Robert Gordon Kitchen

[Business of Supply, September 25th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, the member for Vancouver East may or may not be aware, but that topic is actually before the committee right now. As we move forward, that will progress.

I agree with the member that there are a lot of veterans who are homeless at this point in time. How do we step up and look at improving their lives? They gave their lives for us. That is what we try to do in the veterans affairs committee, and that is what I am committed to doing, to helping not only those veterans but the families who are impacted by what is going on.

[Business of Supply, September 25th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for his service to his country.

He has talked about families and about veterans. This conversation that we have asked for is about an individual who is not a veteran. He is a member of a veteran's family. What we are asking the minister to do is to step up and stop paying for this, investigate it, and once that investigation is clear, determine at that time whether benefits should be continued. We are asking for that to happen.

[Business of Supply, September 25th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Calgary Nose Hill.

While I appreciate the opportunity to speak to today's opposition day motion, I truly wish the incident had never happened and I did not have to speak on this subject.

Today, we are calling on the Liberal government to explain why Christopher Garnier, a convicted murderer, is receiving disability benefits from Veterans Affairs Canada for post-traumatic stress disorder that he sustained while committing a heinous crime. I hate to have to state the details of the incident, but I feel it is necessary to do so in order for Canadians and my colleagues across the floor to understand just how offensive it is that the Minister of Veterans Affairs has continued to allow Garnier to receive disability benefits.

In 2015, Chris Garnier senselessly murdered Constable Catherine Campbell, an off-duty police officer, by strangling her just hours after meeting her for the first time. He then put her remains in a compost bin and dumped her near a bridge in Halifax. Her remains were not found for five days.

In December of 2017, Garnier was convicted of second degree murder in the 2015 death of Constable Campbell. He and was given a life sentence, with the option to apply for parole after 13 and a half years.

This is an absolute tragedy. Constable Campbell was not only a police officer but a volunteer firefighter. She wore two uniforms and served the community with dedication. She had a family that loved, and still loves, her deeply.

When reports came out earlier this summer that Veterans Affairs Canada was providing disability benefits to a convicted murderer, I was personally appalled and I know all my Conservative colleagues and most Canadians were as well.

The disability being treated is PTSD. It was sustained by Garnier from strangling Constable Campbell to death. The PTSD did not cause him to commit the crime, and it seems that he is blaming her for his PTSD. Now the cost of this murder to receive therapy from a private psychologist is being covered by Veterans Affairs Canada, a.k.a. the taxpayer.

The Prime Minister indicates veterans are asking for more than the government can afford, yet he and his minister are prepared to give money, set aside for veterans, away to someone who does not deserve it and has not earned it. Yes, that is correct, Mr. Speaker. You, I and all Canadians are paying for a convicted murderer to receive therapy for a disability that was caused because he murdered an innocent woman. He did not wear a uniform a day in his life and never served his country as a veteran has.

The Minister of Veterans Affairs states that Garnier is receiving benefits because his father is a veteran, yet this still does not make any sense to me.

My father was a veteran, so I am familiar with how these things can work. When I was 30 years old, I did not receive any benefits due to my father being a veteran. I stopped being considered a vet dependant after the age of 25, and it only lasted that long because I was in university, as is the case for most Canadians.

When I was hit by a car as a young man and left with disabilities, would Veterans Affairs have come to my aid after my father retired? I wonder. How is it that Garnier qualifies as a dependant? Why is Veterans Affairs so quick to provide a murderer with disability benefits. If this was a mistake, why has the minister not used his authority to stop this from happening? It is shameful that the minister has no answers to these questions day after day and that he has the audacity to ask if we can simply let this debate rest for now.

I am a member of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. It is an honour and privilege to sit on that committee and do all that I can to be a voice for veterans and advocate on their behalf here in Ottawa. During my time on that committee, I have heard countless stories about the struggle that many veterans face when it comes to obtaining their disability benefits.

I remember my first Remembrance Day ceremony as a sitting member of Parliament. A young veteran, who had served in Afghanistan, came up to me afterward and was very passionate about his experiences and concerns. One of the points he left me with was to stand up for him and his comrades and not to let the bureaucracy cheat them out of the honour they had earned by serving Canada. As my father always said, “Now is the time to stand up and be counted.”

It seems extremely unfair that the men and women who have worn a uniform and have sacrificed their lives to keep Canada safe and secure have been pushed to the back of the line so a murderer, who never served for our country, can get benefits first. I have a constituent who has been waiting nearly a year and a half to receive his disability benefits, which deal with PTSD issues, with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Just last week there was another mefloquine rally on the front steps of Parliament Hill. Veterans who were subjected to this drug are fighting for their benefits in recognition of the huge impact that mefloquine has had on their lives and those of their families. People like Marj Matchee and David Bona are standing up and speaking for those who cannot. Where is their support from Veterans Affairs? They get none, yet a murderer who is a non-veteran gets coverage. These veterans had no choice but to take that medication. This murderer had a choice.

The penal system in Canada covers treatment for mental health issues, such as PTSD. This could include Garnier, yet Veterans Affairs Canada is footing the bill for his private psychologist. He does not need to use resources meant for veterans and their deserving families.

Why is the minister unable to explain the rationale behind this backward decision? What is taking so long for department officials to figure out how on earth this could have happened? Canadians want a response. In the meantime, the minister should use his authority to suspend the benefits until said response is provided.

It bears repeating the Prime Minister's recent comments to a disabled veteran, stating that Canadian veterans were, “asking for more than we are able to give”. That comment was extremely offensive from the start, as our veterans have literally given their lives so we may live peacefully in our country. That highly offensive statement, compounded with the fact the government is paying for a murderer's PTSD treatment, is another virtual slap in the face to all veterans.

I am sure most of us here remember what happened to the former base commander at CFB Trenton, Russell Williams. He was convicted of committing two murders. Following his conviction, he was stripped of his commission, his ranks and awards by the Governor General on the recommendation of the chief of defence staff. His severance pay was terminated and the salary he received following his arrest was seized. His uniform was burned and his medals were destroyed.

Imagine the outrage Canadians would feel if they were paying for the private psychological treatment for Russell Williams for the PTSD he may have incurred while murdering somebody. It is a disgusting and abhorrent thought, yet this is essentially what is happening with Christopher Garnier. We get to pay for his treatment, all because his father, not him, is a veteran.

I want to make it clear that I and all my colleagues on this side of the House are 100% in favour of helping veterans and their families. Being a voice for our veterans family is one of my main goals at the veterans affairs committee. It is something I understand through my own personal experience, through multiple moves, multiple school disruptions, boarding schools, separations from my father, my parents, with challenges to myself, my siblings, my brother and my father. As they say, “Been there, done that”.

Ultimately, the issue here is that these taxpayer-funded back-allocated disability benefits are going to somebody who, one, has been convicted of murder; and two, should not qualify as a dependent, as far as I can tell.

This man took a life, violently and senselessly. Our Canadian veterans have dedicated themselves to saving lives, both at home and abroad. They commit to defend our country, its institutions and its way of life. This man has disrespected our way of life and dishonoured our country.

I call on the Liberal government to do the right thing and stop funding treatment for a convicted murderer once and for all. It owes it to Constable Campbell, to her family and to all veterans who have served our country.

[Accessible Canada Act, September 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the legislation does talk about getting involved and how we structure things. The thing the legislation does not talk about is what those standards and regulations would be. That is what Canadians asked for. When the average Canadian with a disability heard about this legislation, they asked, “What's in it for me?” This legislation basically identifies how we set up a CEO, a commissioner, a committee to study this, but it does not say what that would do to help improve their lives.

[Accessible Canada Act, September 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the member for Fredericton, for his question and all the good work that he has had to do in Fredericton over the past year. I know he has been hard at that.

I agree with a lot of what he said about working together. That is part of what this legislation should be doing. I had a conversation with the minister a couple of days ago on this issue. One of the things we discussed was maybe taking two Liberals, two Conservatives, two NDP, and putting them in a room to sit around and hash out all of the little details so that we could get all of the fine lines. It is important to do that, and I expect we will see a lot of that at committee. I hope to see that help us move forward, and to help those with disabilities so we can advance our country to the benefit he suggested.

[Accessible Canada Act, September 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am assuming the member was not referring to me as being that individual who was speaking on behalf of disabled people. However, as I mentioned, I do have a disability. The unfortunate part is a lot of Canadians do not understand that people out there have visible and invisible disabilities. An example of visible disabilities is the gentleman I just talked about because we can see it. It is visible and we see those people every day. We respond to them and we see the challenges that they have in their lives when they try to navigate around a city, when they try to go over a curb that does not have access to getting onto the road, and when they try to go into buildings when there is not access for them. There are regulations that people expect. However, there are also people who have invisible disabilities. I have an invisible disability. Those invisibly disabled people deserve to have the same access and abilities as the rest whom we talk about. That is the main point we need to look at: How do we address all of them?

The committee that is being structured does set up an opportunity and they say that there will be disabled people on it. My question is for the committee to explain that a bit more. This is not saying we do not support the legislation. We are looking forward to seeing it go to committee. We are looking forward to hearing a lot of these questions answered, and I appreciate this as we move forward to committee.

[Accessible Canada Act, September 24th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a chance to speak on this piece of legislation, Bill C-81, an act to ensure a barrier-free Canada.

Since this Parliament began just under three years ago, there have been a number of private members' bills put forward to this House with the aim of improving the lives of Canadians living with disabilities. Unfortunately, not all of these have passed. Most of these bills have contained meaningful, tangible outcomes and results for disabled Canadians, which is something that all parties in this House should have been able to support. However, as we look at Bill C-81, it is unclear how it will actually benefit those it sets out to help.

According to this piece of legislation, the intent of this bill is to benefit all Canadians, especially Canadians with disabilities, through the progressive realization of a barrier-free Canada. This is a sentiment that I believe we can all get behind. Accessibility is an important issue that can drastically affect the quality of people's lives, including their day-to-day routines. Anything that can be done at a government level to address this should absolutely be done.

As someone who has had to live 44 years of his life with a hearing disability, I was expecting a lot more from this legislation. It becomes problematic when legislation that is introduced by the government has no obvious effective results. In my view, this has been the case for Bill C-81. While it seems that the intention behind this bill is good, its actual components and the effects it would have are unclear. Aside from making it easier to access federal services, I fail to see how this legislation would help Canadians living with disabilities in the way that this government champions it as being historic.

Furthermore, there is the issue of the length of time it has taken to get this bill introduced to the House of Commons. The Liberals have been in power for three years now and are almost at the end of their mandate. It is only recently that they have begun to fulfill the promises they made to Canadians living with a disability when they were elected in 2015. All three ministers who have held this portfolio were instructed, in their mandate letters from the Prime Minister, to get this legislation moving. However, for some reason, the bill was only introduced in June of this year, right as the House recessed and all members returned to work in their constituencies.

I would like to acknowledge the present minister responsible for accessibility, as I truly believe that she means well with this legislation. She initiated this legislation, and she is here at its completion.

There has been absolutely no sense of urgency on this. To me it feels as though the Liberals were just kicking the can down the road until they finally had to do something or risk being criticized for their inaction. Canadians, disabled or not, deserve better than that.

In contrast, during the 2008 election, the Conservative Party committed to introducing the registered disability savings plan, RDSP. That election took place in October. By December of the same year the RDSP was introduced and was available for Canadians to take advantage of. All of that took place in under three months, yet by the time Bill C-81 passes, it will have taken almost three years.

Let us also consider that Canadians may need to wait another six years before any new regulations take effect, as there are no regulations contained within this legislation. There are so many things the government can do to help Canadians living with a disability, yet it chooses to introduce this legislation that has zero immediate effects and will not change a thing once it becomes law.

The previous Conservative government understood and recognized the contributions that persons with disabilities can and do make to our society and our economy. As I mentioned, the RDSP was implemented quickly and gave Canadians with disabilities greater financial security. Since 2008, 1,005 of these accounts have been set up, and over $1 billion has been added to their savings.

The previous Conservative government also introduced the new home accessibility tax credit to facilitate healthy, happy homes for persons with disabilities, and invested hundreds of millions of dollars toward improving employment and employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. This is the type of action that the Canadian public is expecting. We know that this can be done in a timely and efficient manner if the will is there. The previous government proved it was possible. However, the Liberals seem to bungle this portfolio time and time again.

One of the main components of this bill is that it says it will create accessibility standards for regulated parties to achieve and maintain. This would happen through the creation of the Canadian accessibility standards development organization, or CASDO. The bill would also create the position of a chief accessibility officer who would oversee the implementation of the legislation, as well as the creation of an accessibility commissioner, whose role would be to ensure compliance.

The provision of the bill that creates CASDO leaves many questions unanswered and ultimately creates yet another level of study and consultation without any actual impact on those it is meant to help. We know the government loves to study and consult on an issue rather than taking meaningful, timely action on it. What it is essentially doing with Bill C-81 is creating yet another committee, CASDO, that would set standards. If that statement leaves members with some questions, they are not alone.

What are these new standards going to look like, how would they be implemented, what is the timeline for this creation, what is the timeline for the consultation, what is the timeline for the implementation, what is the timeline for these standards, who is considered to be qualified to establish these standards, and so on and so forth. There are so many unanswered questions. I would appreciate if the minister could provide the framework and mandate for this new accessibility standards organization, as well as the cost and other necessary facts and figures, as soon as possible.

Another component of Bill C-81 is a $290-million fund over six years, amounting to $48 million per year to upgrade federal workplaces and websites. Is this all administrative costs? Setting up an office is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. If 5,000 new employees are paid $40,000 a year, that amounts to $200 million. Establishing a new CEO and commissioner is going to cost well over $200,000. There is the money spent right there in one year.

This is a wonderful idea in theory, but I am skeptical as to how many Canadians living with disabilities would actually benefit from this. We do not know how this envelope of money would be allocated, which is problematic in itself, but we can assume that it would be used, at least in part, for more consultation. I fail to see how constant and never-ending consultation helps people, not to mention the fact that taxpayer dollars are being spent on something with no tangible results and no actual timeline for when it would be implemented.

The minister says that the government would be hiring more public servants, 5,000 people with disabilities to be specific. Again this leaves many questions. Are these public servants all new hires, are they filling in places left open by attrition, what is the cost of hiring these 5,000 new public servants, would their work be wider in scope, would it be in different departments? These questions need to be answered, but it seems the Liberals have a hard time saying one single thing that this bill would actually do.

Canadians living with disabilities deserve meaningful and effective action from their government to help them improve their quality of life where possible. There are good things about this bill. It would hopefully make it easier for some Canadians with disabilities to deal with the federal government. However it is unclear as to how this helps with the rest of their lives.

Something I also support in this legislation, the clearest and most repeated point, is that it spells out the complaints process. This, however, is just a tiny aspect of a much greater piece of legislation that should provide common-sense regulations and standards, which I believe is what disabled Canadians were hoping for.

I cannot comprehend why the government would put out this legislation unless it was simply to say it was doing something. It had two and a half years to consult and this is what it came up with. I believe it does a disservice to those involved. To put it casually, there is no meat in this meal.

Before I can support this bill, I and all Canadians need to know these facts. In my view, this bill is putting the cart before the horse. I think that every person sitting in the House today would say that they support initiatives that benefit Canadians living with disabilities, but this piece of legislation fails to have any meaningful impact and sets out to spend a lot of money to do nothing.

I have a friend, a constituent, a young man who was born with spina bifida, a meningocele. All his life as a youth, he had surgery after surgery and he is wheelchair-bound, yet he is an amazing young man. He has managed to get a job, he works hard, he has moved, he is able to drive. In fact, he was involved in the Queen City Marathon just three or four weeks ago in Regina. This young man is going to sit there and ask those very same questions: What is this doing for him, and how is it going to help him?

In conclusion, I would like to say that politicians of all stripes recognize the challenges that face individuals with disabilities as well as their families. What these people are asking for is action from the current Liberal government rather than empty words, more consultations and endless platitudes.

[Accessible Canada Act, September 19th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, the member for Sarnia—Lambton and I have had talks on health care and many other issues over the last three years. She is aware that I have a hearing impairment. She is very aware of that aspect. These are aspects that I look at in this bill specifically.

She mentioned infrastructure and if we are looking at ramps or looking at rails, and things like that. However, my question really is about standards. I would like to hear a bit more of her thoughts. She touched on standards a bit. There is a difference between standards and regulations. Could she comment on that?

[Firearms Act, June 19th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member comes from a rural part of Canada, as do I. No doubt in his riding there are one or two gun shows that happen in various parts of that community. The buyers and sellers who go to those shows, whether to display, purchase, offer for sale, or look at the firearms, are now being challenged. Law-abiding citizens are being challenged on that day should they transport a firearm for sale. I wonder if the member would comment on the challenges that he sees this legislation will cause these people.

[Firearms Act, June 18th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague and I have talked over the years. I used to be a registrar before I became a member of Parliament, and I was a registrar for the chiropractor profession. Whenever we put in legislation, etc., the criminals had gotten around it before it even went before the Queen's printer. I wonder if the member could comment on how criminals do not follow the rules.