Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Lanark—Frontenac, who is diligently working on his speech right now.
The government will say it has a revenue problem, and it does. It will say it has a spending problem, and it does. What it will not say is that it has a priority problem. I served. I know what it means to trust that one's country has one's back. Bill C-15 is where we find out what that trust is actually worth. It is 600 pages that inflate savings that do not exist, that retroactively change the law to avoid compensating veterans who were quietly overcharged for decades, and that demand repayment from disabled veterans who can least afford it. Serving this country is not a liability to be managed, but this bill treats it like one.
I want to mention that the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs is currently studying barriers to entrepreneurship among veterans. That study will likely conclude with a recommendation for a new grant program. That is the predictable result. However, while ACVA studies barriers, the $6.6-billion defence industrial strategy, the largest defence investment in a generation, contains zero veteran business set-asides. There is not a single line.
In the United States, veteran status opens economic doors. The GI bill's boots to business program, a 3% federal contracting carve-out for veteran-owned businesses, is a deliberate policy choice. Deliberate policy choices are important. Canada is studying barriers while actively building new ones. We do not need a new grant program. We need to treat the veterans who built this sector as qualified and important partners in its future.
The government is now claiming that Bill C-15 will generate $4.23 billion in savings by reducing cannabis reimbursement rates for veterans. Let us look at the actual numbers. VAC spends roughly $200 million a year on medical cannabis. The government is cutting the reimbursement rate by about a quarter. That is roughly $50 million in annual savings. Even over many years, the math does not come close to $4.23 billion. It would take over 30 years. The government has not explained the gap. We have asked and veterans organizations have asked repeatedly. The $4.23-billion figure relies on public sector accounting that recognizes estimated life savings all at once today. Many veterans will face higher out-of-pocket costs for products currently covered under their plan. If the government is willing to present inflated numbers when it benefits it so that it looks like it is doing what it says it is going to do, veterans and Canadians should ask what else in the bill is being measured the same way.
While this bill was being drafted, thousands of veterans were receiving letters from the government telling them to repay immediately. We are not talking about small amounts. My colleagues have documented cases exceeding $100,000 being demanded from disabled veterans. The government is clawing this money back directly from disability pensions and other payments. These are not veterans who cheated the system. My office heard from one veteran directly who has 21 years of service, a 100% disability designation and a spotless record with VAC going back a decade. When he applied for the income replacement benefit in 2015, he declared every source of income on his application, including his military pension. VAC reviewed it, accepted him into the program and sent him a letter confirming it had accounted for that pension. He kept every document.
In January of this year, the veteran received a letter from VAC telling him that he had failed to report that same pension and that he now owes over $42,000. He and his wife live on that pension income. His words to my office were that he is afraid they are going to lose their house.
He is not alone. Veterans across this country have contacted MPs to report the same pattern of repayment demands for income they had properly disclosed, with VAC's own acceptance letters sitting in their files as proof. This is not an overpayment recovery program, but an administrative failure being downloaded onto the most vulnerable people in the system. The government is demanding repayment from disabled veterans who received benefits in good faith while at the same time refusing to pay veterans who have been overcharged for 28 years. This is not fiscal policy. It is a double standard.
It never ends with the Liberal government. For nearly 30 years, Veterans Affairs Canada overcharged veterans in long-term care across the country. What was the error? When calculating care rates, VAC excluded the territories from the formula. The Interpretation Act is explicit: The definistion of province “includes Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut”. VAC ignored this, which affected the formula applied to veterans, wherever they live, by roughly $260 per month, or $3,130 per year, for nearly three decades.
A class action lawsuit was launched in October 2024 on behalf of veterans and their survivors. Bill C-15 would make that lawsuit go away.
I want to highlight that, on December 8, 2025, the Senate Standing Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs heard testimony from VAC officials on exactly that issue. Senator Patterson asked a simple question, knowing that costs increase significantly the further north one goes, she said, “So can we not include ‘and territories’?” The VAC official answered plainly, “That would change the intent of the program.” Senator Patterson's response was, “Wow. Thank you.”
In my experience working with Senator Patterson, I have learned that she is a strong advocate for veterans and serving members. Her response says it all. She cannot believe it.
Bill C-15 makes this dire situation even worse. Sections 373 to 375 of the bill do not fix the problem, but erase it. The government is using budget implementation legislation to retroactively rewrite the law back to July 15, 1998, making that VAC deal legal in hindsight. This is not an administrative correction. Parliament is being asked to authorize the government to keep money it should never have collected from veterans in long-term care, some of whom are no longer alive to see it returned.
The Veterans ombud, retired Colonel Jardine, testified at the Standing Committee on Finance that she wrote directly to the minister on this issue calling for her to admit the mistake. She correctly points out that the bill is unprecedented, patently unfair and is calling for amendments to Bill C-15. The minister could not find the courtesy to reply to the ombud, but her department found time to write collection letters to thousands of disabled veterans.
The real issue here is that these veterans are not in their prime. They are often in long-term care. They are elderly, disabled and at their most vulnerable. They were overcharged because their government misread its own law. They had no way of knowing it. They had no way of fighting it. A class action lawsuit was their only recourse. The bill closes that door.
The question is not whether the government can find the money, but whether the people who wore the uniform deserve to be treated fairly for the country they served. This bill answers that question, and the answer is no. This is a shameful use of Parliament's powers.
When one serves, they learn that the person beside them will not leave them behind. That is not a policy, but a promise. Veterans deserve better. I will not be supporting this.