Rhéal Éloi Fortin

“Madam Speaker, from my perspective, to start off, I would like to acknowledge the generational remembrance that we have. Not too many people can see this, but in the gallery we have some young girls who are wearing poppies right now and they are sitting with their family of many generations. That is heartwarming. I will not name them because I do not know them, but I just want to thank them for wearing a poppy and for supporting our troops, and that is what we are here to talk about. I am proud to rise in support of this motion. In a few days, we will gather at cenotaphs in every town in this country. In Moose Jaw, in Lanigan, in Watrous and in Outlook, people will stand in the cold to keep two minutes of silence. Remembrance is about a promise. We promise those who serve that we will not forget them and that we will keep faith with them. In 1945, Canada made a simple commitment. When Ottawa needed its buildings guarded, it would call the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires first, because the corps hired the people who came home. That policy was created under Mackenzie King and kept by 12 prime ministers after him, Liberals and Conservatives alike. A Conservative government reaffirmed the policy in 2006 and widened it to include RCMP members. It took this Prime Minister to end it. This year, the Liberals ended the policy with a letter, but with no real explanation, no meaningful consultation and no replacement. We are talking about roughly $350 million a year and about 8,000 guards at federal sites. More than 3,000 of them are veterans. The government’s own briefing notes said it was engaging with stakeholders. The Commissionaires say they were never consulted. They have had to go to Federal Court just to be heard. The government says veterans are not working enough of the hours, but the government sets the wages on those contracts and the Commissionaires say that they have drifted toward minimum wage. The government sets the wages, then blames the court. If the target is broken, they should fix the target. The Commissionaires’ court filing says a former deputy minister proposed exactly that. Instead, the government scrapped the program and kept the excuse. This year, the government is breaking that promise. It is ending an 80-year commitment to give veterans a job when they come home, and it is handing their work to a lower bidder, even when its buy Canadian policy says otherwise. Then came the Canada Revenue Agency contract. When the Trump administration launched its trade war, the Prime Minister promised that whenever Ottawa spends, it would select Canadian suppliers by default. In April, he promised to build Canada strong with Canadian steel, Canadian aluminum, Canadian lumber and Canadian workers. Then in June, with the CRA security contract, nearly $12 million went to the Canadian subsidiary of an American multinational over a Canadian not-for-profit that is the country’s largest employer of veterans. The difference between bids was $80,000, less than 1%. To put that in perspective, according to the government’s own answer to an Order Paper question, the Prime Minister’s delegation spent $175,000 on in-flight catering during one 10-day trip to China, Qatar and Davos this January. The gap in the cost to veterans is less than half of that. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Fraser Tolmie: I know where you’re going with that. I will deal with it later. The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Alexandra Mendès): I am not going anywhere. Fraser Tolmie: Madam Speaker, this is not about one company. The question is what the government asked for, and keeping veterans on was not part of it. The government says that 12 veterans kept their jobs under this contract. Twelve is a number they found after the fact. Nothing in that contract required a single veteran to be hired. Canadian steel, Canadian aluminum, Canadian lumber, Canadian workers; apparently not Canadian veterans. A slogan is not a policy. Every time we have asked about this contract, the government has given the same answer. The Secretary of State told the House, “Politicians are not involved in these decisions.” It is hands off. However, this fall, the House has been debating Bill C-40, the government’s new defence procurement agency. Under that bill, the minister would be able to direct the agency’s procurement, and it would have to comply, as an associate minister would get direction over a $1-billion fund that can lend money and buy shares. The bill would give the government 17 ways to skip open competition. When it is $1-billion defence contracts, the government wants both hands on the wheel. When it is veterans’ jobs and its own buy Canadian policy, suddenly it is hands off. That tells us where its priorities are. Bill C-40 would rewrite how Canada buys for its military, and it does not contain a single target for veteran-owned businesses nor one credit for companies that hire veterans. The United States sets goals for veteran-owned businesses in federal funding contracting. The Canadian government already knows how to set procurement targets when it wants to. Veterans do not get one. In one year, the government ended the right of first refusal, let veterans lose the CRA contract over $80,000 and wrote a defence procurement with no place for veterans. That is not an accident. It is a pattern. I have sat on the veterans affairs committee since 2021. In that time, we have come back to debate veterans’ work transition over and again. Every one of those studies lands in the same place: Meaningful work after service is one of the biggest factors in veterans’ well-being. Therefore, what I cannot square is that at this very moment, our committee is studying how to get veterans into good jobs, but the government is ending the one federal procurement policy built to do exactly that, and there is no plan to replace it. Nothing says how many veterans would be hired, or where, or how anyone would know. When I was the mayor of Moose Jaw, we had a rule: If we cannot measure it, we cannot manage it. The government is scrapping the one veterans jobs program it could actually measure and is replacing it with nothing. Conservatives believe that a promise to a veteran is a promise we keep. The motion before us asks the government to do three simple things: First, respect veterans; second, follow its own buy Canadian policy; and third, have the Prime Minister reverse the CRA security contract. None of this is complicated. It is a question of whether the government means what it says. In a few days, at the cenotaph in Moose Jaw, the last post will sound, and we will fall silent. We will remember the people who kept the promise they made to this country. The least we can do is keep ours to them: a job when they come home and a government that means what it says. We want to thank the veterans of Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan who are serving at 15 Wing and at Dundurn, those across our country and those who serve alongside them, as well as their families. Veterans kept their promise to Canada. Conservatives will make sure Canada keeps its promise to them. I would like to recognize a lot of people within our community and in Parliament who are veterans. I would like to thank my colleague who is the critic for Veterans Affairs for his service, and a few other fellow members. This means a lot to us. That is why we brought the motion forward. It means a lot to Canadians. We are pleading with the Prime Minister to make the decision to change his mind on this and recognize that it is okay to humble himself and say that he was wrong.”