Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in this House today to discuss a question I asked a few weeks ago of the Minister of Veterans Affairs.
The reality is that last year there was an NDP motion put forward in the House by the member for Courtenay—Alberni, who proposed that when we look at the reality of so many veterans in our country, we want to make sure to support them the best way we know how, and the best way to do that is to make sure that any unspent resources at the end of the fiscal year would move forward into the next fiscal year.
That motion was voted on in this House and actually was one, happily, that was voted on unanimously. It was good to see support from all members for the veterans who have served our country. The motion was voted on positively, but sadly, the implementation was not carried out. In fact, last year $381 million was not spent on veterans as it should have been, in my opinion. I believe that the veterans of this country who served us so fearlessly deserve better.
The minister answered the question that I asked by saying, “benefits are demand driven."
Then on February 10, multiple articles came out, letting Canadians know that there were 44,000 veterans waiting on information about their disability benefits. That list of veterans at the end of September 2019 showed a 10% increase from six months earlier. It was quite a startling number.
We know, because veterans have told us, that long delays are stressful. To change these delays, it seems to me that more resources are needed for things like finding staff who can actually help deliver these services so that those backlogs do not become so long.
What was interesting to me is that the minister, when interviewed on this particular fact, said in one article:
Of course I always want more money. But what we have to do is deal with the money that we have and make sure we put the system together as efficiently as possible.
The minister said that he would always want more money. There was a motion in the House saying that if there were unspent dollars at the end of the fiscal year, we would forward them and put them into the next year's fiscal year. That was the NDP motion, and we all voted for it in this House unanimously. Then we realized that the 2018-19 allotment for veterans affairs was actually $127 million less than the year before, and at the end of that same 2018-19 period, over $100 million was left unspent.
The veterans ombudsman's report stated very clearly that issues about wait times are the single greatest complaint that they receive.
Today I am here to ask the question again: Why are the resources promised to veterans not being forwarded, and when will action be taken?