Madam Speaker, I have a concern about the part of the throne speech that said the government is going to put more into the mental health of our veterans. I had a veteran call me just this week to say that his wife was receiving psychiatric care, and her doctor informed her that it was good that she came in because the program through VAC was going to be ending in December.
This is funding that is available for family members, spouses and children of veterans who have PTSD. The member may not be aware of this but, because of what went on in the last sitting, an individual who was incarcerated for killing a policewoman has received VAC funding in prison, when there is funding available to him to deal with his PTSD.
The way the government is dealing with this is to shut down the entire program while it creates new criteria, leaving veterans' families in an untenable situation when we already know there are 40,000 backlogged cases in VAC already.
How is it that the government is saying it is going to be doing more for mental health for our veterans and their families in the throne speech when this is the kind of thing that is going on within VAC?