- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Barrie—Innisfil
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $99,360.72
- Government Page
- May/7/24 5:35:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the hon. member something. Veterans' issues are noticeably absent in this budget. However, the one issue I have been seized with, and I know the member has been seized with it as well, is having the Persian Gulf War veternas deemed as having wartime status. Only two times in our nation's history have we done that, both for the Korean War veterans and the merchant mariners, all of which was 30 years after service. In this case, we are 30 years after the Persian Gulf War.
The Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Veterans Affairs have it within their power, with one fell swoop of a pen, to deem it as wartime service. I wonder if the member is as disappointed as I am that we did not see any of that in this budget.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his recognition of veterans as we approach Remembrance Day.
I want to express my sympathy to the family of Norm Zimmerman, a local resident and World War II veteran. In 1943, he joined the RCAF. I want to express my condolences on behalf of a grateful nation to his son Bruce and to his family.
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- Jun/14/23 4:51:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I echo those sentiments and I welcome back the member for Labrador.
I am very proud to present petition e-4399 on behalf of the 965 Canadians who signed it. This petition follows up on e-petition 3217, which I presented in May of 2021, but it did not receive a government response because of the election.
In the petition, Canadians call on the government to reclassify the Persian Gulf mission to “wartime service”. Petition e-4399 has support from all parties and a former prime minister, the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney.
Persian Gulf veterans deserve to have the same classification as veterans from the Korean War and merchant mariners. Their classification was changed long after the Korean War and after the Second World War.
I want to thank President Harold Davis of the Persian Gulf War Veterans of Canada; Mike McGlennon, vice-president; and all veterans of the Persian Gulf war. On behalf of a grateful nation, I thank them for their service. Veterans are indeed the ties who bind this great nation together.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this evening at this relatively late hour to speak to this bill.
I just want to mention, before I start, that, earlier this evening, I had a chance to spend some time with Persian Gulf War veterans. We were at an event, the airing of a new film on the Canadian involvement in the Persian Gulf War. These veterans are fighting the government for the classification of wartime service, and I think it is about time that we classify them as having wartime service, and even our Afghanistan veterans, as well. It was a very powerful evening, and I am very glad to have been there in support of our veterans.
As we sit here to discuss report stage amendments on Bill C-21, let us not get lost on the history of how we got to this point. Sadly, the events in Nova Scotia and the mass killing out there really led to a political response by the government. It saw an opportunity. It issued an order in council on May 1, 2020, that effectively banned thousands and thousands of what were legal firearms in the country. It was so rushed, in fact, to propose the order in council, that they banned the cannon at Stanley Park that fires ceremoniously at nine o'clock every evening as part of this order in council ban.
As we moved forward, the government was indicating that it was going to push a gun ban in this country, effectively an attack on law-abiding firearms owners. It was about a year ago that we saw the iteration of Bill C-21 that was tabled as legislation, and immediately, the reaction across the country was one of shock at the fact that they included an additional thousands more of what were legal firearms. They proposed a handgun ban as well if we will recall.
That sent a ripple effect right across the country because they were attacking not only law-abiding firearms owners, but also hunters and indigenous people. Basically, hundreds of years of history in this country were being attacked by the Liberal government, aided and abetted by their partners in the NDP, but a funny thing happened with the NDP. When the legislation was proposed, its members were joyous about the fact that the government had proposed such a sweeping ban of firearms against law-abiding firearms owners, until they realized just what an impact this was going to have, a disproportionate impact, on rural Canadians. Then, all of a sudden, they started backing up.
They said whoa, and that this piece of legislation is going way too far, because they saw that there was a political threat in those rural and remote ridings where rural Canadians and indigenous Canadians use guns to hunt, feed themselves and participate in a long-standing cultural heritage in this country, not to mention to protect themselves in those rural and remote areas.
All of a sudden, here we were, revisiting this legislation. It is clear that the Liberal government and the public safety minister did not think of the implications of this and the impact it would have on hunters and indigenous people, and they were backtracking. They said whoa, they were not going to introduce this iteration. They were going to pull back on this and go back into consultation with Canadians to try to figure out how to get this right.
The reason why they were in this place was because they made a political calculation, because law-abiding firearms owners in this country have always been an easy target, pardon the pun, for Liberal and leftist-leaning governments. They are the target. They are not worried about going after gangs, guns and illegal smuggling. That is the hard work. The easy work is to go after the low-hanging fruit, and that is law-abiding firearms owners.
Canada has the most strict regime of registration and training of firearms owners anywhere in the world. I do not have an RPAL. I do not own a firearm. I have fired one firearm in my life, at the Barrie Gun Club, in a controlled environment, so I have no skin in the game.
What I believe in is the right of individuals in this country, because of our culture and our heritage, because of our laws and because of the training, to have the right to own firearms and use them responsibly. What I do not agree with are gangs, illegal smuggling and those guns that are coming in across the border, which are easily obtained by gangs in the use of criminal activity. We have seen an increase in gang-related activity, and we have seen an increase in gun-related activity, so instead of going after the low-hanging fruit, instead of going after the law-abiding firearms owners, they are not doing what they need to do as far as guns and gangs.
One only has to follow the Toronto Police Service operations twitter feed to understand the depth of the problem in Toronto, not to mention there is a problem in Vancouver and Montreal as well. It is illegal guns. It is gangs and gang-related activity that are showing the most increases in illegal gun activity in this country. It is not law-abiding firearms owners.
I had the opportunity to go to the Moncton Fish and Game Association, as I did some stakeholder engagement on this issue, when we were at the height of it. The government at that time was rethinking its position. There was a policy proposal. Colleagues may recall in 2017 the then minister of public safety was going around the country because they were thinking about implementing additional firearms restrictions.
I had an opportunity to speak to members of the the Moncton Fish and Game Association, who are salt-of-the-earth guys, responsible firearms owners and proud Canadians. They submitted a document to the then minister of public safety that should have served as a template for any discussion. It was called a discussion paper, but it should have served as a template for what the discussion was to be about. They talked about the “long history of firearms control in this country.” The document said, “1892 saw the first Criminal Code controls with a permit system for small arms; 1934 saw the requirement for all handguns to be registered with police with RCMP issuing registration certificates”.
The discussion paper that was submitted to the then minister of public safety could have and should have been used as a template. It went on:
There is no clear definition as to what Canada considers to be an “assault weapon” or “assault rifle”. The outdated US Dept of Justice definition (1994-2004) is so broad that a typical rabbit hunting rifle such as the semi-automatic Marlin 60 with a tube magazine that can hold 15 rounds of 22LR ammunition might be construed as an assault weapon as might the Ruger 10/22.
There have been some amendments, clearly, as we have dealt with this to not classify some of these weapons, but had these stakeholders been listened to, had there been a thorough discussion, I think the then minister of public safety would have really understood just the level and the depth of responsible firearms ownership in this country and how they want to be part of the solution to the gun and gang problem.
The discussion paper goes on. One part that stood out for me, section 26, stated;
Unfortunately, with every “mass shooting” and even for single victim incidents, there is an immediate reaction by the media and especially politicians to immediately blame the object for the actions that were perpetrated. It is easy for the Mayor of Toronto, Toronto Council or Montreal City Council to blame the object and call for a gun ban, but it takes political courage to identify the underlying social issues and address realistic solutions that protect people from harm by addressing the root causes of violence. The issue is not “what” was used in the incident but rather “why” the event happened, “what” was the reason, “how” was the firearm obtained and “how” could it have been prevented? It is easy to blame the gun and ignore the underlying and difficult to address societal or mental health factors.
This piece of legislation is flawed in many ways. It still continues to attack law-abiding firearms owners. There are other concerns that I will address in questions and comments.
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- Nov/3/22 10:44:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said at the onset of my discussion today, a lot of money gets thrown at the problem, but it is the processes that really need to be streamlined, filtered and expedited so that the money gets to where it needs to be and the effect of that money is realized when it comes to homelessness among veterans.
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- Nov/3/22 10:40:23 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member makes an important point. It is a place that we should all aspire to be, that there is zero veteran homelessness.
It is not just the stakeholders that are involved. Not only does the federal government have a role to play, but all levels of government have a role to play when it comes to the example I gave earlier about Homes for Heroes, ensuring there is proper zoning to allow for micro housing, tiny villages that could be built within built boundaries of municipalities, and dealing with zoning issues to ensure that those types of things happen.
I agree with the hon. member that it is not just the federal government that has a role to play, it is not just advocates and stakeholders that have a role to play, and they are doing great work as it is across the country, but all levels of government. The will to help Canada's veterans should be universal among all levels of government and among every Canadian.
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- Nov/3/22 10:29:40 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to the motion for concurrence on the report on veterans homelessness that was presented to the House of Commons.
It is really appropriate this Veterans' Week, in advance of the country coming together, to salute and honour our veterans and their families that have given so much and sacrificed so much for our nation, not just fighting for democracy, the rule of law, human rights and freedoms around the world but peacekeeping as well.
This weekend, I know many members of the House will be attending Remembrance Day ceremonies in the lead up to Remembrance Day. I look forward to being at the Lefroy-Belle Ewart Legion and Sandycove Acres for their Remembrance Day services, as well as Cookstown. I will be there to honour and respect those who served our country, those who continue to serve our country and, more important, their families. Oftentimes, it is forgotten that families serve as much as the members who serve. In all of the discussions we have, we have to realize that.
The issue of veterans homelessness has been a pervasive problem for many generations of successive governments. Seemingly, we are not doing what we need to do to solve the issue of veterans homelessness.
Oftentimes this issue becomes a problem during the transition out of services. I happen to believe that transition out of our Canadian Armed Forces, for whatever reason, medical or otherwise, needs to happen the first day a person signs on to be a member of the Canadian forces. It has to be a process, not a process that is an end process at the time of transition but it has to be an ongoing process to prepare veterans for that transition.
Often veterans are not prepared for a transition and that is often the reason we find our veterans in a homeless state. We expected a study to be released in the summer, talking about veterans homelessness, how pervasive it was and how nothing seemed to be done.
I agree with my hon. colleague from Banff—Airdrie that the Liberals are going to stand and talk about throwing millions and millions of dollars at a problem, which is seems to be what they doe, but it is doing nothing to solve this pervasive problem.
The problems in Veterans Affairs, like backlogs and disability claims, are not money problems; they are process problems. Whether the Conservatives are in government or the government of the day, we need to find the will to deal with this processing problem.
In every study that is done, every stakeholder, advocate, family member and every veteran who comes forward, along with the defence ombudsman and the veterans ombudsman, will say the exact same thing. In my experience in listening to these professionals and those who are directly impacted by this problem, it is a process problem and the processes have to be fixed. It is not a money problem.
Groups out there are doing tremendous work, as my hon. colleague from Banff—Airdrie said, to help veterans and their families not just transition, but deal with the existing homelessness issue. There are a lot of solutions out there. There are a lot of partners we can work with to solve this process issue to ensure that veterans and their families are looked after as they transition out of the military.
In my time as the veterans affairs critic, I had the opportunity to meet with the Veterans Transition Network, Wounded Warriors Canada and VETS Canada. Another one I was really fascinated by was a non-for-profit organization called Homes for Heroes based out of Calgary.
I had an opportunity to meet with Dave Howard, who is the president and co-founder of the Homes for Heroes Foundation. One of the things he talked to me about was the need to not just work with municipalities to find areas where we could build transitional housing for veterans and their families, but also the need for government support in that regard.
I want to highlight as one example of many that veterans' advocates are proposing. The program is called “The Path to Recovery”. The goal of the program of the Homes for Heroes Foundation is to assist veterans with reintegration into civilian life. The first step is to provide them with housing, somewhere to be safe, secure, warm, a place to keep their personal belongings and to take care of their personal needs, a tiny home in one of these villages it is building and proposes to build. It has several proposals on the books, but is having a difficult time finding the funding for that. The idea behind it is to create a veterans' village, a community of understanding what veterans and their families are going through as they transition out of the military.
One of the challenges is that 5,000 veterans are homeless. These numbers are as of 2015, but I suspect would probably be similar to this day. I have talked to advocates right across the country like Don Leonardo and the organizations I highlighted before. The last place veterans need to be is in a shelter. They need to be among themselves, with veterans who understand and are going through very similar situations. Therefore, I would encourage the government to use any aspect or avenue it can to support these types of organizations that understand the needs of veterans and their families and to resolve the issue of homelessness by building communities of veterans who can work together.
With respect to some of the other aspects of this, the projection is that each village would provide 5,000 to 9,000 bed nights per year for veterans experiencing homelessness. There is a whole plan. I would encourage the government, if it has not met with Dave and the Homes for Heroes Foundation, to make it a priority to talk them about their vision and goal toward helping veterans and their families as they transition.
It is a broader problem right now that is not just affecting veterans and their families; it is the state of the economy. We are all aware of the inflation and affordability crisis that is facing Canadian families and businesses. Veterans and their families are dealing with the same situation as everyone. The cost of groceries and housing has made it unaffordable. We add to that the challenges they are facing with disability backlogs and claims, oftentimes waiting up to two years for claims to be processed. Despite the fact that the government has thrown millions of dollars at the problem, it has not solved the problem because it is a process problem. Families and veterans dealing with transitional and mental health issues and occupational stress injuries do not need the process to be as cumbersome as it is.
I know the government has, to some degree, started to look at the presumptive benefit claim process, and I would encourage it to look at more. I have said this publicly before, and I believe I have said it in the House. When people file their taxes, if there is a rebate coming back, Revenue Canada will often deposit that into a bank account within 10 business days, yet veterans and their families that are transitioning out of the military face a cumbersome process of delays as a result of claims and benefits that are attributed to service. We need to create a presumptive benefit claim process wherein if veterans file a claim with Veterans Affairs, we presume it to be attributed to service and they should be entitled to the money and benefits they deserve in their service to our country.
There are simple processes that can solve not just the issue of those benefit claims, but also the issue of homelessness. I would encourage the government to heed the advice and recommendations of the committee, after listening to stakeholders from right across the country, those who are in the trenches, who are working to help veterans, the social agencies and veteran agencies, and to work to solve this problem, especially now given the affordability and inflation crisis that Canadians are facing and which veterans and their families are disproportionately facing to a great degree.
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