Thank you, Mr. Berry. Thank you, Mr. Chisu.
Now we'll move on.
I'll take the liberty as the acting chair to ask my questions, but I won't have any questions; I'll just make a statement for all of you. I'm making a statement because I honestly feel that the aspect of the charter, how it came about, and the causes of it, are sometimes misunderstood by people in my own party and others.
There are three people in this room who were here when the charter was voted on, but there's only one person who was there when it was being negotiated. That was me, along with the late deputy Jack Stagg. In order to get the New Democratic Party's support, we had to have a thorough review and understanding of every aspect of the charter. The process of the charter had been going on for years. The process was done in earnest in 2004 and 2005, in the middle of the Afghan conflict, after we had already lost the four guys at Tarnak Farms, two of whom came from the area where I live.
The aspect of the charter was that it was a living document. The six major veterans groups and all the political parties at that time were convinced that it was a living document. The new benefits arising from the charter as you went from a lifelong pension to not just cash but care—to allow the modern day veteran the opportunity to be rehabilitated, to get re-educated, for them and their family to move forward and feel they still had worth to their society, whether in the military or in the private sector—was the premise of the charter.
We knew that in any new document of this nature where you're changing the paradigm, there would be problems. The fact that it was a living document was what sold it for everyone, that this thing could be opened up immediately and changed. Unfortunately, the only change was Bill C-55, which was five years later.
We already knew within nine months to a year that there were problems starting to arise from the charter. Some of those problems are the following, and if they were addressed earlier, I'm sure, Mr. Scott, that you and your team wouldn't be here today. It's about who determines the disability amount.
In the many cases at the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, if you have a hearing loss or something, they'll give you one-fifth of a payment. You can appeal to get two-fifths or three-fifths. A veteran may feel they are disabled to that extent, but the department may feel that they're only determined at this extent. Therein lies the large gap. Who determines what your disability is, especially when it comes to OSI or PTSD? That is one of the major problems we have right now.
The other one is the access to earnings loss benefit and permanent impairment allowance. We saw all the charts that said that if a person got a lump sum they would also get the following, all the way through. One of the concerns, of course, was the age 65 restriction, which the ombudsman pointed out. That is a very severe problem that needs to be addressed. There is no question about that.
The other one is that a lot of these benefits were made taxable. We saw a chart here the other day by the department that had a big part of it as a benefit, but a large part of it was taxable. If you got $2 million, $340,000 of that was taxable, so you really only had $1.7 million in that regard. Therein lies one of the aspects.
It is the access to the additional programs. It is the speed at which you are able to get them. It's the ability of veterans and their families to get the attention of the department in a timely manner to address their issues immediately, so that all their issues can be addressed.
Unfortunately, we're all to blame for this, through the bureaucracy in the department to the politicians themselves. Those accesses were slow. In some cases they didn't exist at all. In some cases, the veterans were so upset that they just hung up the phone and said they couldn't deal with these people.
In 2005 and 2006, when this charter was done, it was done with the best of intentions, by all the veterans groups and all the politicians who were here. I was on the plane when the four leaders at that time agreed to it. They fast-tracked it to get it through, knowing full well that if problems arose they could deal with the issues right away.
The purpose of this committee, as Mr. Hayes said, is that when we're done with our hearings we want to achieve the best new Veterans Charter that we can. We want to enhance it so that Mr. Berry, Mr. Bedard, Mr. Kirkland, everyone else, and especially your son, Mr. Scott, can get the benefits they so richly deserve, in a timely fashion, knowing full well that not one veteran has ever asked us for a Rolex watch or a trip to Florida.
I can assure you that a lot of veterans in the previous system had just about as many complaints as those in the new system. I deal with a lot of World War II and Korean veterans, and guys who retired in the sixties and seventies, who have just as many serious complaints about the old benefits that you good folks do with the new benefits.
So there is a system failure here. Our job, and our promise to each and every one of you, and I can say this on behalf of the committee, is to do the very best job we can.
We have three veterans on the committee right now, one behind us. Mr. Karygiannis knows all too well what the loss of someone in Afghanistan means, as one of his relatives also paid the ultimate sacrifice.
I just want to conclude, before we move on to Mr. Lobb, by saying that it always amazes and uplifts me when I see disabled veterans helping disabled veterans.
Mr. Bedard, Mr. Berry, and Mr. Kirkland, thank you. Thank you very, very much for what you're doing, not just for other veterans but for yourselves as well. Thank you especially to your families. We thank them for sharing you with all of us.
Now I'll move on to Mr. Lobb for four minutes, please.