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Anita Vandenbeld

Liberal on Wartime Service Recognition Act 2026-11-04

Replying to James Bezan (Conservative)

“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for sponsoring the Senate bill here, and for her kind words about our veterans, especially now. Here we are leading up to Veterans’ Week and Remembrance Day. It is important that we recognize the service and sacrifice made by so many of our veterans, including those who were in the Persian Gulf War and Afghanistan. I think about Canada’s contributions to Libya as well. That was a hot war. Canada was in there kinetically. It was the first time a Canadian warship came under fire, back in 2011. Conservatives have always stood with our veterans. We have stood with the Canadian Armed Forces. Recognition is important, as is making sure people are properly given the honour, as well as the supports, for their service. I would ask the member this: Could she tell us, from the government’s perspective, how quickly we can expect it to do this analysis to ensure that, with respect to those operations of war and conflict, we are properly recognizing the great service of those Canadian veterans.”

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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman also for all of the work he does for veterans and those who are still serving. There are timelines in the bill. This was very important to the veterans. It states that, within 12 months, there needs to be transparent and public criteria, a national framework that includes those criteria, and that it needs to be published. It also sets a timeline. They need to go back and make a list of all of the operations since 1953, and then apply the criteria backward. If there is a future conflict, there is six months, 180 days, in which the government must take that criteria and apply it to that conflict, because we do not want other veterans to do what some of the veterans who are here today had to do and fight for decades for their own recognition. In the future, that will be done within six months of the end of the conflict.