Proceedings of the Subcommittee on
Veterans Affairs
Issue 1 - Evidence, October 18, 2004
OTTAWA, Monday, October 18, 2004
The Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 4:55 p.m., pursuant to rule 88 of the Rules of the Senate, to organize the activities of the committee.
[English]
Ms. Keli Hogan, Clerk of the Committee: Honourable senators, I see a quorum. As clerk of your subcommittee, it is my duty to preside over the election of the chair. I am ready to receive a motion to that effect.
Senator Day: I would like to nominate Senator Michael Meighen to be chair of this subcommittee.
Ms. Hogan: It was moved by the Honourable Senator Day that the Honourable Senator Meighen do take the chair of this committee.
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Honourable Senators: Agreed.
Ms. Hogan: I declare the motion carried and I invite Senator Meighen to take the chair.
Senator Michael A. Meighen (Chairman) in the chair.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. Thank you, colleagues, for your renewed expression of confidence. I enjoyed working with everybody last time, and I look forward to it again in this Parliament.
Item No. 2 on the agenda is the election of a deputy chair.
Senator Atkins: I nominate Senator Joseph Day.
Senator Kenny: I move that nominations close.
The Chairman: It is moved that the Honourable Senator Day be deputy chair of this committee. Are all in favour?
Honourable Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Item No. 3 is ``Agenda and Procedure.'' Many senators will be familiar with many of these motions because they were moved in another committee a very short time ago. These are similar, but we will go through them.
Senators Atkins: In that discussion, Mr. Chair, can we not just pass one motion in favour of all the items?
The Chairman: Yes, we can.
Senator Atkins: I so move.
Senator Day: Are we referring to motions No. 3 to No. 10 inclusive?
The Chairman: Yes. There is a motion on the floor. Is there any further discussion on these motions? Are all in favour?
Honourable Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Item No. 11 is for information. Our meetings will be as they were before, from 12 noon to 1:30 p.m., unless we find that we need to make changes, in which case we will endeavour to find some other time or extend our the time. However, it is always difficult to do that.
We have a draft order of reference. Senator Kenny, in the parent committee, made comments about the work of the National Security and Defence Committee. My comments will be very short.
This order of reference, which is the same as it was in the last Parliament, will cover what we need to do, which, I would suggest, is to continue to monitor the care, in all its forms, being provided to our veterans across the country. You will recall that the hospitals, with the exception of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, are under provincial jurisdiction, so that situation needs monitoring.
As to commemorative activities, with the sixtieth anniversaries ending next year, and early next year in May with the sixtieth anniversary of VE Day, large scale pilgrimages of veterans going overseas are coming to a close. What we may want to consider, and I believe it falls under (b) and (c), is institutionalizing the commemoration of veterans' sacrifices and exploits. Whether that takes the form of finding ways and means of getting more Canadian high school teachers to the battlefields of Europe, either under the auspices of DVA or DVA and/or the Canadian Battlefields Foundation, or whatever, may be something that senators want to consider, so that we can perpetuate, in a different way, the exploits and achievements of our veterans.
Senator Atkins: Has anyone analyzed the success of the celebration? Were parts of that program leading up to the celebration positive and others that were not? Is there anything we can learn from it? Is there anything that can be applied to the celebrations of VE Day?
The Chairman: Are you referring to the success of the celebrations marking the sixtieth anniversary?
Senator Atkins: Yes. There are two elements to my question. One is the domestic element, that is, what happened in Canada and then, of course, I want to know what happened in Normandy. However, I believe that what is more important is what will happen in Canada in the process leading up to the celebrations of VE Day.
The Chairman: That is a good point, Senator Atkins. We certainly want to ask Veterans Affairs to comment. We may also want input from some of the veterans' organizations. I see no problem with that falling under our order of reference. It is noted.
Senator Atkins: This is not meant in any way to be a criticism. I think they did a pretty good job.
Senator Forrestall: Is there any carryover business, Mr. Chairman, from the last session of Parliament?
The Chairman: I do not recall any.
Senator Day: Did we report on our visit to Sunnybrook, Toronto? I do not recall.
The Chairman: That is a good question. I am sure I would recall if we had done so.
Ms Hogan: No, in the last session we only had one meeting, and we did not table any reports.
The Chairman: How could we pick that up? We do have our notes.
Ms Hogan: We can take those notes and, if the committee wishes to write a report, we could do so. The committee can decide what it wants to do with that information. That is one option.
The Chairman: Is the information now in readable form? Has it been collected and organized?
Ms. Hogan: I am not quite sure; I would have to look through the file.
The Chairman: Would you do that? I will let the committee members know.
Ms Hogan: Yes.
Senator Atkins: Were we not looking into the questions of home care and palliative care?
The Chairman: That certainly came up under the rubric of home care of veterans independent of VIP.
Senator Atkins: This is something that is emerging.
Senator Day: Enhanced home care.
Senator Atkins: It is specifically now palliative care at home. It has been established, as I understand it, that a veteran, or anyone, is happier to be at home during the course of illness than he or she would be in a hospital.
Senator Day: That is covered under our terms of reference.
The Chairman: Yes, but we may indeed want to pursue that.
Senator Day: This is just in draft form. We will want the reference that we just saw in the parent committee of having all the material from the previous Parliament being referred to this committee.
Ms Hogan: It is in the draft. It is the second last point.
The Chairman: Would this draft order of reference, if we approve it, come before the parent committee at its next meeting?
Ms Hogan: Yes.
The Chairman: Is that satisfactory, senators?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Is there any other business?
Senator Day: Are we adopting this?
The Chairman: We are, but then we have to refer it to the parent committee.
Senator Atkins: Who does that? Is that up to the chair of the parent committee or do you do that, Mr. Chairman?
The Chairman: I bring it forward at a meeting of the parent committee.
Senator Atkins: Do you then prepare the order of reference?
The Chairman: No. We must have a meeting of the parent committee. It has to be approved, which we will do at the next meeting of the full committee.
Any further business? There being none, we will adjourn.
The committee adjourned.