Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 17th, 2012

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Sheri Ostridge]

Pretend that Bob is Charlotte for a moment and you will see her information. The user will get a confirmation that an email has been sent. As I mentioned earlier, the email is not retained. And so, off goes the information, which they can then print out at their leisure and read.

The links from within are also kept live in the email.

You'll see, perhaps, Mr. Zimmer, when you get your email, that there are live links, so that if she wanted information on the rehab program, she could link through, and it will come back with the very—

So there it is. I think that took less than a minute. That was good.

Mr. Chair, that gives you an overview of the browser. I will pass it back to you. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you.

Thank you, Bob. We've all agreed not to share that information with anybody else.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

I will say that it came in both French and English.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

You are now prepared for some questions from the group. We'll start with Mr. Stoffer.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and my thanks to you all for coming.

I'm sure that for many veterans who are really up to speed on computer technology, this would be a real help. My concern is for those who don't use computer technology or who don't have access to a computer, especially those in rural or northern communities where there are no CAP sites anymore. How do they access this type of information?

I wanted to go through a couple of scenarios.

On long-term care, I wanted to double-check the wording. You refer to a Canadian Forces veteran with a service-related injury or illness who was medically released within the last 120 days.

First of all, if he missed 120 days, what happens there? If the person is suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, he may not follow this timeline. Second, it says the person has a service-related injury or illness. Generally, that's decided by decision-makers, not necessarily by the individual veterans. They assume they have a service-related injury, but this is not a decision thing; this is just an information package.

Also, on long-term care, you say that if a veteran requires long-term care, his first call should be to his provincial long-term care placement office. I just want to understand why it is that way. Your second call, in that case, should be to VAC, but if you're a veteran looking at this site, you're not thinking of the province; you're thinking of the federal government. Your first call, I believe, should be to the VAC. If the VAC then says to contact your provincial or regional rep, that would make sense, but saying to contact the provincial person first may confuse the issue.

Right now, for World War II and Korean War veterans who have served overseas, long-term care is a federal responsibility. When the last Korean War veteran dies, that will change, and a lot of that care will be a provincial responsibility. I just want to ask why it was worded that way and what is going to be in place for them. I know you said they can still use the 1-866 number.

There are many Canadians, especially in the veteran and RCMP communities, who don't understand computer technology. It is still new for them. This is especially true of those who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and getting help from a family member or a friend. Will VAC be going out to these communities and holding seminars or community meetings? VAC needs to sit down with people in the Legions and VAC halls and show them how this actually works.

And thank you for coming.

[Janice Burke]

Okay.

[Sheri Ostridge]

If you want, Janice, I can handle the first question.

Mr. Stoffer, at the end you referred to veterans in areas where they don't have a CAP site or they're not on computers. We have many different options. This is not the only tool we use in communication. We're extremely proud of it, but it won't cover all our audiences.

For many years the department has been known for adapting to what the veterans need. Salute! newspaper is one example. We use a large font because we know our readers are of an age that they need that. Sometimes we anticipate it before we're asked. That's the best situation. We have publications that are liked by veterans and we will maintain those.

To promote something like the benefits browser to folks who don't have access will be done through our existing publications like Salute!, but we also have the ability through the 1-800 number that you mentioned that veterans can call. They say they're not online, but they've heard about this and they want to have a package sent to them.

Our call centre and staff in our offices have been trained. They will be able to go through it themselves, so veterans can say this is the information they're interested in, and then it could be mailed to them. These alternative delivery methods are available; even this tool might not be of interest to a particular veteran.

The other thing we're finding, based on feedback, is that family members are also increasingly becoming our audience, because they communicate for the veteran. While veterans themselves may not be into computers, in many cases the family members are.

You mentioned Canadian Forces bases. We have ongoing SCAN seminars. As part of our outreach—and I think former colleague Colleen Soltermann has been here to talk about our outreach—we go to bases and have sessions at military family resource centres. We're able to tell them about the new tools and also the traditional tools, and we add those to the mix so that veterans have choices of how to get the information.

Hopefully that helps to answer your question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

I want to point out that we might use that in the second round of questions for the NDP, because Mr. Stoffer used up over three minutes of his time just getting to where he was going and therefore didn't give you a lot of time to answer. I would suggest that in the next round he might follow through. We do want to hear it, for sure.

Go ahead, Ms. Adams, please.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Thanks very much, and thank you for the presentation and the demonstration.

After we had the government announcement, we had quite a bit of universally positive feedback.

Could you sum up for us in a few simple points how this new browser helps veterans and what the key aspects are?

[Sheri Ostridge]

I would agree, and we were quite excited about how well it was received. Even at the announcement at our VAC office, we had feedback from veterans saying how great this is and that they're excited to use it. A couple of emails have already come in on it, so thank you. We're very proud of the work our staff and the OVO staff have done to get us to this point.

To summarize the benefits, I hope you got a sense from the demonstration that we've made it quick and easy for veterans to access a significant amount of information. I think we're all aware that you can easily get into information overload in this society, so we're trying to distill a whole lot of information and get to what's important for the veteran. I think the benefit to veterans is that we're making it simple for them, and we're making it relevant and targeted to them.

One of the big benefits that Janice spoke of is having access to that information. That is making our business at Veterans Affairs much more accessible for folks to understand how decisions are made. I'd say those are the key benefits.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Thank you very much.

Can you tell me how the browser complements other initiatives at Veterans Affairs Canada, in particular the red tape reduction initiative and perhaps the plain language initiative?

[Sheri Ostridge]

This is a key part of the red tape initiative and also the plain language initiative, which started quite some time ago.

We have spent time on plain language to make the information that much more understandable, whether it has been decision letters or content on our website. This gives veterans another choice in how they communicate with Veterans Affairs and how they receive their information.

We also have other online services that have been announced as part of cutting red tape, the My VAC Account and the My VAC Book, which I think have been discussed at this committee recently. Again it's giving veterans that many more ways to do self-serve options, and that's a key part of our red tape initiative: to give information when the veteran wants it, with 24/7 access. Veterans have told us this is what they want, and we've responded with these types of initiatives: plain language and red tape reduction.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

To reiterate, for veterans who don't have access to the Internet, how are we going about helping them?

[Sheri Ostridge]

For veterans who don't have the access, we have multiple channels. We can send them information as we've always done. We also have Service Canada points of service, which have increased exponentially in the last number of months. We also have trained staff in our offices who can help with questions any time the veterans have them.

We have multiple channels that can augment, if you will, the website.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

I have to say that in speaking with seniors.... An older veteran gave us a presentation at the beginning of our meeting today. I would say he is over 70, and the first thing he did was refer us to his website. He was quick to point out that donations can be made online.

I know my mother is very adept at just about everything—Facebook, downloading pictures, and so on. I think there is a greater uptake, even amongst older communities.

Of course, younger veterans have been asking for this type of access and information for quite some time now, so congratulations to you and to your team.

[Sheri Ostridge]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you.

Mr. Casey, you have five minutes.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm actually going to pick up on that last happy note that the parliamentary secretary left with Ms. Ostridge and Ms. Burke. Some of you may not know this, but Sheri Ostridge was the lead in a delegation that went over to Vimy. She spent her Easter weekend in Vimy with some parliamentarians and veterans for some commemoration services there.

I'm going to embarrass her, but she is a true professional, in every respect. The taxpayers of Canada and the veterans of this country are lucky to have people serving them who are as dedicated as Sheri Ostridge. I saw her work over that Easter weekend first-hand. I was part of that delegation and proud to be so.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Now that I've totally embarrassed you, is the benefits browser something that's going to save money for the department and the Government of Canada?

[Janice Burke]

I can help to answer that. The benefits browser, as Sheri indicated, is about getting information to our veterans faster. They have asked us for this. They wanted more information on our programs and services. It's really about that, as opposed to anything around reducing budgets or making cuts or that kind of thing.

[Sheri Ostridge]

I would add that I think it's about efficiencies, in terms of a veteran being able to access it and making it more efficient and reducing the hassle. It was less about resources or reducing resources; it's more about communication in this case.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I understand that, but you really haven't answered my question. Is the answer that you don't know, or that it doesn't matter?

My question is on whether or not this is going to save money. I understand you're telling me that saving money isn't the goal, but do you know whether it will save money and whether or not that was the main motivation behind putting it in?