Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise again and wrap up this debate. I am not going to bother going over the text of private member's Motion No. 532. It has been alluded to a number of times. Suffice it to say, it will provide a significant step toward closing the gaps in the service transition between the Department of National Defence and Veterans Affairs. There are gaps that exist, which we know about.

I appreciate the support. I know it is going to be passed—I assume unanimously. Notwithstanding the rhetoric we have heard today and heard the last time, which is a completely false narrative, we have acknowledged that there are issues. We have always acknowledged the issues. I have lived through some of those issues as a veteran. However, the narrative we heard today and the last time is very false.

The thing I like about private member's Motion No. 532, other than that it is mine, is that it really is in lock step with the 14 recommendations in the Veterans Affairs committee report tabled in June of this year.

The first one, and my colleague from the Maritimes mentioned it earlier, is not letting someone leave uniform until they are completely holding hands with Veterans Affairs, that everything has been adjudicated, the caseworkers have been identified, that the services are ready when they walk in the door, and that there is a whole bunch of other things covered in there.

The announcements made a couple of days ago addressed three of those recommendations, and there are more to come. This is progress and that is what this is about, making progress in what really is a never-ending quest to give veterans what they need. That process is not immediate. People ask why it is not happening right now. No government can ignore the legal, regulatory, and statutory process that is in place. We would all like it to go faster. That is just not reality; every government has to follow that procedure.

The previous speaker mentioned that we were using bafflegab. No, we have to engage. Sometimes we have to engage with the Department of Finance. We have to engage with DND and VAC. We have to engage with Treasury Board. There are a lot of things that, by law, have to be done and we have to get that right.

The Auditor General's report in fact relates to my private member's motion. He addresses a lot of legitimate things. They are covered by that, but also covered by the 14 recommendations in the committee's report.

The Auditor General's report is not all negative, despite the rhetoric we hear from the opposition and the media, who will never talk about anything good. They will always talk about the negative, because that is what the opposition and media do. One of these days it would be nice to see some more honest balance, but I will not hold my breath.

The Auditor General praised the department for a number of things, such as mental health rehab timelines and the mental health support programs that are in place, and there are many. Eighty-four per cent of eligibility decisions in the rehab program were made within the two-week service standard. That is not bad. The majority of case plans were prepared within 45 days. That is pretty good.

There are legitimate criticisms in the AG's report and we accept those. A lot of those relate directly to the recommendations that we made. Those issues have been ongoing. We did not just start doing this a couple of days ago. Frankly, it has been ongoing for years and will continue. Therefore, to suggest that this is in reaction to something else is simply false.

Was the Auditor General's report a failure? No, it was not. Did it say that more could be done? Yes, absolutely, and we agree with that. Motion No. 532 goes a step in that direction. We are working with Veterans Affairs and the legions and most, but not all, veterans groups out there, because there are some that simply do not want to work in a productive, rational manner.

I have to say something about lapsing because that has been brought up many times. It has been completely falsely reported. If we think of it as a line of credit, VAC gets a line of credit from the government every year and it can spend as much as it wants. If it has to go over that amount, it can get more. The fact is, it depends on who asks for what. If the demand is not there, the money is not spent. The line of credit then gets refilled for the next year and on and on. It is completely false to say that $1.13 billion was ripped out of veterans programs. They know it is false. I will not use the word “deliberate”, but it does cross my mind that it is definitely misleading.

Walt Natynczyk is a brilliant appointment. I know him well. He talked about a continuum of care from a different perspective. I want to end here with this point. He talked about five stages: there is triage after a blast from an IED; then there is diagnosis; then treatment; then family and peer support; and finally, there is individual ownership of their own life. That is the aim of all Veterans Affairs programs, so people can take control of their own lives when the time comes. Motion No. 532 facilitates that.

I appreciate folks' support, and I look forward to this bill passing. It would be one more step in the continuum of care for veterans that they deserve.

Laurie Hawn

Transcript

Private Member'S Business

Discussions (0)