Mr. Speaker, I move that the sixth report of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs, presented on Friday, October 10, be concurred in.
The main reason we have initiated debate on this topic is because we know we are approaching the next break time, which will be November 7. After hearing the answers given by members opposite as to what will happen after November 7, we feel we cannot leave any important business on the Order Paper. One of the issues concerns veterans' pensions.
The sixth report tabled by the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs suggested through a motion that reads:
That the committee supports the decision of Veterans Affairs Canada to extend from one year to a lifetime the Veterans Independence Program (VIP) benefits provided to surviving spouses of Veterans who were in receipt of such benefits at the time of their death.
That is laudable as far as it goes. The motion continues:
However, the members of the committee unanimously agree that the Government should take all possible means to provide lifetime VIP benefits to all qualified surviving spouses, of Veterans receiving such benefits at the time of their death, not just to those now eligible for such benefits following the amendments made in June 2003 to the Veterans Health Care Regulations.
What we are doing here is setting up two classes of veterans' widows. We have one class of widows who will receive, forever and a day, benefits that their husbands were receiving prior to their death, while another class of widows are being told that they cannot receive these benefits if their husbands died prior to May 12, 2003.
Therefore if a war veteran died on May 11, 2003, his widow would only receive VIP benefits for one year. If he lived one more day, she would receive the VIP benefits for the rest of her life. This is entirely unfair.
The minister has been asked questions day after day in the House and he has avoided answering them. He has tried to camouflage what he is trying to perpetrate on the widows across the country by defusing the situation and saying that the government will provide benefits. It is providing benefits to widows whose husbands died after May 12, 2003.
I, and I am sure all members of the House, oppose any program that distinguishes between veterans' widows on the basis of time. The program should be fairly distributed to all widows on the basis of need.
I know the Minister of Veterans Affairs has said that his heart is in the right place and that if Veterans Affairs Canada had the resources it needed the benefits would be extended to all widows who were otherwise eligible.
The real question is this: Where is the finance minister's heart? Why will he not give the money? Why will he not answer the questions on this issue during question period? The government just keeps passing the buck instead of handing over the bucks that are necessary.
By most estimates, roughly 23,000 widows will be affected by this double standard. The benefits on average are worth between $1,000 and $2,000 annually. Is that a lot of money? Let me give some examples of how much that is in relation to some government decisions that have been made in recent days.
We are talking about a gap in funding between $23 million and $46 million. That is less than 5% of what the government spent on the gun registry and it cannot find the money to look after the widows of people who went to war and gave their lives or put themselves in the position, undoubtedly, to weaken themselves, and left behind widows who must try to make a living in society.
That amount is also less than 5% of what the government spent on the billion dollar boondoggle in HRDC and less than 10% of what the government paid just to cancel the EH-101 helicopter contract.
The government has already spent billions of dollars on its mistakes. Why will it not spend a fraction of that to fix one for a change?
Decisions like this are why Canadians do not trust governments. Decisions like this, cold calculations that ignore human suffering, are why so few Canadians vote. This is not taking care of those who have taken care of our national heroes.
Consequently, we ask the minister to please go to the Minister of Finance, on bended need if he has to, which, undoubtedly, is what members over there have to do, and get the money that is necessary.
Not only does this policy impose a great injustice on these war heroes, it dishonours their memory by mistreating their loved ones. More important, the vast majority of these brave women are war heroes in their own right. They were the backbone of the war effort here at home. They were the ones who helped fill our military arsenals. They were the ones who cared for husbands, many of whom were injured for life, when they came home from the war.
All this, just to save $23 million a year. All the anger and frustration just to skim a little off the government books.
I wish I could say that this was an isolated incident but it is not. I wish I could report to the House that the treatment of our war heroes is without injustice and unfairness but I cannot. The truth is that the government has repeatedly forced our most honourable citizens to fight for benefits that they earned more than 60 years ago.
I have the honour and privilege in the House to sit next to the member for Saint John, a member who, over the years, has fought and gained many of the benefits that our war veterans have to today. Without the fight of her and other hon. members on this side, very few of the benefits that our war veterans have would have been achieved.
I am reminded of the merchant navy veterans who had to come here on a hunger strike before they were heard.
I am reminded of the poor veterans, like Mr. Authorson, who had to fight all the way to the Supreme Court for the money they were cheated out of, and are still waiting for.
I am reminded of the brave soldiers who were used to test mustard gas and other chemical weapons so our scientists could prove what we already knew.
I am reminded of those veterans who now sit in veterans' long term care homes that are not up to code, and the countless others who are still on waiting lists.
This is how we treat our veterans. We should be ashamed.
I am reminded of the countless veterans who are carried or wheeled into the legion halls, the legion halls they built when they returned from war, the legion halls that are falling down around their ears, and the government ignores the veterans' pleas for help to rebuild them. Veterans' hospitals should be monuments to sacrifice, perfect in every way.
Those who were cheated out of money by the government should be given it back, in full. Those who were subjected to tests that caused them pain should be compensated.
I am proud of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs, a committee that has always put politics aside when it comes to our veterans, for unanimously calling upon the government to correct the injustice.
I am proud that my colleague, the hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain, has demanded that this double standard be fixed before Remembrance Day. I add my voice to that.
We have heard that the Prime Minister is preparing to address the problem. We have all heard that the government caucus was told it would be taken care of. If so, when? Why not now? Why make these widows suffer from further uncertainty? Why leave them guessing as they make their future plans?
For many widows, receiving or not receiving these benefits will be the deciding factor in whether they can remain in their own homes or whether they will be forced to move. The government knows this, it knows the cost, it knows it is wrong and it knows its time is running out.
For anyone listening, the committee is not a committee of opposition members. All committees are controlled by the government. The numbers on the committee always favour government, and yet we have a unanimous report, a report supported by government members, because it is the right thing to do.
How can any government deny benefits? How can any government tell one group of widows they will receive lifetime benefits provided their husbands died on or after May 12? How can they tell other widows whose husbands died the day, the week, the year before or any time in the past, that they do not deserve these benefits?
Everyone knows this is wrong, but only one person can correct it. The Prime Minister must give the order to his minister to go to the Minister of Finance to get the money needed. This could be done by just eliminating some of the waste we have seen. Five per cent of the gun registry would cover the whole bill.
We ask government to do the right thing. We also ask it to allow its members on the committee to stand and express in the House and to the country where they stand and why they gave us such an unanimous report.
We ask the people on this side of the House who sit on that committee and who have concerns, who not only have constituents who are affected by this outrageous decision, but who have family members who are affected by this outrageous decision, to stand and debate, point fingers and put pressure on the government to make the right decision.
However what we will probably see is the parliamentary secretary stand next and ask that we cut off debate. This is what government has done.
We must listen to the people. There is wisdom in the crowds. The government has not listened in the past and it is not listening now but, I assure everyone, it will learn in very short duration.
