Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to be able to address this motion from the NDP and to be able to follow my colleague from Beauséjour. He is always a tough act to follow, and I expect you are aware that his tongue was planted firmly in his cheek as he was praising what he may expect in remarks from me.

Veterans Affairs  Mr. Speaker, yesterday the President of the Treasury Board, a man deeply committed to wasting taxpayers' money, advocated spending tens of millions of dollars on advertising in order to tell Canadians what a great job the Conservatives are doing unravelling Canada's social safety net.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question on an infrastructure need that is near and dear to my province. In 2005, the Liberal government announced a plan to place a third subsea cable from Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick in order to replace the two existing cables that are at the end of their useful life.

Veterans Affairs  Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago the Royal Canadian Legion launched a public campaign calling on the Conservatives to increase funding to the Last Post Fund. Yesterday, the Royal Canadian Legion got its answer. It is buried at page 382 of the estimates. It shows that the Last Post Fund will be cut next year by $1.4 million.

Response to the Supreme Court of Canada Decision in R. v. Tse Act  Mr. Speaker, the member indicated that we would support the bill going to committee, but I have two specific questions. First, is there any advice he can provide the committee that would be studying the bill in terms of amendments or areas of improvement to the bill? Second, could the member comment on the extent to which the drafters of the bill have heeded the advice of the Supreme Court of Canada?

Veterans Affairs  Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of National Defence strangely claimed that he stood up for veterans against their own lawyers. Was he standing up for veterans when more than five years ago he refused to even negotiate for them? Was he standing up for veterans when he argued all the way to the Supreme Court that they should not even have the right to bring their case forward?

Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-444, presented by the Conservative member for Red Deer. According to the bill, its enactment amends the Criminal Code to establish that impersonating a police officer or a public officer for the purpose of committing another offence must be considered by a court to be an aggravating circumstance for sentencing purposes.

Veterans Affairs  Mr. Speaker, yesterday's phony performance by the Minister of National Defence was farcical. Bravely answering a planted question, he pretended to be outraged by the legal costs resulting from the government's class action settlement with veterans. Does he really believe that Canadians forget that it was the Conservative government that dragged disabled veterans through the courts for five long years in the first place?

Veterans Affairs  Mr. Speaker, I am here to stand up for veterans. I am here to stand up for the veterans who the government fought for five years in court. If it is not bad enough that it fought this group of disabled veterans for five years, there are two more class action lawsuits that it will not negotiate.

Veterans Affairs  Mr. Speaker, Charlottetown had two big snow jobs this weekend, one from mother nature and the other from the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Backpedalling from closing nine district offices, the minister hatched a plan. He came to P.E.I. under the cover of night. His mere presence, unannounced, amounted to a grim reaper moment, unnerving employees wondering what further misery he was bringing.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, my question to the hon. member specifically relates to the potential for delay. We are coming up on a critical period in terms of the budget cycle nationally. The end of the fiscal year is upon us. The main estimates and the budget are coming up in fairly short order.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I indicated in my earlier question that Prince Edward Island primarily has a seasonal economy. There are some good-paying, permanent jobs that some people are fortunate enough to have. Some of them are at the national headquarters of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I am quite interested in the hon. member's suggestion that this is good policy for Atlantic Canada. I am sure that the voters in his riding would be very impressed by his spirited defence of the EI reforms. People are not so pleased about them in Prince Edward Island, where we have a higher percentage of frequent users of the system than any other province, as we are dependent on tourism, agriculture and fishing as our three main industries.

Frank Zakem  Mr. Speaker, last week, Frank Zakem passed away at the age of 82. He was revered by Prince Edward Islanders. Frank was fond of saying that there were three types of people: those who made things happen; those who watched things happen; and those who did not know what happened.

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns  With respect to funding announcements regarding veterans: (a) how much of the $300,000 announced on August 7, 2006, for renovations to the Robert L. Knowles Veterans’ Unit at the Villa Chaleur Nursing Home in Bathurst, New Brunswick, was spent, and what was the breakdown of that amount; (b) how much of the $10,000,000 in funding announced in Budget 2007 to establish five new Operational Stress Injury (OSI) Clinics across Canada has been spent, broken down by OSI Clinic; (c) how much of the $1,500,000 announced on June 25, 2007, to establish a new OSI Clinic in Fredericton was spent, and what was the breakdown of that amount; (d) since the announcement of $850,000 in increased funding for the Calgary Carewest OSI Clinic in 2007, what has been the Clinic’s annual budget for each fiscal year to present date; (e) how much of the possible $18,500,000 payable to Right Management over four years under its national contract for the Job Placement Program announced on October 25, 2007, has been spent, broken down by amount spent annually; (f) since the announcement of $1,400,000 in increased funding for the Quebec OSI Clinic on November 16, 2007, what has been the Clinic’s annual budget for each fiscal year to present date; (g) how much of the possible $20,000,000 payable to CanVet VR Services over three years to provide the vocational components of Veterans Affairs Canada’s broader Rehabilitation Program announced on May 21, 2009, has been spent, broken down by amount spent annually; (h) how much of the $114,500,000 earmarked to compensate Agent Orange victims has been spent, broken down by amount spent annually; and (i) how much of the $2,000,000,000 announced on September 19, 2010, “to ensure that veterans who have been seriously injured in the service of Canada have access to the support they deserve” has been spent, broken down by both the amount spent annually and the project/initiative under which the money was spent?