Absolutely, Chair.
I don't believe that I in any way mis-characterized what was said. It was quite clearly a no. They don't think it's wartime service. That's what was said. It was quite clear and I'm expressing my appreciation for the clear answer. I appreciate that. It's not what Persian Gulf veterans want to hear and it's not what they deserve, but it's an answer.
All of those things show us that Persian Gulf veterans—and they see it themselves—are being used to cover for the Prime Minister. They're being used as pawns. Their service is being played off against the service of Afghan veterans, and we believe and know that all of these veterans deserve to be respected and appreciated. To see a motion come forward to study something without acknowledging the study on wartime service is dishonouring to veterans who served in the Persian Gulf. It's that simple.
We believe there needs to be a study concerning wartime service designation, and that's what the motion states very clearly. I'll mention again that there are two motions this study is supposed to be based on, and both of those motions—the one I put forward in February 2023 and the one Wilson Miao put forward in November 2023—indicate the needs for a study to be conducted on wartime service. Instead, what we got was a recognition of Persian Gulf veterans.
This is typical of this government. Everything is lip service. Everything is talking points and nothing is about action, doing something or addressing the concerns of Canadians and, in this case, veterans. What we're getting is talk about recognizing them. Persian Gulf veterans want it acknowledged that they served in a war. That's what they're asking for, and there's no doubt they are disappointed.
We could be addressing the real issue of wartime service and could be doing that this summer. The first thing we should be doing is passing the motion to get documents about the interference of the Prime Minister's Office regarding the national monument to the mission in Afghanistan. That's what this committee had agreed to do. We didn't agree to just discuss it, make all kinds of attempts to move in camera, avoid it and do all these other things. That wasn't what we agreed to. We agreed to discuss it. We agreed to deal with it and we didn't deal with it.
Nowhere other than in a setting like this under the government would we see something like that happen. If it were in a board meeting of a company or anything else, there would be a requirement to have a decision before moving on. It wouldn't just be that we talked a bit about Afghanistan veterans while we tried to avoid that as best we could. When I say “we”, I'm certainly not talking about Conservative members of the committee, but members in the Liberal-NDP coalition. They tried everything they could to avoid the discussion, and when a little discussion happened, they just moved on. In no context other than under a Liberal government would you see a situation where just some discussion would be enough, where not addressing the issue or doing something about it would be considered enough.
What we need to do is deal with the scandal surrounding the national monument for the mission in Afghanistan, as my motion indicates. We could get the motion passed and, from there, get to the bottom of the situation. Hopefully we'd see the monument get built and get built quickly so that veterans of Afghanistan can feel like recognition was finally afforded to them. Then we could deal with the wartime service designation. That's the recognition the Persian Gulf veterans are seeking, not some lip service and not an attempt to use them as a way to create division among other veterans. That would be the way to honour them. We could honour the Afghan mission, the veterans who served there and the 158 who gave their lives in the mission, and we could honour the Persian Gulf veterans with a proper study of wartime service designation.
There's a host of other things we need to be dealing with, not least of which is the problem of homelessness among veterans. That speaks directly to the effects on our ability to retain and recruit members of the Canadian Armed Forces. They see that among the people who serve this country and have served this country—both cases—there is a growing number of homeless individuals. These are people who served this country and were willing to give their lives for this country, and they're homeless.
How do you think that is going to impact our ability to retain members of the Canadian Armed Forces? How do you think that is going to impact the willingness of new people to step forward to serve this country? We're seeing what it's doing. We have a recruitment crisis in the Canadian Armed Forces, and this speaks to one of the very direct reasons why that's the case. When members of the forces feel like they're not receiving the equipment and resources they need, that makes it very difficult for them to want to continue to serve. When someone looks at a potential future in the Canadian Armed Forces, they ask, “If that's how I'm going to be treated when I've served this country, why would I want to do that?”
A lot of Canadians still step forward because they're that proud of their country. They might not be that proud when they see the treatment of our veterans. They might not be that proud of their government. However, they're that proud of their country that they are still willing to step forward despite all of that. It speaks to the incredible character of the people who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces that despite all of that, some of them are still willing to step forward. However, imagine how much easier that decision would be if they could see those who serve this country treated properly. Boy, would that make a difference. It would make a huge difference in the willingness to serve and our ability to put our best foot forward in the world.
With respect to some of the mistreatment I see, I've heard from a couple of veterans on that who recently shared their stories and have agreed to have them shared here in committee. One of them is Eddie Kamps. Eddie Kamps is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. He voluntarily released from the forces while he was silently battling mental stress injuries and PTSD. Despite there being indications that he needed help while he was still serving in the armed forces, he was left to his own devices. Again, this speaks to the treatment we talk about. He was then released with little to no screening, and as a veteran he suffered for almost a decade with no support.
After his release, he received a formal diagnosis of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, which was tied to his service in Afghanistan. That was really clear. That was a formal diagnosis he received. Despite this, both DND and VAC will not retroactively change his release form from “voluntary” to “medical” when it clearly was a medical release. This is even after this type of change had been approved for others in the past.
Eddie has submitted 40 letters to DND and VAC requesting a review of this situation, and he's been ignored. This is a veteran who served our country in Afghanistan. He has mental stress injuries as a result of his service in Afghanistan, and he's pleading with his government for help. He's pleading with them. Again, he has written 40 letters to the Department of National Defence and Veterans Affairs Canada asking for a review of his situation so he can get the help he needs, and he has been ignored.
When people hear stories like that, it would make anyone wonder why they would serve. There's a question I often ask veterans with children nearing the age where they can serve: Would you recommend to your children that they serve in the Canadian Armed Forces? Almost every time, the answer is, always with regret, “I would have to say no.” It's because of things like this. Every single veteran, even if they haven't experienced these kinds of things, knows someone who has. That's the reason they express, regretfully, that they don't think they could recommend to their own children that they serve in the Canadian Armed Forces. These are the people who served this country, and that's how they feel. Then you wonder why we have a recruitment crisis.
I want to speak about Richard Brown. He is also a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, and he's been fighting for access to care. He has been fighting for timely coverage for his medical needs, which continues to fall unacceptably behind. When he was in need of mental health care, he was refused access to specialized care facilities and told to sit, as an outpatient, only to be sent home. He reached out to Liberal MPs for help, as they are the ones currently in government, but he couldn't get any of them to show any concern at all for him. No one would even open up a casework file to try to deal with what he needs.
He suffers from bruxism—excessive teeth grinding—from his PTSD. He is covered to see a dentist for this condition, but VAC would not provide an answer to whether his mouthguard would be covered. Richard left the dentist waiting for his payment, leaving him in an incredibly uncomfortable situation. When submitting other claims, Richard has constantly had VAC officials shift the goalposts on wait times, leaving him waiting months for simple answers.
These are the kinds of things we hear from veterans every day. I know there are a lot of good people at Veterans Affairs who want to help, but something isn't quite working there when you hear veterans with these kinds of stories, like wait times that go not into weeks or months but, in far too many cases, years. A lot of times, veterans are being asked to repeat the incidents that led to the conditions they have. Imagine how traumatizing it is for many of these veterans to repeat those stories over and over again. In many of these cases, they had friends who lost their lives in these incidents. They have to retell these stories over and over again just to try to get the help they need. When you see wait times of not just months but years, and when you see veterans having to repeat stories over and over again and having to fight, even though they have diagnoses, to get the help they need, you can understand why it would make anyone reluctant to serve.
It doesn't have to be that way. There's an easy way to fix this. Many of these instances are just about recognizing that a veteran has a condition related to their service. It seems like we run them through so many different bureaucratic hoops, so much different paperwork and so many procedures and processes instead of just saying, “You know what? You served our country, you have injuries that resulted from that service and we want to help.” I'm sure the vast majority, if not all, of the people at Veterans Affairs actually want to help. I don't doubt that, but all these processes and procedures and all the paperwork, red tape and regulatory stuff—all the rest of it—prevent them from being able to do so.
Let's see if there is a way we can eliminate a whole bunch of that and make sure veterans have the help they need. That's what we need to be doing. That's the kind of thing this committee needs to be discussing.
How do we make that happen? What kinds of recommendations can we make to enable that and ensure that veterans get it? We just went through a groundbreaking, historic and incredibly important study on the experience of women veterans. It was long overdue. I think it shocked many of us in that it had never been done before. I can't remember the exact number, but this committee made a lot of very good recommendations. The concern I have, which I believe all my Conservative colleagues share, is that just like all the other reports we seem to produce at this committee, it will go on a shelf somewhere and gather dust. It won't get implemented and changes won't result.
I think about how difficult it was for many of the women who came to this committee—who served this country—to tell the incredibly personal and difficult stories of what they dealt with in the Canadian Armed Forces and what they've dealt with as veterans. It took incredible amounts of courage for those women to come here and tell those stories.
It's one thing to create a report, have a press conference and do all of the things we did. It's another to take action. The concern I have is that this will be just like all the other reports I've seen in my time on this committee, and I've looked at many of them before. Look at how many of them actually get implemented. If we really wanted to honour the women who came here, told their stories and shared what I can only imagine was incredibly difficult to share, we would take action. The problem is that when we have these studies, we never see the Liberal government take action on them. We see it time and time again.
That is why we need to meet this summer. We need to dig to the bottom of some of these things and make concrete recommendations. Then, most importantly, what we need to see is the government take action.
