Veterans Affairs Committee on May 30th, 2006

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Right. I have just a short question.

I think what Mr. Valley was saying is that there are some structural changes that could be made to make the job easier as we move into the future. For example, would there be a possibility of a two-tier appeal system where you'd have maybe four or five regional appeal boards, and then if that didn't work it could be passed on to the national appeal board? That's one question.

In the United States, what do they do? What is their structure? Is it similar to ours, or is it more complicated? Do you have knowledge of that?

[Victor Marchand]

Yes, I do.

As far as breaking the system in two is concerned--having an appeal decision, a review decision, a regional system of decisions--I don't necessarily think that can pay off in the long term, because then you'd develop different cultures in the regions and in the levels, for example, “Ah, he's only on review; I'm appeal”. I prefer mixing the people up, getting them to see the vets and then sit on appeals. There's a dynamic system involved with your administrative judges.

In 2001, we were in Washington, the DVA. We saw the system. They're the second-biggest department in the U.S. There are 220,000 employees at the U.S. DVA.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

So quit when you're ahead, eh?

[Victor Marchand]

But I must admit, when we left, the chairman did ask, “Would you have some suggestions to make to improve our system?”

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

That's the last word.

I would like to thank our guests for appearing today, giving us some background on what they do and some of the things ahead of us, projects that need to be tackled and all of those good things.

We're going to stand adjourned until we next meet on Thursday.