Conservative MP Blake Richards’ claim that Liberals “canceled” a May 4 Veterans Affairs committee meeting is not supported by official House of Commons scheduling records, though his broader criticism over a closed-door May 6 session is partly backed by the committee notice.
Richards posted a video showing Conservative MPs seated in the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs room on Monday, May 4, 2026, saying Conservatives were “ready to work” at the time the committee “usually meets.” He said the committee had “no chair,” “no liberals,” and no meeting because the Liberal chair “did not set up a meeting at all.”
“So Monday morning, 11 o’clock, this is the time when the Veterans Affairs Committee usually meets. As you can see, conservatives are all here, ready to work. But we have no chair, which is a liberal member,” he said.
The core factual issue is narrow: there is no official record showing an ACVA meeting was scheduled for May 4. The House of Commons committee listings show ACVA’s next notice as Meeting 33 on Wednesday, May 6, 2026, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in Room 410 of the Wellington Building.
However, ACVA did meet on Mondays as records would show: recent ACVA meetings are held on a Monday at or near 11 a.m.: March 23 at 10:59 a.m., March 9 at 11:00 a.m., April 13 at 11:00 a.m., April 20 at 11:04 a.m., and April 27 at 11:01 a.m.
The chair also matters procedurally because the chair calls meetings to order and manages committee proceedings. Richards’ argument rests on the fact that the Liberal chair did not convene a Monday meeting. The official counterpoint is that a usual meeting slot is not the same as a scheduled meeting, and the House calendar does not show a May 4 ACVA meeting to cancel.
Richards’ stronger confirmed point is that the May 6 meeting was listed as in camera, meaning closed to the public and not publicly broadcast in the usual way. The official notice describes the May 6 ACVA meeting as “In Camera” and says it is for “Barriers to Entrepreneurship Among Veterans” and “Consideration of Draft Report.”
That creates a split verdict. The “canceled meeting” framing appears unsupported because no May 4 meeting appears on the official calendar. The “closed-door meeting later this week” claim is supported by the May 6 notice, although the stated purpose is consideration of a draft report, a common reason committees meet in camera.
Richards also alleged Liberals had earlier “improperly and illegally” adjourned a committee meeting to prevent Conservatives from moving a motion to study veterans-related budget cuts. The April 27 minutes did show Richards moved a motion for a 10-meeting study on “the effects of the federal budget cuts proposed in Budget 2025” on veterans services, including long-term care definitions, medical cannabis reimbursement, layoffs from the Bureau of Pensions Advocates, RCMP pension changes, and related topics. Debate began, and Bloc MP Marie-Hélène Gaudreau moved to amend “ten” meetings to “five.”
House records show ACVA had already been working on “Barriers to Entrepreneurship Among Veterans,” with prior meetings logged earlier in the session. The May 6 notice indicates the committee was moving to draft-report consideration, which helps explain why the session was set in camera.
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