moved:
That the House call on the government to show support and appreciation for the brave men and women serving in the Canadian Armed Forces by reversing its decision to take away from the soldiers fighting against ISIS the tax benefit which provides them with $1,500 to $1,800 per month for the hardship and risk associated with their deployment, and to retroactively provide the payment to members stationed at Camp Arifjan whose tax relief was cancelled as of September 1, 2016.
I will be sharing my time this morning with my friend and colleague, the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
Before I get into my comments, I want to extend our condolences to the friends, family, and service members who work as our SAR techs, our search and rescue technicians, for the loss yesterday of Master Corporal Alfred Barr. He was a member of 435 Squadron based out of 17 Wing Winnipeg. Master-Corporal Barr was on a training exercise near Yorkton, Saskatchewan, and there was an accident, which is going to be investigated. Our sincerest condolences go to his friends and family.
All of Canada knows that our SAR techs play an important role. They epitomize the bravery of our first responders as they rescue Canadians whether at sea, on land, in our lakes, or in the high Arctic. The 435 Squadron out of Winnipeg goes anywhere and everywhere to save those who need their assistance. It was an unfortunate accident and one that we are very saddened by.
Members of the Canadian Armed Forces are a part of Operation Impact. These troops are stationed in Kuwait and they are part of the fight against ISIS, the terrible terrorist organization that is wreaking havoc across the Middle East and is a threat to us here at home. It came to light to the opposition back in September that these soldiers have had their danger pay taken away from them.
Hardship allowances and danger pay benefits are given to troops when they are deployed and in operation. These troops are putting their lives on the line. Our air force members fly over enemy territory with the support of logistics officers. If it was not for our ground crews getting those planes in the air, whether to do reconnaissance missions, refuelling missions, or out there with our Auroras where the action is and feeding that intelligence to the overall operation, they would not be able to do the job that they do on the ground. It is important that we support these troops.
There is nothing to stop ISIS terrorists from walking across from Iraq and targeting Canadians, Americans, and other allies stationed in Kuwait. We know for a fact that as the fight in Mosul continues, ISIS is on the run. ISIS is being pushed out by Iraqi security forces and the peshmerga with the support of Canadian special operation forces and other allies. As those ISIS rats are fleeing from their holes in Mosul, they are trying to find other places of refuge and Kuwait has become an optimal target for them. We have over 300 Canadian Forces members stationed there.
It is important that Canadians understand that the hardship and risk allowance these soldiers receive, the tax-free income and bump up in pay, is not just about the risks these soldiers face by being deployed to a theatre of operations. It also takes into consideration the extra hardship that is placed upon their families back home, whether it is their parents, spouses, partners, or kids. They need to have the support because of the extra costs associated with their loved ones not being with them. These soldiers are gone for anywhere from six to eight months at a time and there are extra costs at home associated with things like yard maintenance, house upkeep, taking kids to hockey games, extra babysitting costs. Extra costs that usually do not exist are involved because of one of the spouses being deployed offshore.
This is about fairness. This is about making sure we have the benefits available to support the families who are at home. Without that family support, without that resource for the families, it is hard to find Canadians who want to serve and be deployed for the very reasons that we are talking about today.
Yesterday in the House, the minister was asked a question by the member for Lethbridge. The member asked whether or not there would be retroactive pay for those 15 members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are stationed at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.
I will quote what the minister said. This is from Hansard. He said:
I would also like to correct the member in terms of the previous government's actions on this. It actually sent troops into Kuwait without the tax-free allowance, something we had taken up.
That is the second time the minister has said this, and it is actually in contradiction to what the minister told me in the past in answering questions on the Order Paper. These were questions on the Order Paper that the minister himself has signed. It said we have documents signed and tabled by the minister saying that all Canadian Forces personnel serving at all Operation Impact Kuwait locations received tax relief effective from October 5, 2014, when we put our troops there, right to September 1, 2016, when he took that away from them. The fact is that tax relief was in place for the entire time we were in government.
Peter MacKay, one of our former ministers of defence, said this had come up on a couple of occasions in the past when we had troops in Afghanistan. The hardship panel, which is made up of civil servants from Foreign Affairs, Treasury Board, and National Defence, goes out there and assesses whether there is risk or hardship living conditions for which deployed troops should receive benefits. On the two occasions it came to the attention of Peter MacKay, he said no. He showed leadership. He said troops may not be down in Kandahar, but if they are up in Kabul they are still in harm's way and still supporting operations for our troops that are on the ground. That is leadership when someone just says no. It is a recommendation. It may be a policy decision by the civil service, but the minister always has the ministerial authority to say no, to say we are going to pay our troops equitably and fairly and recognize the danger they are in, in operations, and recognize the hardship their families are facing at home.
This decision took effect after our troops were already deployed, so they went over there on the promise that they were going to receive the tax breaks and the danger pay. It amounts to more than $1,500 a month, as high as $1,800 a month, which they lost after they deployed. They got there, and halfway through deployment, bang, the government made a decision. The minister did not stop it, and the money was taken right out of our troops' pockets, even though they were under the impression they were going to receive danger pay when they were at Camp Arifjan.
Family members started reaching out to us. It was first brought to our attention on September 2. One family member wrote that this treatment of our service men and women is embarrassing. Military life is exceptionally challenging: her husband makes far less money as a civil engineer in the army than he could in the private sector; their lifestyle is very unstable as they move often; and as he is regularly away for months at a time, her ability to build a career has been sacrificed because they are rarely in the same city for more than three years, and their ability to start a family has been inhibited again and again by the fact that her partner is away for extended periods of time.
She goes on to say that they choose this lifestyle anyway because they are passionate about Canada, a country worth working for, worth continuing to strengthen and build and worth sacrifice; and that to have someone pass a policy that impacts her family in such an essential manner without taking into consideration the implications on the families who readily sacrifice is shocking and disconcerting.
That was the first time we had outreach. Then more family members started reaching out to us in November, because it had not been repealed. They had reached out to Liberal members of Parliament and were getting no replies and no action. They continued to express their concerns that they were out of pocket and they were not getting what was promised to them when they deployed. One family member was told by the MP to go ahead and complain, that no one in Canada cares about them. That is disgusting. That was through one of the local newspapers.
These soldiers in Kuwait, in Camp Arifjan, deserve to be paid, not just have the danger pay reinstated, but retroactively reinstated right to September 1, when they were promised they would receive that pay when they were deployed.
On November 10, I wrote a letter to the minister. I tried to go through the appropriate route to see if he would address it. I did not receive a reply back from the minister. I then raised it with General Vance, the chief of the defence staff, when we were sitting at committee on November 15. I raised it with the minister at committee on December 1, and I still have not received a reply. Here we are today debating it, with no action from the government. I demand that the government retroactively reinstate the danger pay for all of our troops in Kuwait before it makes it an even bigger problem by taking away the danger pay from all of the 300 members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are stationed in Kuwait today.
