Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, honourable members of this committee, fellow veterans, and ladies and gentlemen, I thank the Creator, first of all, for the opportunity to be here on behalf of our aboriginal veterans. I also wish to acknowledge that we are meeting today on non-c

Veterans Affairs committee  As I was sitting here earlier, when the member from Veterans Affairs was here...I understand clearly what the proposal is. I understand it's the World War II vets and the Korean War vets, and now my colleague here is bringing up the other issue. But as the issue sits right now, I

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm going to speak on behalf of Chief Percy Joe at this time, because I feel that the first nations group has probably been the one that's been affected more by some of the discriminatory practices of years and years gone by. I spoke to Chief Percy Joe last night—and I apologiz

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, we do support them, as well as First Nations Veterans of Canada, if I can speak on their behalf.

Veterans Affairs committee  I would have to say no, they weren't.

Veterans Affairs committee  For the aboriginal veterans, we're looking at the points that Mr. Blais brought up regarding today's veterans. Again, we certainly agree, because we also sit on the Legion consultation board, that one veteran equals one veteran. A veteran is a veteran is a veteran. We are tryin

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, that's a very good point. We have the memorandums of understanding with first nations and with the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, so we can get the word out regarding all of these changes that are coming. Communication is a serious obstacle. It was mentioned by Mr. B

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, honourable members of this Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, fellow veterans, ladies, and gentlemen, I acknowledge the fact that we meet here tonight on unceded Algonquin territory and I thank the Algonquin people. I also thank the creator for the opportunity

Veterans Affairs committee  I certainly agree with the issue on OSISS. I also agree with Sean's description of an allowance for spouses. I'm a fortunate guy. I have a spouse, and the other thing that sometimes I get a little annoyed to hear when we talk about spouses is that we're normally talking about a w

Veterans Affairs committee  The only thing I'll add to that...everything I'm agreeing with at the table right now, the three priorities. We sit here as a committee, and we sit here as a group of veterans and other people who are in the room here that are associated with the veterans, and I remember back in

Veterans Affairs committee  When you mention time as weapon, we have to consider how long we have been sitting here at the table. This is now 2014, and the issues have been on the table for quite a number of years now. So, yes, there has to be some sort of a pilot. I approached people for a pilot program de

Veterans Affairs committee  One issue on what Harold just talked about, the best tool that you have may be attaching DND medical with VAC medical. I don't think it's been mentioned here, but a lot of those issues may very well have been corrupt in the way that people were collecting pensions when they went

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  I mentioned two organizations. The Canadian Army that deals with the north...and that is one of the populations that we've forgotten about in all of our talks. I did have a good conversation with ITK, the executive director there, and that was one of his concerns as well. We're

Veterans Affairs committee  There may not be that many more, but we have to make sure we try to capture as much as we can.