Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 17th, 2011

[LGen Louis Cuppens]

I mentioned that we have counsellors in district or branch offices in each province across the country. That may not exist in years to come, but the relationship between each of those district offices and their counterparts in Veterans Affairs is a must. To start with, we have to determine whether the person who died is actually a veteran, so the information is a two-way flow. The cooperation among our people and Veterans Affairs Canada is excellent, whether it comes from the Canada Remembers director, right down to the counsellors within each branch across Canada. It's a great partnership. A great love, if you will, of Canadian veterans exists in both fields.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

Now to Mr. Casey for five minutes.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Cuppens, my questions are going to be for you.

That's with the greatest of respect, Colonel.

You indicate in your presentation that success in terms of getting changes to the regulations has eluded you. If you're not already aware of this, I think you'll be pleased to know that at least one party has taken up your cause on the floor of the House of Commons and in the Senate. On September 28 I questioned the minister on this very topic--you're aware of that--and again on the 29th. I just want to reference his answer to me on the 28th. When I challenged him on the discrepancy between funeral costs for serving members and funeral costs for veterans, one of the things he said in the last sentence of the answer was “We will continue working with the Last Post Fund and exploring other ways to provide quality services to our veterans.”

He gave that answer on September 28. Since September 28, what other ways to provide quality services to our veterans has the minister explored with you?

[LGen Louis Cuppens]

Since that time we have had a number of engagements by Veterans Affairs. This relates to the question that Mr. Stoffer asked as well, concerning our budget line.

The number of traditional veterans and veterans of Korea who are currently eligible for the program has been steadily diminishing. As Mr. Danson so famously said, one thing we veterans all share in common is a 100% mortality rate.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[LGen Louis Cuppens]

The number of veterans in the country has been declining. Therefore, our program costs have been diminishing; i.e., we're not delivering the same number of funerals every year.

So the minister has looked at our program costs with his chief of staff, and the chief of staff has engaged us a number of times since your dialogue with the minister in an effort to try to diminish the costs and--I guess I can indulge this group in confidence--the outcome of the savings in program costs could very well be translated into moneys to deliver funeral and burial programs to modern-day veterans who are no longer in the program.

In other words, there's an offset, and we're trying to find that offset. This is one of the strategies his staff has engaged us in. He has asked that we not broadcast that openly, and I've done so as best I can. The second--

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Just to caution you, in case you go any further, this is a public forum, so I can't account for what members will say once they leave this place.

[LGen Louis Cuppens]

Yes, and again, as an agent of government in delivering this program, I'm quite at liberty to say what I have said.

The second part is--and this has not been well advertised yet--that since just about the first of this month, the Last Post Fund has engaged in a fundraising campaign. Our honorary chairperson is General Lewis MacKenzie. It's our hope that in this year, this 12-month period forthcoming, once we do the official launch we will raise as an initial target one million dollars. This is just in case regulations don't get changed, because we don't want to be in the business of saying no.

I trust I've answered your question, Mr. Casey.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

So your fundraising is with the private sector.

[LGen Louis Cuppens]

Yes.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Okay. To make up for the shortfall in what you're getting from government?

[LGen Louis Cuppens]

Yes. In essence, yes, because modern-day veterans, unless they're in receipt of a benefit from Veterans Affairs, are not eligible. We started in 1909 by raising money to bury those for whom there was no program. So if modern-day veterans come to us and ask for assistance, we should be able to deliver it. Right now, we don't have a lot of money in our donation account, but we hope to raise about a million this year.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

General Cuppens, you'll be pleased to know that I actually wrote to the minister on this topic over a month ago, and I'm still awaiting a response.

I'm going to make a couple of requests of you. You said that there have been several attempts to amend regulations. Would you be so kind as to forward to the committee the specific amendments you're looking to put in? We may be able to help you with that.

You said that you've started to keep records of those who are now found to be ineligible, but that initially you didn't keep records of those. Now that you've started your record-keeping, what does it tell you?

[LGen Louis Cuppens]

First, on the amendments you're asking for, they were items of government privacy--Treasury Board relationship with Veterans Affairs and us. I'm not at liberty to give them to you, but if you went to Veterans Affairs Canada and asked them formally for the amendments they would give them to you. It's the only way I can convey them. I know what they are, but they're a bit of cabinet secrecy and I can't divulge them.

On records, in the past the phone would ring in the Last Post front office and someone would say, “My relative who was a corporal just passed away. Can he be buried by the Last Post Fund?” We would ask what service he was in, and if it was deemed that he was a modern-day veteran and not in receipt of any benefits from Veterans Affairs Canada, we would say he was not eligible.

We never ticked that box to show how many people have called us. We don't know. We have delivered services to six veterans in Canada. Right now we're hearing from our staff—we haven't amalgamated all the numbers—that we're getting about two or three calls across Canada in each district area looking for benefits for people who are not eligible. We're recording the number of calls now, and hopefully within a short period of time we'll be able to furnish this to Veterans Affairs Canada and say that the number is growing.

I have to stress that the number of people who wish to take advantage of the currently constructed funeral and burial program for modern-day veterans is quite small.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you, General.

Now we'll go to Mr. Daniel for five minutes.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming here and being witnesses to this. We appreciate your time.

I have questions for each of you, starting with the colonel.

On the selection of people you have interviewed--I haven't seen the list, but it's just a general question—does it reflect the diversity of Canada so we can engage current youth in understanding some of the issues? For example, are there aboriginal people, etc.?

[Colonel Andrew Nellestyn]

The short and quick answer to that is yes. It was important to reflect all those who participated, and I think we've been successful in doing that.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Cuppens, the sad fact is that our veterans from World War II are passing away at a much higher rate than before, unfortunately. I think the number that has been bandied about is almost 500 a week, 2,000 a month.

Given that you're kind of pulling in all of your officers, will you be able to cope with this kind of increase in the number of people requesting Last Post services?

[LGen Louis Cuppens]

I mentioned at the close of my last answer that the number of modern-day veterans who would be eligible for the present program is considered to be quite small, because most of the active service members are superannuates. They've served longer than eight to nine years.

The traditional veterans population is diminishing, and as I mentioned in my testimony, within a few years there will be no traditional veterans left in Canada. Only a small group of people who have fallen on hard times will be left.

Remember, veterans exist not only in the active service, but in the reserve force. There are some who choose to put on the uniform for two or three years and serve as reservists. Some of them have been in Afghanistan two or three times. There was a large number in the last group from Atlantic Canada. When they go home and decide to pursue university studies and enter the workforce, if they fall upon hard times they may knock on our door and say, “Our son John died. Could you bury him, please?” Right now he wouldn't be eligible.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

My question was more about the older veterans who would be entitled to it. They are passing away in larger numbers. Yes, the total number of people is going down, but the number of people who are passing away is much higher.

[LGen Louis Cuppens]

The workload associated with the number of veterans who are passing on right now is not a challenge to us whatsoever.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay.

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

We have a couple of minutes left, and I know the colonel wants to respond to one of those questions as well.

[Colonel Andrew Nellestyn]

There's one thing I want to add. On ethnic demographics per se, we also approached the Department of Immigration about new Canadians and looked at what we could do in this documentary to make this relevant and meaningful to new Canadians as well.

I was an immigrant myself some years back, and I think it's important that immigrants realize what the contribution was and how the military and those who are not in uniform shaped this nation.

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Just as an extension to that question, there are many veterans in Canada who actually didn't fight for Canada--for example, the Vietnamese. There are many Vietnamese vets from the Vietnamese War, and of course there are many Vietnamese who now live in Canada.

Have you considered finding out about their story in history so that the next generation could follow up on that?