Veterans Affairs Committee on March 27th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Then we could condense two into one.

Monsieur Perron.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

What I'm about to say might confuse the committee a little. My comments are directed mainly to Michel.

Allow me to demonstrate for you. Everything that is written here should be printed back-to-back, on new laminated cards that are indestructible. They would be similar to the ones that fit in a person's wallet. I don't know if we can include all of the information this kind of card. You'll have to find a solution to that problem. Good luck!

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I think that's a noble suggestion, sir.

Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

I never envisioned this bill of rights to be a legal document. We're going to get counsel in here, and maybe it will end up being that. I always saw it as something complementary to the ombudsman, whose power is one of public shame. The bill of rights would be a tool that he or she would operate with, so that when a complaint came in, there would be a basis or a framework of what the substantive principle would be for the concerned veteran, and they would act accordingly. That document would go along with any public shame that would come from any investigation that an ombudsman would do.

So whether or not it becomes a legal document, the power that the document could have as both as a comfort to veterans, as Ms. Hinton has mentioned, and a tool for the ombudsman to use when it's required, just as the Auditor General uses it now as a stick for the department when it's necessary, is not diminished, as far as I'm concerned.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you, sir.

I'm just going to quickly get in here, and Ms. Guarnieri is next.

My guess is that there will be a slip of paper or whatever--kind of what Gilles was talking about--so that if a veteran walks into some place he's going to be dealing with, and if he gets somebody who isn't giving him good service, he can whip it out and say, “Hey, hold on right here”, and if they don't measure up and give him decent service, he'll probably make a complaint to the ombudsman, and it will come down the line.

Ms. Guarnieri.

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

I have a question for Betty, since she was the originator of the bill of rights.

Betty, I can appreciate the sentiment with which you conceived of the project, but in your mind and in the government's mind, would this bill of rights have legal obligations? Was that your intent when you came up with the idea?

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I think Mr. Sweet has pretty much summed it up in a very clear, concise capsule. Sometimes when you're involved in it as heavily as I've been, you forget to mention some of the things that matter, and that's exactly what the bill of rights is to me--a club, if you will, to ensure that veterans had their rights written down, so that if any of them were infringed upon, they could in fact go to the ombudsman. And the ombudsman position, thanks to this committee, is now going to be in place. This bill of rights, to me, was a clear direction as to what the rights of a veteran are, and the veteran could in fact then complain to the appropriate level if those rights were not respected.

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Is the short answer that these rights would not necessarily have legal obligations, or that these rights would have legal obligations?

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

The direction we want to take is entirely up to the committee. I'm telling you what the intent was originally. It was that there would be backup for veterans.

Veterans have come to me over the years and said that these are things that are not happening for them; they're not being treated with respect or they're not getting their answers in a timely manner. These are the kinds of things I wanted to ensure were part and parcel of all veterans' rights. Call it a bill of rights if you will, but if you want to make it a more complicated document, that's the right of this committee. This committee can go in that direction if they so choose.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Is there anything else?

Go ahead, Mr. Roy.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I can understand your wanting to put all of this information onto a card, but let me give you an example. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms starts out by stating some broad principles and then goes on to explain their meaning. Of course it's possible to summarize this bill which sets out broad principles, but these principles need to be explained at some point thereafter.

The article reads: “Recevoir des prestations et des services en temps opportun, conformément à la législation pertinente,”. Explain to me the meaning of “législation pertinente”. Is this a reference to existing legislation, to legislation that will be amended, or to legislation yet to be enacted? A bill of rights always has some legal significance. In the case of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, although it contains a statement of principles, it also carries some legal weight. In a trial, the court would look to the statement of rights. A statement made by a department or minister carries some legal weight. If veterans were to decide one day to take legal action, they would invoke the fact that a bill of rights has been adopted and must be respected.

I'm not opposed to adopting a short version, but I think each of the stated principles should be explained in a short paragraph, as was done in the case of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Of course you can always jot down broad principles on small cards. I have no problem with that. However, earlier, on rereading the text of the bill of rights, I found some contradictions and instances of repetition.

For example, the bill says that veterans have the right to be heard, while further on, it notes that they have the right to participate in discussions. As far as I'm concerned, if I participate in discussions, I hope that someone is listening to me. Some of the broad principles stated in the bill are not necessarily clear and are stated more than once.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I'm not in a position to respond, but I would like to clarify one thing. We confuse an awful lot of people out there when we talk about the charter all the time. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to every single Canadian; the veterans charter applies strictly to veterans. I'm not sure whether you were referring to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or to the veterans charter, because the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to every single Canadian.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

I'm talking about the veterans' bill of rights, and comparing the way it would be used to the way in which the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is used. Once this bill is adopted, veterans will want to invoke its provisions to advance their cause, which is to be expected.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Well, it was adopted last year and implemented under this government.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Now we're going to Mr. Shipley.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I think we're maybe having trouble getting it all together. I agree that we're going to have a card. On one side we'll talk about the mission statement; on the other one we will have the six or seven rights that Michel will put together. That may be a good way of doing it. It was brought up earlier about having your mission statement or your goal on the one side.

The other part of it is the document. Obviously that document will make reference to the statements and to the references of explanation with it. Everything we do here has to meet the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So I don't want to get hung up on that. We're going to get some legal direction from counsel on where we go on this.

The other part of it is, what's our commitment to it? On the second page, if you go to the second part on the signing--I believe that's where a lot of this comes from--it says: “Through the signing of this Veterans' Bill of Rights, the Government of Canada commits to delivering benefits and services that respond to your immediate and ever-evolving needs.” I don't know what other bills of rights there are with DND. I'm assuming the legal people will go back and look at what status they have. Is that a bill of rights in title only or in name only, and is it actually embedded in legislation?

What we're trying to do here is to make a clear commitment that will come in documentation, that will come in a card format. In that documentation it will be clearly that we're making a commitment as the Government of Canada. I would be comfortable with that, but we'll maybe have that debate when we hear back from counsel on what we actually should be doing or have to do for it to become a choice of ours. I'm assuming it becomes a choice of ours, but let's maybe have that debate at that time.

I don't want to micromanage Michel, quite honestly, and I think that's Roger's point. Let's give him some general direction of what we want to see in it. If we're at this stage now of one card on two sides, one document with a statement and references, and recognizing somewhere in here that everything is within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that's a given, and our commitment to veterans and that we're going to nail these down from 12 to 6 or 7, or whatever. There have been some suggestions in the last paragraph that the veterans bill of rights honour and salute this special group of Canadians. There's also the recommendation that Canada recognize its veterans and its families. I think we can have one or the other.

But I need some clarification...for example, I'll call it our promise too, which is a bit of a mission statement. We want to keep this. I'm suggesting that this bill of rights references veterans and families only. We aren't dealing with other emergency service groups; DND has their own.

Is that something we agree on? In the second part it talks about “Retired and Serving Members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and our other clients”. I don't know who our other clients are, but I suspect we would not want to deal with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, because that's not our mandate.

I am just wondering about some comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

To be fair, it would be kind of weird to talk about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in our committee.

Mr. Stoffer's up next.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

We could shorten this meeting fairly quickly. Everything that my colleague Mr. Shipley has said is important, but the reality is that in the back pages here we talk about the legal status of this document, and also down below it says “...to avoid legal hassles over what was intended or not intended!”

This question has been asked of the parliamentary secretary twice: was the intent of this to be a legal document or not? The question is very difficult to answer, and I can appreciate that, because without legal opinion it's hard to say yes or no.

So I think before we talk about plasticized cards or mission statements, get the legal people in here and find out whether this or any reflection of this has legal standing, because we're talking about holding them accountable and responsible for all the decisions. The only way you hold somebody responsible politically is that you kick them out and you get someone new in, but to hold the department responsible is through the legal system. That's the only way you're going to do it. Unfortunately we have cases now--if you look at SISIP, for example--that are being challenged in a court action case. That's the only recourse these veterans have left.

So I think before we go anywhere further we need to get a legal opinion on whether or not this is just a generalization to give to veterans and say, “Here you go, God love you, it has no legal standing, so don't worry about it; it's just something nice” or “This is something that has legal standing, and when you get pissed off with the department you have something in your hand that can hold them accountable and you will have every legal right to challenge them”. That's really what the question is.

So I think we should hold off until we get a legal opinion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

My honest guess of how this will work is that it's something that is emotive and feels good and comes out of this complaint that veterans had with regard to how they felt treated in the past. So you go ahead and you create this little card. Then what happens is that a veteran goes in, and if he doesn't feel like he's getting the respect he's due, based on the card, maybe he makes some complaints to the ombudsman. Where it really gets interesting is where he launches a civil action or there's a class action against the government with regard to some aspect of Veterans Affairs, and they quote and use this as a document, and then all of a sudden it comes into the courts and there's a question of what its significance is.

I know we're going to have parliamentary legal counsel here. They don't have a crystal ball. They're not going to know exactly where this is going to take them. But that's my guess of how it would evolve.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

I think you're right, sir.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

We both feel so strongly about veterans, and I know everybody at this table feels strongly about it, but we have to stop confusing the issue when we speak about things such as SISIP, because that's strictly Defence and has nothing to do with Veterans Affairs. We confuse veterans when we mix up what Defence is in charge of and what Veterans Affairs is in charge of.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. St. Denis.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Thank you.

Further, actually, to what Peter was saying, and earlier comments, I don't question the good intentions of Betty and all of us on making veterans feel ultimately that the department cares about them. That's really what this is about, that the department--and whatever government office--cares about them, and here's a list that verbalizes, puts in print, what they care about.

At the same time, we have a responsibility as a Parliament, as parliamentarians, to make sure that when we hand somebody something, it has a degree of meaning—at the end of the day it has a degree of meaning from zero to 100.

So we will get some legal advice. I think we would have to make it clear on the large, full version of the document and some miniature summarized version, somewhere, that this is a legally binding document or it is not. There has to be a clear statement of what power or lack of power that document has.

If it is a mission statement, if it is a statement of service principles.... Because there are no timelines like “You shall get an answer to a letter within one month,” or “You shall not stand in line at the office for more than 15 minutes”. There are no quantified levels of service; they're all wonderful statements of good intentions.

But it's the very thing that you said, Mr. Chair. There's going to be some time, somewhere, that a veteran is going to feel grieved by something, and it's going to be tested. Well, we can't just throw that out carelessly to the courts.

None of this is meant to be a criticism of the good intentions of a bill of rights. We just have a responsibility upfront to be as smart about it as we can be, so that when it's done, it does serve the purposes for which this is intended. We don't want to mislead, that's all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

No. My sense would be—and I'm just speaking about my personal observation here—that we should draft it with the idea that it can potentially, at some point, be brought into a court of law and be used to whip about the department or give guidance to the ombudsman with regard to how to proceed. For example, something that says that they received clear and easy-to-understand communications, in their official language, I think is actually a good thing, both legally and whatever, because it pressures government--whether legally or not legally--to have something that's understandable for people, and to put it into simple language. I think that's a good thing. Whether we make that legally enforceable or not, it's good as a general rule of thumb and it's good as a legal thing, as well.

Yes, sir.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Can I make an addendum, then?

If it turns out that there is a legal obligation that stems from even elements of it—maybe some of it not, but other elements yes—then I don't know how it can not be legislative. Let's say there's a consensus on the document here--which there will be, presumably, at some point--and the minister makes a declaration of a bill of rights, say. That would be sufficient to deal with the legal aspects.

So there are some good questions, I think, for legal counsel when that person comes.