Mr. Speaker, I rise to present the official opposition's dissenting opinion on the study “Use of Underused and Surplus Federal Lands and Buildings for Services for Veterans”.
Conservatives believe that the Liberal MP for Cumberland—Colchester introduced this study to distract from her government's closure of the Amherst Armoury in her riding. If she wanted real results, she should have demanded action from Liberal ministers instead of asking Parliament to study what her government already has the power to do.
While the government tried to congratulate itself on military investment, the committee learned that the Liberals are counting unarmed research ships, used to count fish, towards their NATO defence target. We also learned that the Liberals pulled $3 million out of the veteran homelessness program, claiming they could not find eligible veterans, while thousands of veterans remain homeless. Representatives of organizations that serve homeless veterans testified that they were disgusted by this decision.
The Liberals were just as dismissive of female veterans who had come forward through the women veterans council. Six of the council's 12 members resigned, including retired Sergeant Jessica Miller, who testified at the study. She told the committee that emails from female veterans were never forwarded to the council, and she was told that the Minister of Veterans Affairs was taking a top-down approach. Unfortunately, the Liberal MP who sponsored the study did not show up to that meeting.
After more than 10 years in power, the Liberal government is still proposing studies and frameworks for problems it has promised to solve and that it has the tools to fix. Conservatives refuse to let another committee study cover up for Liberal inaction.