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, to cover a part of his body, his rear end, tweeted, “I have asked my officials to get back to me as soon as possible with the reasons for this decision.” That is the minister's job. He should not ask his officials for the reasons of this decision. He should go to his officials and say, “Fix it. He should not have benefits. Fix it now and I want every policy option on my desk in an hour or else somebody is going to suffer the consequence for it so that this does not happen again.” That is his policy. He should bring a memorandum to cabinet if that is what it takes. He should change the policy so that we can do two things.
The Liberals are standing up in the House saying that the Conservatives do not support benefits for families. Come on. It is the minister who stood up and explained to the Canadian media that the reason he was not spending money on veterans benefits right now and why there was unspent funds was because it was like a prepaid gas card.
Every single one of my colleagues here supports the benefits for families of veterans, because many of us understand what families go through when one of their loved ones is deployed or serves. Many of us have an intimate understanding of the long-term scars that can leave on a family and on a person. Of course we want to have benefits for these families. Of course we want to recognize their mutual sacrifice. However, when someone, regardless of his affiliation to that person, commits a crime that is so heinous that he is convicted and is suffering a punishment for it, and the PTSD he suffered was from desecrating a person's body, that person should not receive those benefits. That is a decision we can make in Parliament. That is why this motion is here today.
Every single one of those guys who stands up and says that it is Stephen Harper's fault or that we do not want benefits for veterans, it is those members who are abdicating their responsibility to our men and women in uniform, because by their defending this decision and allowing their minister to get off the hook for not dealing with this after 29 days, they are the ones who are holding back benefits for our veterans. They are the ones who have their priorities backward. The Liberals are three years into their mandate. If they wanted to do more for our men and women in uniform, they have had three years to do it. What do we hear? “It's like a prepaid gas card.”
We stood in here earlier this week and asked the Prime Minister and the minister over and over again if they thought it was right for this man to get benefits. The Prime Minister's response was that he should not have to answer that question. Come on. He should be a leader and stand up for what he believes in. I am standing up for what I believe in. I will proudly stand here and say that this man should not be getting benefits.
The Minister of Veterans Affairs has had 29 days to haul his officials in and say, “Fix this problem.” In any other universe that would be grounds for firing, because this is a no-brainer. That is all we are asking today.
My colleague from the NDP talked about different ways we could look at serving our veterans and their families more effectively. Yes, let us talk about that in this place. That is wonderful, but in this particular instance, for this motion, the business that is at hand today, every single member in the House has to stand up and say that it is not right that this man is getting benefits and those benefits should be revoked, and any sort of policy that allows this interpretation to happen should be changed so that someone who commits murder, who has never served a day in his life, does not get the benefits that are afforded to our men and women in uniform who have served for us. This man already has access to mental health services through the corrections act.
Anyone around the world who is watching this will be standing up and asking what is happening in Canada.
I cannot believe that the Minister of Veterans Affairs' only response to this was to say he has asked his officials to get back to him as soon as possible. That is the minister's job. He has to go and ask his officials to fix this.
Every single member in the House should stand up and support this motion. Every single Liberal member of Parliament should be going into their caucus room on Wednesday morning and asking, “Why haven't you fixed this?” If it had been our minister, I can say right now that is what would have happened on Wednesday morning. If the Liberals want to call it Stephen Harper's fault, he would never have let someone take 29 days to respond to a clear-cut case like this.
On their record, the Liberals have had three years. At what point in time are they going to stop saying that it is someone else's fault? They should get their values straight and do something right for once.