44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 3, 2022 10:00AM
- Nov/3/22 12:09:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there are existing community organizations doing this work.
My hon. colleague for North Island—Powell River gave an example related to the elimination of veteran houselessness in London. We know that partnerships with local communities and municipalities can provide the data that is important in helping us identify those veterans, offer better supports and at times fund support programs that are already in place.
The Edmonton veterans association, for example, hosts peer nights, where veterans come together, share stories and participate together. We need to invest in these solutions.
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- Nov/3/22 12:11:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for bringing this important advocacy to the attention of the House.
It is important that we understand that, often in Canada's history, francophones have been discriminated against not only in veterans affairs but often in other social programs for which they are eligible. This is part of a systemic problem not only in this place but also in local legislatures across the country, which continue to grapple with the promotion and protection of francophones.
I am in solidarity with the member from the Bloc Québécois who is raising this important point. Francophone veterans do deserve the same level of respect and access to programs that they deserve.
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- Nov/3/22 12:11:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know the NDP member is close to CFB Edmonton. Could he elaborate on how big of a challenge homelessness for veterans is in his own riding?
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- Nov/3/22 12:12:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague not only for the question but for his service as well.
Indigenous women and other minority groups are often the ones seen in Edmonton Griesbach in tents and on the streets throughout the community. What we do not often see is that some of these people are veterans. Some of them do not want to come forward and self-identify as veterans because of the shame associated with their living conditions. However, that is not their fault. That is the fault of the system that failed them.
What we see is that when that transition period comes there is a massive drop-off. It is almost like going off a ledge, where they seem to plummet and not find the support they need.
There is a grassroots movement across Edmonton. We have the Edmonton veterans association that has picked up the pieces to identify, house, clothe, feed, provide peer support and unite these veterans with community.
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- Nov/3/22 12:13:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Lac-Saint-Louis today.
Normally, I am very critical of the opposition, the Conservative Party in particular, moving motions of concurrence like this. I usually feel as though it is an opportunity to try to slow down government legislation, but I am grateful the opposition moved this today. It is very important that we have this discussion as we lead up to Remembrance Day.
Quite frankly, I have learned a lot sitting here this morning while listening to what other members have had to say. Any opportunity we have to further educated ourselves on the issues that veterans are facing, in particular as it relates to homelessness, are opportunities we should take. I am more than happy to have the opportunity to speak to this.
I have mentioned that we are approaching Remembrance Day. The Tuesday morning after Halloween, my six year old started talking about Christmas, as young children do as they move from one festive day to the next one. I made a point of saying, “Frankie, I think it is better if we talk about Remembrance Day for the next 11 days before we get to Christmas. He asked me what Remembrance Day was.
That gave me an opportunity to explain to him about the men and women who had gone out to various parts of the world to defend the values we hold so dear and to give us the quality of life we have. His eyes completely expanded as he was absorbing what I was saying. Obviously, a six year old cannot understand the realities of war, the complexities of global and foreign affairs, and the struggles our country has gone through to give us our incredible quality of life. Any opportunity we have to talk about this important issue is one that we need to have inside and outside the chamber.
It was referenced by the veterans affairs parliamentary secretary that one in 60 Canadians are veterans. We should stop and reflect on the number of individuals who have come from our country, and currently reside in our country, who have given that incredible quality of life. He talked about his recent trip abroad and about the people in the countries that Canada helped liberate many years ago through different wars. In particular, I think he was talking about World War II.
I was immediately reminded of my own family. I literally would not be standing here today had not been for the men and women who fought for our country. My grandparents on my father's side came from Holland and my mother's came from Italy. They moved to Canada in the 1950s from their war-torn countries. My grandfather, up until he passed away in the mid-nineties, would tell the story of the Canadians who liberated Holland.
My grandfather and grandmother owned a cornerstore in Hilversum, which is about 20 minutes north of Amsterdam. When the Germans moved into Holland and started to occupy it, he had to hide, as many men did during that time, from the Germans every time they would come through the country looking for men to work in factories.
As the war dragged on and the Germans started to run out of people to work in these factories and as it was becoming more clear they were struggling, they would walk into houses. They would bang on the front doors of houses in Holland, walk in and take men who would often not return home. My grandfather told the story of how he would hide from the German soldiers, as many other men would, to avoid being ripped from their families.
One day, he came out of hiding to see Canadian soldiers walking in the streets of Hilversum, literally liberating his country that had been under German rule for three years, I believe, by that point. They were liberated by Canadian solders. It was at that point my grandfather said that was where he wanted to live, in a country whose individuals had travelled across the world to defend values and freedoms.
As a result, my grandparents packed up their family and left their war-torn country with literally nothing but the idea and the dream of having a better life. They travelled on a boat, and my dad still has the ticket from that boat, to Canada, where they eventually ended up in Kingston. My mother's story is not much different, just from another European country at the time. As a result, I am the product of the decisions made by both sides of my family that allow me to be here today and to be in Canada.
I say this because when we talk about Canada being a country that promotes peace around the world, we quite often get caught up in this idea and lose sight of what that really means. We get caught up in thinking that it means people who stood in the chamber, debated in the chamber, created laws and policies and engaged in diplomatic foreign affairs throughout the generations before us somehow created Canada's incredible reputation. I would argue that this has very little to do with the politicians who were in this room and so much more to do with the men and women on the ground, even today, representing Canadian values.
When I was on the defence committee, I had the opportunity to travel to eastern Europe to study Operation Reassurance and Operation Unifier, and nothing moved me more on that trip than when we were sitting with the chair of the defence committee for Ukraine. He asked if we knew why the Canadian brigade had all these other countries lined up to be part of it. He said it was because those countries had the option of joining the brigades of the United Kingdom or the United States, but they were not interested as they wanted to be part of Canada's brigade.
When we talk about Canada's leadership throughout the world, it is not the leadership, in my opinion, that comes from this room; it is the leadership of our men and women and how they engage with people in other parts of the world.
I say all this to set the premise for how we should be taking care of these veterans when they come back from serving our country. The member for Barrie—Innisfil, in addition to others today, brought up Homes for Heroes. This is an organization specifically geared toward helping veterans find stable places to live so they are not homeless. As many members in the House have said, it is an absolute travesty that there are 5,000 homeless veterans in our country, which I did not know before I heard it in the debate today, after the incredible sacrifices they made for us.
Homes for Heroes is doing great work, and I understand the federal government has been helping to employ people to engage in growing this organization and making the operation successful. I am very familiar with the organization because it recently established a location in the city of Kingston to house veterans.
One of the biggest problems with housing veterans and finding and establishing communities, like what Homes for Heroes is striving for, is ensuring we have the right pieces of land to make that happen.
Unfortunately, because of decades of processes that have been put in place to rezone property, it can become quite cumbersome for organizations that are quite feeble in their operations and do not have the resources that larger developers might to properly go through the process of rezoning land to create villages like what Homes for Heroes is doing. The federal government needs to continue to explore with its provincial counterparts how to expedite that process. In Kingston, the provincial minister was able to say that the province was going to put an end to the process.
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- Nov/3/22 12:23:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we all in the House share a great respect and a tremendous debt of gratitude for all those who have served our country, who have fought and paid the ultimate price for our freedoms, not only our veterans but their families that carry such a weight along with those who serve and make those big sacrifices.
One of the most tragic things that has emerged of late is about a veteran who was in crisis, experiencing tremendous trauma, and I am sure at a low point, needing help, reaching out for assistance, and was encouraged by a staff member of VAC to consider MAID as an option. That is a tragedy. This should never take place.
I would like to know what the government will do to address that and ensure safeguards are put in place so this never happens again.
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- Nov/3/22 12:25:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the government has been setting targets for francophone immigration outside Quebec since 2004, but in all that time, it has never achieved those targets.
In its response to a committee report, the government admitted that there was racism within IRCC and, as a result, students from francophone African countries have been treated inequitably. In the matter before us today, it is pretty clear that francophone veterans are discriminated against compared to anglophone veterans.
Will the government admit, once and for all, that it does not care about the French fact in Canada?
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- Nov/3/22 12:26:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will not admit to anything about which I am unaware of the details. However, absolutely nobody should be discriminated against in our country.
In particular, when we talk about veterans, if there is one issue that all members of the House should be able to get behind is that the safety, security and supports for our veterans are of absolute paramount and we should spare no expense to ensure that is the case. We will always have different opinions as to how that should be done. I think we can work in a collaborative way to forge some kind of consensus on how we move forward with that.
To the member's question more specifically about discrimination, clearly I do not see a place for that. I do not condone it. I would certainly urge anybody who is in a position of authority to do something about that and look into it.
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- Nov/3/22 12:27:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, even one veteran who is homeless is too many, yet we are here today debating and discussing the ways in which the government can move forward with solutions to ensure veterans are not homeless.
As a member of the Liberal government, what would the member propose should be changed today to ensure that veterans have barrier-free access to supports, so we are not leaving veterans on their own to sort this out, and that we are providing these supports for them.
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- Nov/3/22 12:28:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one thing the government should focus on actually comes from a comment I heard from a colleague of the member for North Island—Powell River. We need to do more to find out where homeless veterans are. The reality is that there are many homeless veterans out there, but we just do not know there physical location. We know they are unaware of a lot of the supports that exist.
I understand that we rely a lot on community and volunteer-based organizations to collect that data. I do not know the extent, personally, to which the government is collecting that data, but we need to work better at finding individuals who are homeless, veterans in particular, so they can be made aware of their supports.
The federal government, in my opinion, should be focusing on that in addition to everything else.
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- Nov/3/22 12:29:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague on a fantastic speech, which I found very interesting, particularly the part about the history of his family and his parents.
Like all my colleagues here in the House of Commons, I am very thankful for what the members of the Canadian Armed Forces do for the well-being of everyone, the well-being of the country and peace in the world. Obviously, we are all deeply grateful for the sacrifices of these veterans, many of whom gave their lives to preserve, promote and protect our freedom and world peace.
I represent a community, Montreal's West Island, that has deep ties to the military history of this country and to veterans. It is not because we are better than others, but due instead to a very particular history in the area.
After the Second World War, there were a lot of veterans in the various cities and rural areas of the country. There were a lot of veterans in the Montreal area and many moved to the West Island.
Also, Ste. Anne's Veterans Hospital was built in 1917, if I am not mistaken. That hospital received veterans from the First World War who required medical care. The hospital still holds a prominent place in Montreal's West Island community.
The hospital was replaced by a new hospital in 1968, the highest building in the area. The building can be seen when you arrive on the island of Montreal. It can bee seen from the village of Hudson on the road toward Montreal. That building, which is also a hospital, is well-known to everyone who lives on the West Island.
Attached to the original hospital was a centre reserved for those coming back from wars who were suffering from what is now called post-traumatic stress. That term was not used at the time. A lot of these people stayed on a type of campus attached to the veterans hospital, called Senneville Lodge. It no longer exists, as the hospital offers those services for veterans. In 2019, next to Senneville Lodge, the village of Senneville dedicated an extraordinary park on the Lac des Deux Montagnes now known as Souvenir Park. It is dedicated to our veterans, including those who spent much of their lives at Senneville Lodge or Ste. Anne's Veterans hospital.
On the weekend, a series of ceremonies will begin in my constituency to mark Remembrance Day. It will begin with an extraordinary ceremony that is repeated every year, which takes place at an exceptional site known as Heroes Park.
I would like to recognize the person who spearheaded the project, who had the vision to create that park. He is a friend and a fellow citizen, retired Major Richard Gratton. He served in Afghanistan and, when he returned, he worked for the Canadian Armed Forces at home. He held administrative positions. It is thanks to Major Gratton that we can mark Remembrance Day in Beaconsfield at Heroes Park, which pays tribute to the military and to all first responders, including law enforcement. The ceremonies begin on Saturday.
I would also like to mention that, although he is retired, Major Gratton works hard to help veterans, modern-day veterans, integrate. He works very hard for a foundation called The Trail.
The Trail's mission is to promote excellence by supporting veterans in crisis in Quebec and Canada. To date, the foundation has opened three service centres for veterans to help them in their transition and reintegration into society. There is a service centre in Mirabel, one in the Quebec City area and one in Notre‑Dame‑de‑Grâce on the Island of Montreal. The foundation is currently working hard to open a shelter for veterans in transition on Montreal's West Island.
The foundation is preparing a funding application under the veteran and family well-being fund, a program that has existed for some time but that was enhanced in budget 2021. The program works with community organizations.
Through that program, the government has been able to support groups like the Old Brewery Mission in Montreal, emergency transition services for veterans, the Home for Heroes Foundation, homeless shelters in Fredericton, the Good Shepherd Refuge Ministries in Toronto, Legacy Place, and many others.
I hope The Trail will be able to access the program's fund to carry out its extraordinary project of acquiring a shelter on Montreal's West Island.
Obviously, there is still a lot of progress to be made. That is why we have committees that conduct studies and make recommendations like the ones we are discussing this morning. This committee work sometimes leads to some very specific recommendations being made to the government. This gives the government the opportunity to create a road map to improve our country and, in this case, the services we provide to our veterans.
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- Nov/3/22 12:39:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not a member of the government; I am a member of Parliament. I do not sit in cabinet. I share the objective of other members of Parliament, including those in the opposition, which is the goal of bringing attention to issues that the government needs to deal with.
I hope that through the debate we are having today and, yes, through the report, some good concrete action will come out. The government has many programs that are benefiting veterans, but as our Prime Minister has said, better is always possible. Governments can always do better and do more.
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- Nov/3/22 12:40:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to see my colleague's list of agencies that are helping seniors across Canada.
That being said, in Quebec City there is another organization: le Repos du soldat. It is requesting a parcel of land that belongs to the Department of National Defence, a department that gave land to an anglophone school in a city that is 97% francophone.
Why is an anglophone school in a francophone community getting preference over our veterans?
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- Nov/3/22 12:42:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, budget 2021 and budget 2022 did include some infusions of funding specifically to address the problem of homeless veterans, so yes, there is funding. I am sure there are areas where there could be more funding, but citizens step in even when there is ample government funding. We see it in the hospital sector, for example, where foundations are created because people want to help.
This is an important priority and it deserves a great level of government support.
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- Nov/3/22 12:43:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize the residents of the riding I represent, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, for all the efforts they have put into Remembrance Day, which is coming upon us.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Yorkton—Melville.
There is no doubt in my mind that our military has a proud heritage, not only for service on the battlefield and for those times in peacekeeping, but also behind the scenes.
Many others in the House have shared their own personal stories of the exchange between Canadian military members and civilians, and I am reminded of my own mother, who was living in Scotland during World War II. She also interacted with Canadian soldiers who had travelled overseas. They had left their own homes and families and recognized the devastation in the war-torn country of Scotland, and they gave freely. They gave dolls, candy and food to those who were in need. This discussion about homelessness for veterans breaks my heart, as I know what Canadian soldiers have done on and off the battlefield.
How then do we treat our veterans? Right now, the only word I can think of is “betrayal”. Just recently, our Canadian Armed Forces returned back from Afghanistan, and I think about the code and the honour they live by, and how it must be for them to know they left people in Afghanistan, interpreters and their families, and to feel that betrayal by their own country.
Our Canadian Armed Forces are under duress. Right now there is a housing crisis in the Canadian Armed Forces, and now we get a report about veterans who are homeless. As I said earlier, I am very passionate about this subject, and I am deeply wounded to be reading this report. There are 5,000 veterans who are homeless across this country, and that is just from this report that we have received. As we sit in this chamber, we get reports from the ombudsman; we get reports from our own Parliamentary Budget Office; we get reports from the committee and recently the Auditor General on top of this report, and it is clear this government has not done anything for veterans. It has failed veterans, according to the Auditor General.
I will read from a report on Veterans Affairs by the Auditor General.
[Veterans Affairs] actions did not reduce overall wait times for eligible veterans. The department was still a long way from meeting its service standard. Implementation of initiatives was slow. Data to measure improvements was lacking. Both the funding and almost half of the employees on the team responsible for processing applications were temporary. As a result, veterans waited too long to receive benefits to support their physical and mental health and their families’ overall well-being.
This was in a report from the Auditor General, and combined with all the other reports and the 5,000 veterans who are out on the street homeless, it is appalling. What is the government doing about this?
All we hear is about money being thrown at the problem, but no concrete solutions. I believe that politics is a performance-based industry, and if people do not perform, they should not be there. Seven years the government has been in power, and time and time again it has failed veterans and the existing military. The minister is asleep at the wheel right now. Leadership starts at the top. He should take ownership, take responsibility and start looking after our vets.
I could go on with quotes and I could on with stats, but what good is it with a government that is not going to listen? This year so far, VAC has over $921 million in lapsed funding. That is money that was set aside for VAC in the budget but was not used to support veterans. Money is not the problem. Someone has to pull their finger out here. Someone has to start getting the job done and start looking after our vets. There is a morale problem here, not only in the existing military but for people who have served.
We are on the verge of Remembrance Day, and when people take that moment of silence and bow their heads to think about the fallen soldiers, we need to think about those who have served and who are surrounding us now, and what we are doing for them. Money does not solve every problem. It is about getting the job done. It is about strong leadership, and it is about recognizing the problems.
I am very passionate about this. I am very upset about this subject. Again, I could rattle off statistics and numbers, but the consistency throughout this is that the government has failed its veterans. That is an exact quote from the Auditor General. What are we going to do? What does a committee do when it sits there and produces reports, and works together, as I do with my colleagues from the Bloc or from the NDP, across the aisle? It is a good committee; we have achieved a lot, but from there, nothing gets done. There is no recognition. Veterans are being failed time and time again.
I think about the soldiers who looked after my mother, who helped my grandmother, who fought alongside my grandfather in Holland to liberate a country that was not even theirs. They recognized that it was the right thing to do. The question I have to ask my colleagues is, what is the right thing to do for veterans? What is the right thing to do for our veterans? Who is going to lead the charge? Who is going to fix the problem?
Right now, the minister is asleep at the wheel, not doing his job. I am disappointed. Not only am I disappointed, but my fellow colleagues in the Conservative Party are disappointed. My colleagues in the committee are disappointed. Not only do we deserve better, but our veterans deserve better.
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- Nov/3/22 12:53:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I cannot say there is a lot I agree with in the member's speech.
In my riding of Saint John—Rothesay, I was pleased that under the veterans connection to home program we announced over $450,000 to identify and assist veterans.
I want to tell a little story about 2014, when I was not a politician and was really not involved in politics at all. I was watching one of the TV channels, and the then minister of veterans affairs, Mr. Fantino, had refused to meet with veterans on the Hill. I will never forget the response from those veterans. I dug a little deeper and found that was the government that cut call centres for veterans and made cuts on the backs of veterans.
Does the member opposite agree with what happened to veterans under the Conservative government?
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- Nov/3/22 12:56:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague very much. I was very touched by his speech. It was one of his great speeches, and it is a real pleasure to work with him on the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.
I am reminded of something that happens every year. On November 11, we all go and lay wreaths and pay tribute to our veterans. Then the next day, we are back in the House, back in committee, trying to move things forward but not getting anywhere.
I am not saying that things were better or would be better under a Conservative government, but we have here a report with great recommendations and none of them have been implemented.
Would my colleague care to comment on that?
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- Nov/3/22 12:57:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize my colleague and all his hard work and passion for getting good service. I will say that this committee would be better under a Conservative government, so I thank him for giving me that opportunity.
I know my colleague and I share the same feeling, because I shared it in my speech. We are disappointed. We are upset. We work so hard. We commit time to look after our veterans, and then nothing gets done. When we get reports back that nothing gets done, it feels like we are not being heard.
Those numbers, those vets, those stats are people. They are not getting the service.
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- Nov/3/22 12:58:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in a recent take-note debate on mental health, I spoke about our veterans, who have unique challenges that impact their well-being and mental wellness and that very few civilians face. They embody the emotional and mental toll of having been deployed to many theatres of war, sometimes for peacemaking or peacekeeping, where they and their comrades face peril, injury and death and where they participate in and witness violence that they cannot and do not want to begin to share with anyone outside of those who have also had that lived experience.
Too many have experienced mental, physical and sexual abuse from those they thought would be their mentors and have their backs no matter what. Many come home with physical and/or mental and emotional injuries after serving and they struggle to cope. They struggle on a whole other level as they start to realize they are failing in their relationships with their spouses and children. Many struggle with trying to fit into a civilian world, where, from their life experience and perspective, they have trouble finding their place.
Then there is a challenge that is so counterintuitive and disturbing to me that it grieves my heart and keeps me awake. It is the added injury that sanctuary trauma inflicts on so many of our veterans. Sanctuary trauma is what happens to the spirit and mind of veterans when they experience the failure of the government to fulfill its promise to take care of them and their families. This happens while they serve and put their lives on the line and when they choose to leave or retire or are released due to injuries that, in the mind of their superiors, prevent them from any form of continued service in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Having served now for seven years on the veterans affairs standing committee under multiple ministers and ombudsmen, everything from homelessness and mental wellness to seamless transition and the growing backlogs has been studied multiple times in different ways. Recommendations on top of recommendations have been made in reports that sometimes do not get the proper response from the government.
The recent report from the Auditor General reinforces the need for VAC to have clear paths and metrics to determine its outcomes. The bureaucracy is broken. Yes, buckets of money have been announced for veterans, but the processes in place are not capable of getting it out the door. Veteran Affairs Canada is broken, and veterans and their families are experiencing unprecedented levels of sanctuary trauma because of that.
Last night, I reached out to four individuals in very different veterans organizations that I deeply appreciate and that are part of those that are making a difference in combatting veteran homelessness.
Stephen Beardwood of Veterans House Charity said this to me:
If we only treat the symptoms but not the cause, we will have rows of housing with full bank accounts and no one spending the money or living in the accommodations. We have missed an incredible opportunity to change what causes homelessness. We need to change our approach. We must first start by greeting humanity with humanity, not bureaucracy and political solutions. I am hopeful one day soon we will embrace change as an opportunity to grow.” He says in the end, “Imagine if instead of wading into the stream daily to rescue drowning victims, we instead went upstream and kept them from falling in.
Alan Mulawyshyn, the deputy executive director of Veterans' House Canada, is actually in Toronto today at a three-day Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness conference, where they are having a veteran homelessness breakout sessions stream for the very first time. His words for me today were to remind Parliament of its all-party motion of June 2019, which set the goal to both prevent and end veteran homelessness in Canada by 2025.
Debbie Lowther, the CEO and co-founder of VETS Canada, emailed me last night to say:
[A]ll levels of government must come together in a non-partisan way and commit to addressing Veterans’ homelessness. It’s not enough to talk about the issue; we need action, not words. And we don’t need more research. A big step in the right direction would be to provide sufficient funding to those on the front lines trying not only to confront the problem but to prevent it. Policymakers should consult these groups and Veterans with lived experience to ascertain the greatest needs. And listen to what they are told. The problem will only worsen due to the nationwide housing crisis and the rising cost of living.
Organizations such as VETS Canada are no longer recognized as specialized service providers according to the Auditor General’s report. I cannot even understand this. I know Deb and VETS Canada well, and I cannot comprehend any good reason why they are not valued and validated by VAC.
Like the United States, it is time for Veterans Affairs Canada to have a catalogue listed of all of these amazing veteran-centric organizations, with veterans helping other veterans, so that veterans can reach out. They will choose the ones they know are the most effective in this country.
David Howard, president and CEO of Homes for Heroes Foundation, told me, “[D]eveloping solutions needs to come through partnerships between the municipal, the provincial and federal governments and at the same time private businesses and charity organizations like Homes For Heroes.” He said, as we have heard today, that the Senate published a report stating there were 5,000 veterans experiencing homelessness across Canada, but he believes the number is closer to 10,000. I have to agree, because I am becoming more and more aware of the many homeless veterans in my province alone who are not getting the care they need.
He says traditionally our veterans do not self-identify. They are proud and are not using these services because they believe they are for women and children. This is more than just homelessness. It is veterans who are living rough, living in the woods and couch surfing.
He also says that a number of our vets are struggling to transition back to civilian life, and the Homes For Heroes program builds tiny home villages with wraparound social supports to address the problem. That means they are coming off the streets into a home, working with social workers and working on the issues that put them on the streets in the first place, and now they are finding a sense of belonging. They then transition out of the program, with the majority of them working full time, and move to permanent housing, making room for more veterans.
He says, “We are fortunate to have the support of Veterans Affairs, as they are a partner in supplying funding for our social workers.” CMHC is a partner and is providing funding for builds, but more is needed. He goes on to say, “I've been involved supporting our veterans for 25 years and we have an opportunity to eliminate the issue, but every day that goes by, the problem gets worse, and action is needed immediately.”
He says it is a struggle to convince municipal and provincial governments to grant them land access for their projects, and also says they are struggling to find funds at the federal level, as the current government has not implemented housing for homeless veterans in its mandate. It is cheaper to house our veterans and have them work with social workers to move on and transition back to civilian life than it is to have these heroes, who stood on guard for us, living on the streets.
I will end my intervention today by reiterating what I believe Stephen, Alan, Debbie and David have said.
Imagine if instead of wading into the stream daily to rescue drowning victims, we went upstream and kept them from falling in. Who is serving whom and when? The government is not preventing them from falling in. The broken processes are pushing them in. The intentions expressed in the all-party motion of June 2019, which set the goal to both prevent and end veterans homelessness in Canada by 2025, must be honoured. All levels of government must work together in step with private businesses and charities to succeed.
In the case of the federal government’s direct role right now, right here, it has a duty to consult, listen and implement what it hears from the lived experience of veterans’ organizations, which veterans and their families are trusting, by providing sufficient funding that empowers them to do the work that, quite honestly, I do not believe and it clearly appears government cannot accomplish directly. It has a duty to consult, listen and respond to the lived experience of individual veterans and serving members. It has a duty to end the sanctuary trauma that has become increasingly harmful to our veterans over these last seven years.
I hear over and over again that we have the highest level of demoralization there has ever been in our Canadian Forces. There is a lack of willingness to even enlist, and veterans are being encouraged to consider options other than care. One comment was made in committee that they can access MAID in 90 days, but it is taking them over 265 days to get the care they need.
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- Nov/3/22 1:08:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech and for her years of work on the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.
I have been wondering about something and am hoping my colleague can enlighten me. Members sit on committees whose job it is to report to the government. We take the time to hear from witnesses and document situations. How is it that a report from 2019 that contains what I believe are very important recommendations can be left on a shelf to gather dust and now members are shaking their heads about how there are apparently some 5,000 homeless veterans in Canada?
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