The Government is proposing adding these two clauses under what is considered Suitable Work:

• If the vacancy is in the claimant’s usual occupation, but at a lower pay rate, and/or in working conditions less favourable than the claimant has the right to expect
• If the vacancy it is not in the claimant’s usual occupation, and is at a lower pay rate, and/or in working conditions less favourable than the claimant has the right to expect

The Government is claiming that although the unemployment rate in Canada is high that employers cannot find workers. Yet our Employment Insurance is there to protect those that have lost their jobs- whether it be seasonal or due to layoffs. It is there to provide them time and resources to find suitable work. I worry with the proposed changes that Atlantic Canada will be hollowed out. If you had the choice to work in your field in the West or be forced to take a lower quality job in your home area-the choice will be to move. If we make these changes and give the power to the employer, they will dictate where and how Canadians will work.

This is another example of this government not understanding the layout of the country. Prince Edward Island does not have the natural resources to compete with the west and as such, we cannot offer as many year round jobs. Yes, we don’t want people to take advantage of the EI system but these changes go too far for an insurance that is paid for by the workers and should be there for the workers.

I offer my congratulations to the organizers for bringing this national science event to our City and to our province. Many future science students will be inspired this week after they see what these exceptional students and educators have accomplished.

I encourage you to drop by and see what is taking place for the remainder of the week.

OTTAWA – The chairman of an embattled veterans review board billed taxpayers on two occasions to attend high-brow lectures in Britain where his wife was a participant.

John Larlee has regularly attended the Cambridge Lecture series, but went on the federal government’s dime in 2009 and 2011.

The prominent events at Queen’s College at Cambridge University north of London, attract movers and shakers in the British and Canadian political and legal communities.

Set amid the neatly manicured lawns, waterways and stone ramparts of the centuries-old university, the lectures have featured the likes of former prime minister Paul Martin and Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Larlee’s bills for both trips, listed as professional development in the expense records of the Veterans Review and Appeal board, totalled $7,285.97, including flights, accommodations and meals.

His wife, Justice Margaret Larlee of the New Brunswick Court of Appeal, has been a fixture at the events.

She was moderator of a panel on ending rape in both war and politics at the 2009 conference and led a discussion in 2011 on the role of Israel’s supreme court in the fight against terrorism.

Justice Larlee was also featured at the 2007 lectures, discussing commissions of inquiry and whether they are worth the money. Her husband accompanied her that year as well, but paid for the trip out of his pocket, according to a veterans board spokeswoman.

The chairman refused an interview request, but Danielle Gauthier, who speaks for the independent agency, says the trips were justified.

“His daily work involves providing leadership to a board of independent adjudicators who make decisions based on evidence and according to the legislation that governs disability benefits for veterans,” Gauthier said in an email statement to The Canadian Press.

“The lectures provide valuable insight into the global and common challenges of adjudicating from the perspective of leading lawyers, academics and judges from Canada and around the world.”

Some topics discussed during Larlee’s taxpayer-funded trips included nation-building in Afghanistan, Asia after the (financial) crash, Canada’s response to terrorism, lectures on the rule of law, sovereignty and the responsibility to protect, the justice system in Tanzania and the unwritten principles of the constitution and minorities.

Board records show Larlee has attended five other conferences in Canada — at a total cost of 6,757.67 — since he was appointed in 2009. These included a Canadian Bar Association meeting in 2009.

Gauthier said the Cambridge conference expenses were paid by the veterans board in accordance with federal Treasury Board guidelines, which require justification for international travel.

Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney signed off on the 2011 trip, as his predecessor Jean-Pierre Blackburn did for the 2009 conference, officials said.

“We absolutely did not know his wife was a participant,” added one senior official, who spoke on the condition of not being named.

Board officials, also speaking on background, emphasized that Justice Larlee’s expenses were not covered by the agency and they declined to talk about how they were paid.

The review board, an independent agency where ex-soldiers go to have appeals over their benefits claims heard impartially, was criticized last week by the veterans ombudsman for not giving applicants the benefit of the doubt.

It has also been immersed in a privacy scandal in which a sitting member claimed his diagnosis of post traumatic stress was whispered around and used to smear him because his decisions were deemed too generous.

Both opposition parties were aghast the chairman was allowed to attend the lectures, especially at a time when the government was in deficit-fighting mode and preaching restraint.

“Get serious,” said NDP veterans critic Peter Stoffer. “It is the board that has said no to people, many, many times and here we have the head of the board, travelling to an overseas conference that in my personal view appears to have absolutely nothing to with veterans benefits. And it appears to be a junket.”

Liberal veterans critic Sean Casey demanded Larlee appear before the Commons veterans affairs committee to justify the trip. The committee is already planning hearings on the agency.

“He’s exercised poor judgment and should provide a full explanation,” said Casey.

Blaney did not comment, but a spokeswoman said the onus is on the chairman to answer for his expenses.

“The Veterans Review and Appeal Board is an arms-length, quasi-judicial body that serves to provide our veterans with an unbiased, independent level of appeal,” said Codi Taylor in an email note.

She noted Blaney “expects the board to be responsible and show respect for taxpayers’ dollars at all times.”

Treasury Board guidelines require recurring travel and conference events be validated for “continued relevance, value for money and the efficient and economical use of resources.”

Whether that validation has taken place is unclear.

Larlee’s predecessor, Victor Marchand, took no trips outside of the country in his six years leading the board and during that time attended only a handful of conferences that could be considered professional development.

Hon. Peter MacKay (Minister of National Defence, CPC): Mr. Speaker, to the member from sarcastic inaccuracies, what we will continue to do is look at this recommendation from the Department of Justice and we will make a decision. That is the way things are done.

The impact of this budget on Canada’s smallest and nicest province is devastating. We feel left out. The Department of Veterans Affairs is the only federal government department that has its national headquarters outside the National Capital Region and it is in Prince Edward Island. At the Department of Veterans Affairs there will be 232 jobs cut, partly as a result of this budget and partly as a result of what the Department of Veterans Affairs calls its transformation agenda. I will comment more on that later. The impact of those budget cuts in a place like Prince Edward Island and in a place like Charlottetown is devastating. It affects the entire community. Prince Edward Island does not have oil in the ground. It does not have a manufacturing sector. We have a seasonal economy. The number of well-paying jobs is not what it is in other centres and to gut the public service, as this budget does, unfairly singles out our province. However, it is worse than that. It is not bad enough to cut the jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Prince Edward Island will now be one of only two provinces in this country where EI claims are not processed because the government has closed the EI processing centre in Montague, again more well-paying civil service jobs are lifted out of our economy. Prince Edward Island is now one of the few places in this country where, if people want to go to talk to someone about their immigration issues they are out of luck because the immigration office in Prince Edward Island would close as a result of this budget. Prince Edward Island is the only province in this country where people cannot get a passport processed. If they want to get a passport processed, they are off to Halifax or Fredericton.

Infrastructure is very important, particularly in my riding of Charlottetown. There are two very significant infrastructure projects right now that are in dire need. One is a storm sewer separation project. The storm sewer system and the sewage system are one, so every time we get a heavy rain the bypass has to come through because the volume is too great to go into the waste-water treatment facility in Charlottetown. As a result, we have untreated sewage pouring into the Charlottetown harbour. This is an $18 million problem, a serious problem and it desperately affects those who depend on the oyster fishery in and around Charlottetown.

The City of Charlottetown and the Province of Prince Edward Island have stepped up to solve this problem. They have kicked in. The City of Charlottetown has repeatedly made representations to the federal government to have its cost share in the problem. Basically what it has been told is maybe in 2014. This is something for which there is a dire need, and it is nowhere to be found in the budget.

Also on the subject of infrastructure, we are in a situation in our city where we are using more than 90% of the available drinking water from the source that we have in the Winter River Basin. We need, as a matter of public safety, we need a new source of water.

Prince Edward Island, again, is one of the only provinces that is 100% dependent on groundwater for its potable water, so we need to develop a new well field. There has been one identified. There is a need for infrastructure funds for that. Again, it is the city and the province which have stepped up and the federal government is nowhere to be found, and that is not in the budget.

We have this dearth of public services in the province, and the rationale that we continually hear from the Conservatives is that they are streamlining, they or modernizing or they are doing all this in the back office and they need to depend more on technology. Yet they have cut the community access program. The have cut the CAP site, so those who cannot afford computer, those who do not own a computer, are out of luck. The CAP sites will close as a result of the cuts to this budget.

Prince Edward Island has 140,000 people. Last year, CAP sites were accessed more than 80,000 times. They are necessary, they are used, and thanks to this budget, they are gone.

Veterans Affairs and the veterans of this country once again have been shortchanged in the budget. The party line is that veterans benefits have not been touched. That is what we hear the Conservatives say, and all of the savings are supposedly found in the back office in reducing red tape.

The budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs is $3.5 billion, and 90% of that budget is paid out as veterans benefits. That leaves $350 million to run the department, and the cut this year is $36 million. We will hear the Conservatives say that we have spared veterans the cuts to the department with only 1%, $36 million on $350 billion, when in actual fact the cost to run the department has been slashed by 10%.

Way back when, we know that every federal government department was asked to submit a 5% plan and a 10% plan. We hear the Conservatives say that veterans have been spared. In actual fact, they could not have swung a heavier axe. Given the choice between a 5% cut and a 10% cut, they took the 10%.

Make no mistake, veterans will be affected. We cannot cut 800 employees out of the department and believe for a minute that veterans will receive the same level of service.

I am running short on time. I will sum up by saying that Prince Edward Island is an equal partner in Confederation, but as a result of this budget, it certainly does not feel that way.

I would urge all hon. members to vote against the budget, to urge the government to afford fair-handed treatment to all regions of the country.

Mr. Speaker, the three biggest industries in Prince Edward Island are tourism, agriculture and the fisheries. The province has a population of 140,000 and gets one million visitors a year.

While civil service jobs are extremely important to our economy twelve months of the year, the engine that drives the seasonal economy is very much the tourism trade. As I indicated, basically our population goes almost ten-fold. The summer in Prince Edward Island is not really long and that is when we see the bulk of people. The cruise ship industry is one of the success stories in Prince Edward Island.

Anything in the budget that has a negative impact on tourism is yet another blow to a province that is being treated very unfairly in the budget.

.

This afternoon, the Standing Committee on Veteran Affairs passed my amended motion to conduct public hearings into the Veterans Review and Appeal Board (VRAB).
The motion reads:

“That the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, at the conclusion of its current study, undertake a review of the processes and activities of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board (VRAB) and, that the Committee report to the House any recommendations to improve the current appeal process or, to recommend any other changes deemed necessary”

I am very pleased that the Conservative members accepted my motion.

The story started this past Monday when the Federal Ombudsman for Veterans produced released a highly critical report on the conduct of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board (VRAB).

At issue was the revelation that some 60 percent of all cases adjudicated by VRAB that went against our veterans, and that were subsequently appealed to the Federal Court by veterans, were overturned or sent back by the Court.

They were sent back because the VRAB, comprised primarily of political appointees, made errors in fact and in law.

Later that Monday, I stood in the House and asked the Minister of Veterans Affairs a question, calling for a review of the VRAB. As a courtesy, I provided him advance warning that I would be asking him a question on this important matter, an issue that should not be divisive or partisan, with the exception of the NDP.

We all want the VRAP to render fair and quality decisions for our veterans. The NDP believe VRAB should be scrapped, a position that I believe is over simplistic and short sighted.

Following my question in the House of Commons, I presented a Motion to the Veterans Affair Committee asking that the Committee hold public hearings in the VRAB followed by a report to the entire House.

It should be noted that I was very pleased that one key Conservative MP, Mr. Brian Storseth, who is also a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, agreed to work with me to make my motion work, and to remove politics from this important issue to veterans.

Helping people, working with others and setting our political differences in order to get things done, is the reason I ran for office.

It is extremely challenging, with the present configuration of Parliament, to make real progress. This is a rare, but encouraging example of partisanship being put aside to do the right thing for veterans. Let’s hope it will bear meaningful results.

Throughout my public and private life, I have seen the incredible drive of entrepreneurs and their impact on our community. They are the heart of every small business. I am always pleased to assist anyone who is seeking out their dreams and it is great to see a Canadian organization take up this cause.

The cross Canada tour will be in Charlottetown Monday, May 7th, 5:30-7:30 pm at Memorial Hall, Confederation Centre of the Arts 145 Richmond Street, Charlottetown, PEI.

I encourage anyone who has a business idea to drop by and speak to the program representatives. For more information please check out http://www.startupcan.ca/tour/activities-dates/

Mr. Sean Casey (Charlottetown, Lib.): Madam Speaker, I was interested to hear my friend say that this is a Canadian budget. I come from Prince Edward Island, the cradle of Confederation, and I might remind the hon. member we are part of Canada but we certainly feel left out in the budget.
There are provinces in this country where people can get their EI claims processed. Prince Edward Island is not one of them. There are provinces in this country where people can talk to someone at Citizenship and Immigration Canada if they need its services. Prince Edward Island is not one of those places. Two hundred and thirty-two jobs were cut from the Department of Veterans Affairs. If a veteran in Prince Edward Island wants to talk to a live person that individual is out of luck. If someone wants to talk to someone on the computer the cap sites are being closed.
Prince Edward Island is part of Canada. Why has Prince Edward Island been left out of the budget?

CBC News

Posted: May 2, 2012 2:17 PM AT