Anita Vandenbeld, Ottawa West—Nepean
“I want the House to pass this bill quickly and send it to committee. It requires the government to set clear rules within one year to officially recognize wartime service in conflicts since 1943. Canada has not officially recognized any conflict as a war since the Korean War, so veterans from places like the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan are not legally counted as war veterans. This bill does not change pensions or benefits. It gives these veterans the official recognition and respect they earned before they pass away.”
“moved that Bill S-246, An Act respecting the recognition of wartime service, be read the second time and referred to a committee. She said: Mr. Speaker, it is a tremendous honour to be here in this House today as the sponsor of Bill S-246, the wartime service recognition act. What this bill would do is simple. It asks National Defence to set a national framework that would have objective and transparent criteria on what is considered wartime service within 12 months, and then to apply that criteria to every conflict since 1943 and to future conflicts. I do not think most Canadians know that Canada has not officially recognized any military operation as wartime service since the end of the Korean War. In fact, Korean War veterans had to fight for 27 years to get it recognized as a war. Persian Gulf War veterans are still fighting after 36 years, for decades, just for their own recognition. Also, veterans of the war in Afghanistan are only now just starting to realize that the government officially, legally, does not consider them to be war veterans. I know this matters, because a few months ago I was door knocking in my riding, and I met a woman at the door who had served in Afghanistan. When I told her about the bill and she realized that she was not a war veteran, she had to hold back tears. That is because words matter and labels matter. That is why this bill is so incredibly important. The bill is very simple. It is about correcting the disconnect between what veterans experienced and what we all know. We all note the war in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf War. Veterans know what they went through. The bill is about correcting the disconnect between that and the label the Government of Canada applies to their service. It is about telling the truth about their service. It is about respect. It is about recognizing veterans, and it is about validating their service. Bill S‑246 will require the government to introduce a national framework for the recognition of wartime service within 12 months. This framework will have to include objective criteria for designating military service as wartime service based on the level of risk, the nature and intensity of the service, exposure to conditions capable of causing physical or psychological injury, and the existence of armed conflict. The bill would not specify which conflicts are or are not wartime service. It asks for a criteria. The bill would also not impact benefits or compensation. Why does the bill matter, then? I asked veterans that question myself. About six years ago, I was at an event at the Canadian War Museum, and we had the Kuwaiti ambassador there. We were celebrating the 30th anniversary of the end of the Persian Gulf War, the first Gulf War, the one that liberated Kuwait. I met several Persian Gulf War veterans. Many of them are here today. I met Harold Davis, Mike McGlennon and others. I heard them say that they felt the Kuwaiti government was recognizing what they went through in ways that the Canadian government was not. That was very disturbing to me. I asked Mike McGlennon why this mattered so much to him. His answer has always stayed with me. His answer that day was that he just wanted his grandchildren to know that their grandfather was a war veteran. That term, war veteran, is an incredibly powerful term. A few months later, the Persian Gulf War veterans had a documentary. They said that very few people had seen this documentary, so I hosted a screening here on Parliament Hill. I was not expecting veterans from across the country to come to that screening with parliamentarians. I will never forget that one Persian Gulf War veteran came with a box full of mementos, things he had brought home 30 years ago. He told us that he had not opened the box in 30 years, but that because he was on Parliament Hill, he felt that he could open it and share what was in it for the first time. I also heard from veterans who said they did not wear their medals because, often, the way we recognize or not recognize veterans is something that gets internalized. Today, I would like to share the words that Mike McGlennon shared earlier. He said, “Please restore our pride that has been stripped from our service.” This bill is about restoring that pride. I would like to quote from retired Colonel Mark Gasparotto, who said, about the war in Afghanistan, “The Afghan mission was a war by every metric, and the current terminology of special duty area rings hollow when judged against the life and death realities we faced on the ground.” This bill is about those realities. It does not matter if there was an actual declared state of war. It does not matter what the war was called. It is about the lived experience, realities and conditions that the veterans faced. My parents were liberated in World War II by Canadian soldiers in the Netherlands. My father got his first candy in 1945, when he was five years old, from a Canadian soldier. Growing up, I remember my parents would be walking down the street and they would point to somebody and say, “Do you see that man over there? That man is a war veteran.” Even as a little girl, I knew from the hushed tone and the reverence that that meant the man or woman had done something very important, very special, because those words, the words “war veteran”, matter. When Canadian military personnel or others return from war, often they do not talk about it. If we acknowledge it by calling them war veterans, by giving them a nod of respect, a handshake or a quiet thank you for their service, that lets them know that we see them, we understand what they went through and we acknowledge them. That is a respect that is so needed, especially by veterans who come home with invisible or visible injuries, and the veterans need to have that validation and recognition from the Canadian government itself. This is also a very important bill because it is not just about how veterans feel, how they see their service or how Canadians see their service. It is about who we are as a country. It is about understanding the history of Canada as a country. Of course, it is true that Canada is a peaceful country. Canada is a country that will always put diplomacy, conflict prevention and peacebuilding first. However, Canada, historically and today, is a country that has been willing to fight when it was necessary. Canadians have stepped up. We will fight when it is just. We will fight against oppressors. We will liberate. We will fight when it is necessary to restore peace, freedom and democracy around the world, including our own freedom. That is a part of history. I sometimes hear young people and others ask, “Why do we have a military? We have not had a war since our grandparents’ time.” Can members imagine what that sounds like to the veterans who served in war, the living veterans and modern veterans today? Making sure we understand and say that we have sent our Canadian Armed Forces into war is something that will also help young people understand. This is about the future veterans and the future young people, like a young cadet thinking they may want to serve. The young people who are thinking of serving their country are watching. They are watching how we treat the veterans of today. They are thinking about whether or not they are going to serve as well. This bill would show them that we would provide the right recognition if, God forbid, we ever have to send them into a war. This bill is also extremely important for women veterans. It was not until 1991 that women in Canada were permitted to participate in combat roles, and 1991 was the Persian Gulf War. For women veterans, for their valour and for their sacrifice, this is an incredibly important recognition of their service. It is also very important for families. As we know, anybody who serves does not serve alone. Their families are there alongside them. We lost 158 Canadian military personnel in Afghanistan. I would like to read some words we heard earlier today from an incredible young woman who I just met, Olivia Vernelli. Olivia’s father, Master Corporal Scott Francis Vernelli, was killed in action in Afghanistan when she was only six months old. Today, she said, “I grew up without a father. Father’s Day meant visiting the National Military Cemetery”. She continued, “For years, Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan has been referred to as a mission. However, the word mission does not accurately represent the years of combat, the Canadian soldiers killed in action or the families who lost their loved ones. These are the realities of a war. Calling it a war is about giving that service the recognition it deserves.” This bill does not amend the Veterans Well-being Act or the Pension Act. It does not make any changes to benefits or financial compensation. Its purpose is to acknowledge what these veterans have gone through and pay tribute to them. It tells the truth about their experiences, about the physical and psychological injuries they are still suffering from today and about the pain and loss experienced by the families of those who died in the line of duty. I speak of families like Olivia’s. I would like to thank all the parties for their support and encouragement for this bill. It is inspiring to see so many of us supporting our veterans. I am so pleased that this bill has all-party support in the House. It passed in the other place by Senator Yussuff with a unanimous vote. I am encouraging our colleagues to do no less in the House. There is urgency. We need to pass the bill quickly. It is already 70 years late. We have thousands of living veterans today. With every week that passes, they are getting older. We are losing some of them without them ever knowing their government was going to recognize their service properly. That is why I am asking everyone in the House to please pass Bill S-246 quickly, so we can recognize, see and validate their service.”
moved that Bill S-246, An Act respecting the recognition of wartime service, be read the second time and referred to a committee. She said: Mr. Speaker, it is a tremendous honour to be here in this House today as the sponsor of Bill S-246, the wartime service recognition act. What this bill would do is simple. It asks National Defence to set a national framework that would have objective and transparent criteria on what is considered wartime service within 12 months, and then to apply that criteria to every conflict since 1943 and to future conflicts. I do not think most Canadians know that Canada has not officially recognized any military operation as wartime service since the end of the Korean War. In fact, Korean War veterans had to fight for 27 years to get it recognized as a war. Persian Gulf War veterans are still fighting after 36 years, for decades, just for their own recognition. Also, veterans of the war in Afghanistan are only now just starting to realize that the government officially, legally, does not consider them to be war veterans. I know this matters, because a few months ago I was door knocking in my riding, and I met a woman at the door who had served in Afghanistan. When I told her about the bill and she realized that she was not a war veteran, she had to hold back tears. That is because words matter and labels matter. That is why this bill is so incredibly important. The bill is very simple. It is about correcting the disconnect between what veterans experienced and what we all know. We all note the war in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf War. Veterans know what they went through. The bill is about correcting the disconnect between that and the label the Government of Canada applies to their service. It is about telling the truth about their service. It is about respect. It is about recognizing veterans, and it is about validating their service. Bill S‑246 will require the government to introduce a national framework for the recognition of wartime service within 12 months. This framework will have to include objective criteria for designating military service as wartime service based on the level of risk, the nature and intensity of the service, exposure to conditions capable of causing physical or psychological injury, and the existence of armed conflict. The bill would not specify which conflicts are or are not wartime service. It asks for a criteria. The bill would also not impact benefits or compensation. Why does the bill matter, then? I asked veterans that question myself. About six years ago, I was at an event at the Canadian War Museum, and we had the Kuwaiti ambassador there. We were celebrating the 30th anniversary of the end of the Persian Gulf War, the first Gulf War, the one that liberated Kuwait. I met several Persian Gulf War veterans. Many of them are here today. I met Harold Davis, Mike McGlennon and others. I heard them say that they felt the Kuwaiti government was recognizing what they went through in ways that the Canadian government was not. That was very disturbing to me. I asked Mike McGlennon why this mattered so much to him. His answer has always stayed with me. His answer that day was that he just wanted his grandchildren to know that their grandfather was a war veteran. That term, war veteran, is an incredibly powerful term. A few months later, the Persian Gulf War veterans had a documentary. They said that very few people had seen this documentary, so I hosted a screening here on Parliament Hill. I was not expecting veterans from across the country to come to that screening with parliamentarians. I will never forget that one Persian Gulf War veteran came with a box full of mementos, things he had brought home 30 years ago. He told us that he had not opened the box in 30 years, but that because he was on Parliament Hill, he felt that he could open it and share what was in it for the first time. I also heard from veterans who said they did not wear their medals because, often, the way we recognize or not recognize veterans is something that gets internalized. Today, I would like to share the words that Mike McGlennon shared earlier. He said, “Please restore our pride that has been stripped from our service.” This bill is about restoring that pride. I would like to quote from retired Colonel Mark Gasparotto, who said, about the war in Afghanistan, “The Afghan mission was a war by every metric, and the current terminology of special duty area rings hollow when judged against the life and death realities we faced on the ground.” This bill is about those realities. It does not matter if there was an actual declared state of war. It does not matter what the war was called. It is about the lived experience, realities and conditions that the veterans faced. My parents were liberated in World War II by Canadian soldiers in the Netherlands. My father got his first candy in 1945, when he was five years old, from a Canadian soldier. Growing up, I remember my parents would be walking down the street and they would point to somebody and say, “Do you see that man over there? That man is a war veteran.” Even as a little girl, I knew from the hushed tone and the reverence that that meant the man or woman had done something very important, very special, because those words, the words “war veteran”, matter. When Canadian military personnel or others return from war, often they do not talk about it. If we acknowledge it by calling them war veterans, by giving them a nod of respect, a handshake or a quiet thank you for their service, that lets them know that we see them, we understand what they went through and we acknowledge them. That is a respect that is so needed, especially by veterans who come home with invisible or visible injuries, and the veterans need to have that validation and recognition from the Canadian government itself. This is also a very important bill because it is not just about how veterans feel, how they see their service or how Canadians see their service. It is about who we are as a country. It is about understanding the history of Canada as a country. Of course, it is true that Canada is a peaceful country. Canada is a country that will always put diplomacy, conflict prevention and peacebuilding first. However, Canada, historically and today, is a country that has been willing to fight when it was necessary. Canadians have stepped up. We will fight when it is just. We will fight against oppressors. We will liberate. We will fight when it is necessary to restore peace, freedom and democracy around the world, including our own freedom. That is a part of history. I sometimes hear young people and others ask, “Why do we have a military? We have not had a war since our grandparents’ time.” Can members imagine what that sounds like to the veterans who served in war, the living veterans and modern veterans today? Making sure we understand and say that we have sent our Canadian Armed Forces into war is something that will also help young people understand. This is about the future veterans and the future young people, like a young cadet thinking they may want to serve. The young people who are thinking of serving their country are watching. They are watching how we treat the veterans of today. They are thinking about whether or not they are going to serve as well. This bill would show them that we would provide the right recognition if, God forbid, we ever have to send them into a war. This bill is also extremely important for women veterans. It was not until 1991 that women in Canada were permitted to participate in combat roles, and 1991 was the Persian Gulf War. For women veterans, for their valour and for their sacrifice, this is an incredibly important recognition of their service. It is also very important for families. As we know, anybody who serves does not serve alone. Their families are there alongside them. We lost 158 Canadian military personnel in Afghanistan. I would like to read some words we heard earlier today from an incredible young woman who I just met, Olivia Vernelli. Olivia’s father, Master Corporal Scott Francis Vernelli, was killed in action in Afghanistan when she was only six months old. Today, she said, “I grew up without a father. Father’s Day meant visiting the National Military Cemetery”. She continued, “For years, Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan has been referred to as a mission. However, the word mission does not accurately represent the years of combat, the Canadian soldiers killed in action or the families who lost their loved ones. These are the realities of a war. Calling it a war is about giving that service the recognition it deserves.” This bill does not amend the Veterans Well-being Act or the Pension Act. It does not make any changes to benefits or financial compensation. Its purpose is to acknowledge what these veterans have gone through and pay tribute to them. It tells the truth about their experiences, about the physical and psychological injuries they are still suffering from today and about the pain and loss experienced by the families of those who died in the line of duty. I speak of families like Olivia’s. I would like to thank all the parties for their support and encouragement for this bill. It is inspiring to see so many of us supporting our veterans. I am so pleased that this bill has all-party support in the House. It passed in the other place by Senator Yussuff with a unanimous vote. I am encouraging our colleagues to do no less in the House. There is urgency. We need to pass the bill quickly. It is already 70 years late. We have thousands of living veterans today. With every week that passes, they are getting older. We are losing some of them without them ever knowing their government was going to recognize their service properly. That is why I am asking everyone in the House to please pass Bill S-246 quickly, so we can recognize, see and validate their service.
