Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise in this place on behalf of the women and men who serve in uniform in the Canadian Armed Forces to participate in this adjournment debate.
The great riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, which in its wisdom has elected me to be its democratic representative in the six consecutive previous elections, is home to Garrison Petawawa, Canada's largest army base, training ground of the warriors. I appreciate the trust I have earned from our women and men in the forces and I have their backs.
During question period, I asked the government a question regarding the health and safety of our troops. While I may have expected a lack of response from the since renewed Minister of Veterans Affairs who is now the Minister of Indigenous Services, Canadians expect more for their soldiers and veterans.
I implore the former justice minister, now Minister of Veterans Affairs, to become the advocate for veterans, the one they have been lacking in the Liberal government.
My question referred to the decision by the Liberal Party to play politics with military procurement. The policy decision to play partisan politics relates to the fact that the budget has not been increased as was promised to soldiers and veterans. In fact, it was cut by $8 billion.
Promises to restore the funding after the federal budget is balanced do not count for anything because we all know there is no plan to balance the federal budget. What does that mean for the average soldier when military procurement budgets are cut?
The public is only made aware of high-profile cuts such as the unfortunate parody that is being played out with the Vice-Admiral Mark Norman show trial over naval ship procurement. There is also the decision to purchase second-hand junk from the Australians by acquiring their fighter jet cast-offs.
Rather than proceeding with the second-hand fighter jet cast-offs, we should be holding a fair and open competition immediately. Defence budget cutbacks mean the health and safety of soldiers are compromised. For example, it has been brought to my attention that the health of soldiers has been shortchanged by the use of unqualified individuals to perform basic medical procedures.
In this case, the procedure is a routine eye examination. Eye examinations are required as part of the universality of service standard all soldiers must maintain, but rather than employing a licensed ophthalmologist to conduct these eye examinations, a medical technician has done the testing for a year. The bare minimum in eye care has been given.
As an unqualified technician, the referral to a physician specialist, in this case an ophthalmologist, would not be made because a technician is not trained in eye health. For the most part, service members are not made aware that the regular eye exams being provided by the Canadian Armed Forces are not being provided at the civilian standard level of care that would identify health concerns.
Until a crisis occurs for a soldier, no one knows anything. In this real life example, service members, after experiencing vision difficulties, only discover the nature of their vision loss after being diagnosed by off-base civilian medical professionals. The tragedy of one case in particular is that the vision loss was preventable and would have been diagnosed in a timely fashion had a proper medical person been—