Sean Casey

[John F. Dee, March 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise here today to pay tribute to the life of John F. Dee, who passed away last Friday in Grand Falls, New Brunswick, after a tough battle with cancer. John worked for Canadian Pacific for his entire career. He was a long-time member of his local Baptist church. He enjoyed gardening, fishing and a good dose of political debate.

A Liberal to the very core, even when he was too sick to visit friends and family, he found the strength to come out to a recent Liberal event in Grand Falls to meet our leader, the member for Toronto Centre, to show his unwavering support for the Liberal Party of Canada. He said he needed to “speak out with [his] dying body” that what has been happening in this country is intolerable and needed to change, and that we are the party to be that change.

Our thoughts and prayers are with John's wife Shirley, his sons Gary and Wayne, daughters Sandra, Linda and Barbara, and their family during this difficult time.

May he rest in peace.

[Safe Streets and Communities Act, March 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, legal scholars across this country and the Canadian Bar Association have very serious concerns about the constitutionality of many aspects of this bill.

The member for Mount Royal has asked the minister whether he will table the legal opinions with respect to its constitutionality. I am not sure we have an answer. I will ask the question again.

Will the minister please table the opinions with respect to the constitutionality of the provisions within Bill C-10?

[Safe Streets and Communities Act, March 6th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, part of the reason we are here today discussing amendments to this legislation coming back from the Senate requires a little context. When the bill was at committee, the member for Mount Royal indicated that with respect to victims of terrorism, the bill needed to be strengthened. The member for Mount Royal put forward some very reasonable amendments that were routinely rejected by the Conservative members of the justice committee.

Realizing their error, the Conservatives came back to the House and tried to adopt those amendments as their own. They were ruled out of order. Now here we are, considering those amendments having come through the Senate.

My question for the minister is, what is more important, political partisanship or the rights of victims of state-sponsored terrorism?

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to commend the hon. member for his work as the chairman of our committee. I know that I have not made it particularly easy for him. It would be great if more of the committee business was done in public. However, he is a good man, doing a good job.

He said in the course of his remarks that tomorrow is a very important day because the committee is going to consider the main estimates. He also said that legally we cannot reduce the amount that is being paid for veterans benefits.

Is he prejudging the outcome of the vote tomorrow? Does the committee not have the right to examine the numbers that come before it, to discuss them and to decide whether or not to pass them? If they are legally bound, what are we meeting for tomorrow?

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the parliamentary secretary in the course of her remarks say that to keep the status quo would be an immense disservice to our veterans and yet the amendment proposed by the government side is to maintain veterans' benefits. I am not an English major but I am having a little trouble trying to figure out the difference between status quo and maintain.

Why not take the savings that will be encountered through the strategic and operating review and fund the veterans transition program? The hon. member saw this program first-hand. It is an excellent program that is receiving nothing from the government. Why not plow the savings from the strategic and operating review into the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research? Why not? Is the status quo—

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, over the course of the debate today we have heard government members, including the minister, imply that it is necessary to defeat the motion in order to tackle red tape, that if the motion passes, then veterans would be burdened by red tape.

In my respectful submission, this is nothing more than a red herring. It is entirely possible, in fact it is incumbent upon the government, to tackle red tape whether the motion passes or not.

I invite my hon. friend to offer comments on that observation.

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, who is also a member of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, for his remarks and interest on the mental health of veterans.

He rightly pointed out that there are 17 occupational stress injury clinics across the country. My question for the hon. member is this. Should we be satisfied with that? Is that enough? Is the problem of mental health within the veterans community fully and adequately served at that level?

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, we heard in question period that the apparent enemy of veterans was red tape and that we really needed to not pass the NDP motion so we could get at the red tape, which leaves me a little confused. I would ask the hon. member if the elimination of red tape within the Department of Veterans Affairs is inconsistent with the spirit of the motion.

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the member for Huron—Bruce for his comments. I serve on the veterans committee with him and share his interests in service delivery and improving it. The member is genuinely concerned about that, regardless of partisan or non-partisan overtones, and I commend him for that.

One of the things he said toward the end of his speech was that we cannot do enough for veterans, that we cannot say this is the established level and that we are not going beyond it. In fact, is that not precisely what the proposed amendment wants to do? The proposed amendment refers to our “maintaining” veterans' benefits, so the status quo is good. However, the main motion that we are debating would allow for the moneys no longer being spent on dying veterans to be reinvested. Therefore, the very thing he advocated at the end of his speech is in fact the substance of the motion.

[Veterans Affairs, March 5th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the chief government whip is no doubt aware of the reports last week where the member for Calgary West fell asleep in a parliamentary committee during a presentation on veterans homelessness. The member subsequently denied this and launched, and this may sound familiar, an unsubstantiated smear campaign against the veterans group that went public with it.

These veterans are angry and offended. They are ready to sue him and are seeking his removal from the committee. Will the chief government whip respect the wishes of the veterans and remove the member?