Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, which I listened to with great intent.
What the public generally sees from the House of Commons and elected officials is the great deal of conflict that goes on between us. Some of it is feigned and some of it is quite sincere about different policy options and choices that the government makes and the opposition opposes, as is the nature of our system.
Around veterans, I would argue that there is a possibility to find more common ground more often than we have in the past, simply because we acknowledge, regardless of our political affiliations, the service that has been paid to this country by so many veterans over so many generations.
Our challenge is when the government comes forward with new policies, as it did with the veterans charter and others, in which it tries to apply a one-size-fits-all approach. We talked about the benefits and payments coming out as a lump sum, and many veterans resisted that. Many veterans told the government that at the committee. They said this is not a program that would work for them over the length of their disability.
What needs to happen is a little water in the wine when it comes to veterans' services from the government, to avoid the conflicts that keep happening with veterans groups themselves. It is not from people in the opposition benches, but people who have gone through the veterans system, and people who have been pushed out of the military too early, before they could qualify for disability. We have had those cases, and the government is aware of them.
We need to improve this system. I think we can all agree on that and that it is not providing the full service that it could.
As we head toward Remembrance Day, this is a topic that needs to be a topic all year round. A concern that many veterans have come to me about regarding this new model of Service Canada treatment is whether, with the effects of PTSD—some of which are still unknown as we learn about the true injuries that happen that are not seen—we are always bringing people to that service who are qualified enough to handle the complexity of something like psychological disabilities. Are they qualified enough to handle injuries that have happened that are not perceived on the body but are having a huge and detrimental effect not only on the veteran, but on that veteran's family and community?