Discussion · Private Members' Business
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal
“I support this bill because it sets clear deadlines to recognize military service as wartime service. Within one year, the government must publish the rules and apply them to all past operations since 1953. For any future conflict, the government will have six months to decide. This stops veterans from having to fight for decades to get recognized.”
“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.”
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.