Veterans Affairs Committee on April 26th, 2007

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

That's it?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you.

I try to do what I can.

Now we go to Mr. Valley with the Liberal Party for five minutes.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Good morning, Doctor.

The report is very intriguing, I'd say, from the time I've had to spend with it. It seems to make an awful lot of sense. In your call to action, some of the words you use remind us of what we're supposed to be doing. I'll read from your last paragraph: “—there is no time for extensive debate. —we must act quickly, and we must act now. It is time to keep the promise.”

It's been six months since the report was handed out. My first question is who asked for the report? Was it something your organization felt they should do, or were they asked to do this?

[Dr. Victor Marshall]

I was asked by the deputy minister to do this, so I don't know exactly if the request came from him or from higher than him. The deputy minister asked us to do it.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Do you recall when that was? I'm just wondering how long the report took, because it looks quite extensive.

[Dr. Victor Marshall]

It took us a while to get going. Once we finally made the commitment to do it—we're a bunch of volunteers, you know—we actually managed to put together the report in maybe ten months. There was a lot of work. We had Dorothy Pringle, who's a former dean of nursing at the University of Toronto, and who just received the Order of Canada, by the way. She's a member of the council. She led the committee and the subcommittee of council. We had a chance to consider things in three successive council meetings over the space of a full year. So I guess you could say a full year from the beginning with discussion of it in council, through the committee work, through massaging at council meetings, and finally with council giving the blessing.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

So the report of November 2006 started roughly in November 2005?

[Dr. Victor Marshall]

That's right.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you.

I have just a quick question. I may have heard you wrong, but I want to clarify, and Ms. Hinton just alluded to this. You were asked to make recommendations purposely without costing. That was asked for by the deputy minister at the time too?

[Dr. Victor Marshall]

The without costing part came from the ADM.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Was that in the original intention of your report, or did it come later?

[Dr. Victor Marshall]

I'm sorry, it came from the deputy minister as well. I beg your pardon.

I'm sorry—what was your last question?

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

I just wanted to know who had asked you that, and I think you clarified it by saying the deputy minister. Do you remember the name of the deputy minister at the time it was asked for?

[Dr. Victor Marshall]

There was a change of personnel. It was a woman—Oh dear, I'm sorry.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

That's okay. I just want to try to clarify where the report came from. You've done an awful lot of good work here.

Can you tell me your own impression—and I realize you're a bit removed—of what's happened in the six months since the report? Have you had much feedback from the department?

[Dr. Victor Marshall]

We had a sense that things were moving slowly for a while but are maybe picking up steam now. The department has basically indicated that it is strongly supportive of the report, and it thinks it's a great report and it will be useful. I think it's been made clear that it's advice. It's doesn't necessarily have to be the blueprint in the department's eyes, but it will input strongly into that.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Going back to your statement about the call to action, there's no time for extensive debate. You've done the work. We know some of the answers that need to be happening. Repeatedly today you have said we need to get to a needs-based system. You said that when your group actually looked at the table of eligibility, you were incredulous at how complex it was. Can you explain that a bit?

[Dr. Victor Marshall]

I don't have the table in front of me now, but you've probably seen it. When we first look at it, there's a list of benefits that can be received, down one axis of this table. Then there's a list of different categories of people who can receive different kinds of benefits, if you can link it to war service, different categories for different—the merchant marine, for example. But there are several categories across. The total grid is something like an eight-by-twelve table, so there are that many different cells of eligibility on this table.

The biggest problem we have with it is that for many of the benefits you have to be able to link it to something that happened to you in war service. That's the problem. We think it doesn't make sense. For example, there's epidemiological evidence that we cited in the report that musculoskeletal diseases are more prevalent in people who had war service. So you could assume that had something to do with what happened to them during the Second World War.

A lot of musculoskeletal problems arise only in later life, so to ask someone now to try to relate that condition to something that happened to them when they were in overseas service in Italy or Normandy or whatever just doesn't seem reasonable, but it also doesn't seem necessary. If the person had the military service and has the need, we think it should be met.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you, Doctor, and thank you for the report.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

That was fascinating.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

On to Monsieur Perron with the Bloc for five minutes.

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

Good morning, Mr. Marshall.

I read your report quite quickly because we only received it this morning. It looks very good. I have one concern: could this report apply to our seniors, to citizens of Canada and Quebec? I can tell you that there are some very sad cases within civil society—I'm not talking about war veterans. Take, for example, the case of my father who died at the age of 76 from asbestosis because he worked in mines, underground, his whole life. This was a work-related illness. It's almost just as dangerous to work underground in the Abitibi mines as to be engaged in combat on a battlefield.

I would like you to comment on this. How do you think your program could apply to average citizens, to the seniors of Canada?

[Dr. Victor Marshall]

Thank you for that question. Certainly I know members of council have often said about this report and other recommendations we have made that we see Veterans Affairs Canada being in a good position to show leadership for all Canadians. Along with Health Canada, Veterans Affairs can develop programs that work and demonstrate that they work, which then could become a basis for extension to all Canadians.

How that would happen over time I'm not sure, but the general principles that apply to aging veterans apply to all aging Canadians, we think.

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

I have another more practical question, Mr. Marshall. Do you have an idea of how much more the implementation of your recommendations would cost if the program were extended to the whole of the senior population? Would the cost be the same as it is now? Would there be an increase in costs? We need to take taxpayers' money into account. How much more would it cost, if the costs were higher?

[Dr. Victor Marshall]

First of all, we did not explicitly consider costs, and we were asked to outline a general system that would be the best system in principle. We recognize that any system costs money, but the idea would be to try to get as close to that goal as possible.

What I said in response to the earlier question, and this is just a guess, because the council has not done the costing, was that there would be an increase in cost, but it would be like a kind of bubble, because there would be more services going to these veterans, but the older veterans, the ones who are the target of our report, are dying, as we note in the report, so those costs would not be long term.

Let me add one other point. There may be more cost to Veterans Affairs Canada through implementing such a system, but that doesn't mean there would necessarily be more cost to Canada as a society. There are three kinds of costs: Veterans Affairs Canada costs, health care system costs, and other costs related to health. If you keep people healthier, you can have savings there. Some of the costs of these programs might end up being borne by Health Canada, or if they're borne by Veteran Affairs Canada, it will mean lower costs coming through other aspects of the health care system.

I'm afraid that's as far as I can go with costing, because that's something we leave up to the department itself.