- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- North Island—Powell River
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $145,542.18
- Government Page
- May/7/24 5:36:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member and I have a shared passion for the people who have served our country.
I am disappointed to see not very much for veterans. We have definitely seen Persian Gulf veterans coming forward. I know at committee, which I sit on, there have been multiple motions trying to get to that study to showcase the reality and to acknowledge that these veterans are not receiving the amount of resources they need to make due in a way that is respectful. We have to acknowledge their service and the detriment of that service, regardless of whether it was called a war or not.
I hope to get this done quickly. I hope the government will work with us, but I know collectively that we will be pushing this forward because it is about time that the Persian Gulf veterans are treated the right way. My grandfather was a Korean vet, and it took those veterans a long time to get acknowledged as well. Service is service, and we need to acknowledge that sacrifice.
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- Apr/16/24 3:19:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have served many years with you, but my concern, which is that members who are asking questions are being silenced again and again by the Conservatives, is very serious.
Out of respect, I will not withdraw the remark, and I do not mean that personally. It is so sad that the Conservatives are having very sensitive feelings about this.
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- Dec/5/23 11:54:22 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member. We have spent many years together on committee and have served veterans in our roles. I deeply respect her commitment to veterans.
I cannot say what the outcome should be. What I do agree with is that it should be veteran-centric, so we need to go back. Obviously, this is unfortunate. Afghan veterans have been waiting for this to happen, and they have not seen it happen because of so many mistakes.
I hope the government would roll back and do this right, and make sure veterans are acknowledged for the important work they have done on this monument.
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- Dec/5/23 11:41:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for London—Fanshawe.
I feel it is absolutely critical to start this speech by recognizing Afghan veterans for their tremendous service. It is a very hard process to go through. I think it is also important to recognize their families, because the truth is that when it comes to the military, it is not only the members who serve but also their families. I just want to recognize them and thank them for their service today.
As the member of Parliament who represents the 19 Wing in Comox, I also want to take an opportunity to thank its members for their tremendous service. They have done a lot of incredible things for our region for many years. When they are needed, they show up to work.
I remember spending time with some of the search and rescue service members, and I talked to one woman in particular about her ability to deal with situations like jumping into the water and how she does that when it seems so terrifying to me. She said they train so that when they are called, they just do the work that needs to be done. That outlines the reality that people who serve this country work hard, practise hard and prepare themselves to do things that the majority of us could never imagine doing.
Here we are having this discussion today about a monument and the process that unfolded to have that monument. I know that so many have been waiting for this monument. People want a place in this country where they can go to acknowledge history, acknowledge their service, acknowledge those who never came home and acknowledge the loved ones who were left behind.
What is very clear is that the process has been unclear. We heard from the minister that there was not a clear awareness or understanding of how to connect to veterans directly. Of all the situations, that is the one that concerns me the most. We need the voices of veterans who served in Afghanistan and their loved ones' voices to be clear.
We keep hearing from the government that this is what it is doing and this is about focusing on the people who served. However, as we know, the process that unfolded was not clear. We know there was no verification process to ensure that the people who were giving their opinions were in fact veterans and their loved ones. This provides the perception that it was not done correctly, and that is very concerning to me.
I think when we look at how processes unfold, it is important that a connection is made with veterans. As we have heard again and again from veterans, this is something the department is not doing effectively. For example, when rehabilitation services for veterans moved to the PCVRS, many veterans did not know that was happening. They saw changes to their services and they did not understand why. The intake process was long and they were often retraumatized by having to share their stories again. We heard from folks who were providing rehabilitation services, in some cases for 40 years, who were excluded from the process.
Again, it was not clear, and part of the problem was that the method was not explained to service people, to veterans and to their families, which is very concerning. This is not how it should be for veterans. They should be getting the services they need.
What I have talked about repeatedly at the veterans affairs committee is that we need to see veteran-centric services. We hear about things like sanctuary trauma, and I think that is something we need to be taking seriously. The veterans who are trying to access supports and services from Veterans Affairs feel like they are being retraumatized instead of being provided with the services they desperately need. Those things need to be addressed, and a lot of the training that people are doing at Veterans Affairs, good people trying hard to do the work, is not as effective as it could be in making sure there is an understanding of what people need, what veterans need and what their families need when they call.
We talked to the minister several times in our committee, and one thing I brought up to the minister, over the last four years that I have served in that role, was that there was no direct contact with letters, phone calls and follow-ups.
If this were a department that, I would hope, focused on service delivery, then those things would be happening. If that were the case, then we would not be having this debate right now. There would be a clear process that would show that Afghan veterans and their loved ones had given the feedback and that a decision had been made that respected their rights, but we do not have that information.
We know Leger came out, very clearly, and said this is not a method that is clear and that it is not consistent. It becomes this thing where we are going back and forth, and the ones who are really hurting through this process are the members who served and their loved ones. That concerns me greatly.
Here we are, again, looking at this reality. We know, in the last Conservative government, that veterans really struggled. They were really frustrated. Their offices were shut down, and access to services became a bigger and bigger concern. I heard, then, about sanctuary trauma. I heard from veterans that they were frustrated. They kept trying to get support, and they could not. It just seems that what we are hearing in the House today is the Liberals and Conservatives fighting about who was worse, and we are not talking about what needs to change for veterans so that debate does not continue to happen.
This brings me back to what I keep hearing in my office from survivors of veterans. They are mostly women who are mostly in their late seventies to early nineties. They are calling my office and talking to me about the survivors benefit. They are asking me about the announcement the Liberal government made in 2019 of $150 million that it would give out to those, mostly women, who were rejected for survivors benefits because they married their spouses after age 60. Even though they cared for them, in some cases for 20 to 30 years, they got absolutely nothing when their partners passed away.
That $150 million was allocated and was supposed to get out the door to start supporting those women in order to respect the veterans who served our country and to respect the women who cared for them as they aged. We still have not seen a single cent of that go out to those survivors. That was four years ago, and I am still getting phone calls from those ladies who are struggling every day to make ends meet. They are seniors. They are going to their MPs and asking for help. They are asking when that money is coming out the door, and they do not know.
What do I hear from Veterans Affairs? I hear that it has not figured out the process. Those women, who cared for senior veterans and helped them to the very end of their lives, are getting zero dollars, even though they sacrificed in support of the sacrifice their partners made.
The challenge is that here we are again, and we see, again and again, the repeat of unclear process and not very good communication with veterans and their families. We see a department that may have good intentions but somehow is missing the mark, and we need to see better. We see sanctuary trauma, where veterans are coming forward talking about being traumatized while trying to access a service they need.
It also reminds me that, right now in committee, we are doing the largest study that committee has ever done, and it is the first study it has ever done on women veterans. What we are hearing from women veterans is horrifying, and it repeats this pattern of their being left out, of not being able to access the services they need and of not being acknowledged as having health and mental health challenges while they served. When they get to Veterans Affairs, they have to prove the things they went through. There is no acceptance of the fact that when the military, the army, the air force and the navy, opened up, they did not have the processes in place to support women. We need to do better by veterans. They definitely deserve it because they served us so well.
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- Nov/6/23 2:13:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as we enter Veterans' Week, I want to take this opportunity to thank the members, past and present, for their dedicated service. We know both from history and today that the cost of conflict is far too high. All too often, we, as Canadians, think of their service during this time of year, rather than recognizing it every day. After years of working for both serving members and veterans, I understand that the dedication to service is high. Their thoughts always focus on the “us” rather than the “I”.
This year, I am particularly thinking of service women and veterans who are women. I know they have served and that those realities, both past and present, are all too often left invisible. They participate in Remembrance Day services wearing their medals and civilian gear, and are asked, “Are those your father's, husband's or son's medals?”
This year, let Canadians recommit to seeing veterans, all of them, and to acknowledging and appreciating their service. I thank all the women who have served or are serving. I see them. Lest we forget.
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- Nov/3/22 11:43:38 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the amazing member for Edmonton Griesbach.
When I reflect upon this report, I remember back to 2019 when it was initially tabled. There was a sense of urgency from all parties in the House that this needed to be a priority for the government and action needed to be taken, so it is frustrating to be having this discussion again, knowing this report from 2019 was retabled by the committee, which had been waiting for a response from the government. The committee has now received that response. However, it still does not address the key issues. When we retabled this, I wrote clearly in the supplementary report that it has been a full three years, yet very little action has been taken on this critical issue.
I think also of how many veterans I have spoken to, how many veterans have come to the House of Commons to be a witness for us and how many veterans have sat at the table at the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. Many times they are asked if they would serve again, and they always say yes. What surprises me as well is how many of them, when asked if they would encourage their own children or relatives to serve, say yes.
When we look at the reality of it, about 5,000 veterans are homeless now, without a safe place to live and dealing with things most of us cannot imagine, and they are still there. Even though they are there, they would still serve our country again. Their commitment to service runs that deep. It is important we remember that when we have these discussions.
Their dedication to service is so profound, and our dedication to serve should, at the very least, match theirs. Our service to veterans, as parliamentarians, is to make sure they have the best services they can, that they are accessible and that they are not waiting a long, long time for them. We have to make sure that 5,000 veterans are not going to bed tonight without a safe home to live in.
When I think of this, I think of recommendation 3 of the report, which reads, “That Veterans Affairs Canada, in cooperation with Employment and Social Development Canada and organizations supporting academic research, continue its efforts to better understand veterans’ homelessness, taking into account the overrepresentation of women and Indigenous peoples.”
It is important to research this, but at the same time, we need to figure out what is going on and do actions. I talked earlier today about the work being done in London, Ontario, to collectively identify veterans in the community who are homeless and make sure they have a safe place to live. It is important we recognize this.
We know, sadly, that of those veterans who are homeless, the number of women and indigenous people in this population is really high, when all of us in this place know that are they are still a very small part of the forces who serve us. Why is that? We need to figure out why that is. We also need to acknowledge that sometimes these groups are marginalized groups within a larger group who are even more marginalized by our systems. It is important that research is done, and that we honour that.
I come back to something else I also mentioned earlier today, which is the fact the Auditor General, in their report, was very clear that Veterans Affairs Canada does not collect data in a way that allows it to identify where the problems are. When we have veterans who do not have a home, who are waiting for the services they need and falling through the cracks, and who feel a great deal of distrust for the ministry, the department and the people who work there, we also need to look at the fact that the data is not there to provide the information to correct the problem.
What we see continuously is money being poured in, but we do not know if that money is being spent effectively because we do not know where there are bottlenecks. We do not know where the blockages are that veterans just simply cannot get through. We do not know that, and that is on the government. It is on the government to fix this core problem.
I know that we can talk about a lot of exciting things that get people really upset, but having good data means better services to veterans. I am very firm that we cannot stop talking about how important this is because a lack of data means veterans are not getting the services they deserve.
Recommendation 4 specifically talks about a “partnership with other federal, provincial/territorial and municipal organizations concerned, and with the community agencies”. In my riding, I have 11 Legions across some of the smallest communities we will ever see. The Legions are cornerstones to those communities because they provide support and services, and they create a place where a community to get together.
Those organizations want to do the work. We asked the government to take all of those stakeholders and make sure to work with them to implement an action plan, such as the national housing strategy, to actually get to the core and eradicate homelessness for veterans.
What we do know is that there are piecemeal investments under the national housing strategy in 2021. It really focuses on Edmonton and Ottawa, but it does not have any concrete plan to address this. That is a concern, and we know it can be done. Strategies can help veterans get into homes.
In fact, and I will say it again, on February 16, 2021, in London, Ontario they did just that. They did it. Built for Zero Canada, working with the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness on the national effort to address the problem, monitors the progress of 12 participating cities. It endorsed London's claim that the city had the first Canadian community to attain the status of functional zero for veteran homelessness because the groups focused on the issue, gathered the relevant data, looked at community-focused solutions and did it.
This is a model that we could be implementing by working with communities, regions, organizations and municipalities to identify what is happening in their community and which veterans are falling through the cracks. This is important because veterans do not often complain if they are homeless. They are ashamed that they are homeless, as though it is their fault, and they do not step up to disclose it.
So many witnesses have come before us to say that often, when veterans are homeless, they will not disclose that they are veterans, so they do not even know how to connect them with those resources. They have shame and also a feeling that the department will not do anything for them. Those things need to be addressed. They need to be taken seriously, and we need to demonstrate for veterans that there are solutions and that, if they reach out for help, they are actually going to receive it.
Not too long ago, I had a family member come to speak to me about a veteran in their family. She is an indigenous woman. She spent many, many years serving this country, and now she is couch surfing. She is living on the edge because how she left was not a good way to leave. I do not have permission to share what happened to her, but it was not a good thing. She left in desperation for her own safety from the military.
Now she is sleeping on couches, and she has so much need, but no matter how much her family loves her and no matter how much they reach out to her, they cannot get her to ask for the services because she no longer trusts the system. We need to look at that. We need to own that in the House and stop pointing fingers. We need to start saying we are going to stop doing that and we are going to start serving veterans.
In closing, I want to talk about recommendation 7, “That Veterans Affairs Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police...sign a memorandum of understanding to make RCMP veterans eligible for the Veterans Emergency Fund under the same terms and conditions as Canadian Armed Forces veterans.” We have heard from the president of the RCMP Veterans' Association that this has not gone into place. However people have served this country, we have to show them that, on the other side of their service, they will be respected enough to get the support they deserve. I am here in the House asking for that to be a reality because veterans have served us. We had best serve them back.
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- Nov/3/22 11:25:17 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his very important speech. We have worked together on the veterans committee for years and I really appreciate his dedication, especially to francophone veterans.
Earlier this year, we were honoured to go with the minister to some important places. We went to Vimy Ridge and we went to Menin Gate. Those are places where there is such a deep respect for the men and women who served Canada and who served in those places during times that none of us can imagine. What concerns me is that we hear this long-standing history of Canada failing veterans. We continue to have over 5,000 veterans today who are without homes.
Why do we appreciate their sacrifice, but we do not see the government, or the past Conservative government, recognizing what needs to happen for veterans?
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