Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, certainly the focus of our veterans' mental wellness event last week at the Sam Sharpe breakfast was on telling the stories of some veterans who have become well after struggling with post-traumatic stress. Roméo Dallaire likes to tell me not to ever say individual

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend for his speech. Certainly there were eloquent and very respectable parts of the speech and his talk about Vimy was very engaging. Some of the political stunts in it were a little unfortunate because it detracted from some otherwise pow

Veterans  Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, being on the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, we have before the House Bill C-58, which is the most substantive set of reforms to veterans' benefits and programs in a generation. We have the retirement income security benefit, the critical

Veterans  Mr. Speaker, as the member well knows, in the 1960s and 1970s as the provinces stood up their health care systems, the federal government transferred the Veterans Affairs hospitals to the provinces. What he does know is that any veterans injured in the line of duty for Canada wil

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend for her remarks. Certainly she knows that I served in the military in Halifax for a number of years before we met at Dalhousie law school. I am glad that she talked about the important role that the Military Family Resource Centre in H

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, with a few more months remaining in this Parliament, the hon. member for Edmonton Centre is a privy councillor and has been in the House of Commons since 2006, after a 30-year career in the Canadian Armed Forces. Because he is not running in the next election, this m

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. It is good to be back here. I remember fondly, in my first year in Parliament, being a part of this standing committee. It's good to see you and the clerk. Some of the members of the opposition were at the committee at that time, as wer

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Stoffer. Certainly, you do have many years here in Ottawa, sitting both on SCONDVA and on this committee. In fact, you are the only member of this committee who voted for the new veterans charter. I have made a commitment to veterans to get these reforms passed b

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you. I'm not sure if I should refer to you as Sir Peter, or how you got the Prime Minister to grant you an exemption from the Nickle Resolution.

Veterans Affairs committee  Certainly I'm proud of the Dutch Canadian community who in Canada have kept the memory of the liberation alive, and certainly going to the Netherlands, as you have in the past, you see how the Dutch people keep it alive, so I want to thank you for making sure there was a special

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Lemieux. The critical injury benefit was meant to address something that the disability award did not, which is those cases of someone suffering a traumatic injury, but because they made a full recovery, their compensation under the disability award, the lump sum

Veterans Affairs committee  That's exactly it. Well put. Apart from the payment itself, which is significant, in many ways it's less important than the recognition. The man or woman injured in service to our country, regular force or reserve, needs to know that their country respects and recognizes, not ju

Veterans Affairs committee  That's correct. The new benefits contained in Bill C-58—the critical injury benefit, the retirement income security benefit, and the family caregiver relief benefit—are all new benefits that require parliamentary approval. As of April 1, we've already expanded inclusion in the pe

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Valeriote. There was a lot there that I'll address in sequence. Certainly I saw Madam Migneault here today and I look forward to speaking more with her. I've already learned quite a bit from her perspective as a caregiver and the compassion she shows, and I appre

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Hayes, I'm very glad you asked this question because it has caused a lot of confusion for veterans and their families, and it's an issue that because of its moderate degree of complexity can be used to actually sow seeds of confusion. You're exactly right. A department canno