Yes, there are others....
Evidence of meeting #19 for Veterans Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was charter.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #19 for Veterans Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was charter.
A recording is available from Parliament.
6:45 p.m.
Chairman, National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada
—and that sort of speaks to the question of what I would define, if you're looking for a definition, as a catastrophic award, where there are multiple disabilities because we're the last people in the world to suggest that an amputee shouldn't be able to function, but when you layer on other disabilities as a result of—
6:45 p.m.
Chairman, National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada
—yes exactly, psychological, but also physical, internal injuries and the like—those are the kinds of cases that we think deserve more attention.
6:45 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I'd be personally interested in what the Brits determine as catastrophic and I think that's worth pursuing.
You mentioned the earnings loss benefit. I think it was you, Mr. Forbes, that said the earnings loss benefit should be 100% and I don't necessarily disagree with that. Is that taxable or 100% untaxed?
6:45 p.m.
Chairman, National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada
Well, it's interesting you raised that because in the new Veterans Charter advisory group, we posed alternatives. If you're going to leave it at 75% then let's make it non-taxable. If you're going to allow us to elevate to 100% then with the net tax, it sort of winds up to be the same conclusion. But what struck me as rather peculiar at the time of the enactment of the charter is that for literally 90 years we did not tax any benefits under the Pension Act. We didn't tax the disability pension, we didn't tax the special allowances, and all of a sudden we're getting taxability. That's unfortunate because I think it skews a lot of the net benefit to some of our younger veterans.
6:45 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I don't disagree. I think net is the real number, however you get that—bigger taxable or lower non-taxable.
6:45 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
You mentioned that a big part is the assessing of future loss of income. You did get into that a little bit in response to another question, but how would you do that with respect to rank? Maybe you have a corporal or maybe you have a captain. What are you going to assess and how do you deal with their future employment?
6:45 p.m.
Chairman, National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada
That's something we've looked at, and we looked at it again in the advisory group. You may be familiar with Joe Sharpe, who is the chair of our financial committee on compensation.
6:45 p.m.
Chairman, National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada
I'm sure you do.
I've talked to Walter Semianiw on this issue, who is the assistant deputy minister.
The reaction is that it would not be difficult, that effectively you could take a corporal and envisage—certainly in Joe Sharpe's mind—that he might become a warrant officer by the time his career is over. We could disagree, but there's a certain progress, I'm sure you'd agree, in your experience, that you could anticipate—
6:45 p.m.
Chairman, National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada
—and I think that's doable.
6:45 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Has somebody computed a kind of an average to arrive at that, like a corporal would be a warrant officer, a captain would be a half colonel or...?
6:45 p.m.
Chairman, National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada
There would have to be some work done on it, but I think the.... The concern, of course, is the private or the corporal who's had the devastating injury and has lost his career. Our main concern is that individual, who should be recognized as having lost a great deal because his career earnings are going to be impacted. He will never become that warrant officer. Shouldn't we appreciate that he has lost a great deal of income as a consequence?
6:45 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I agree, and the captain will never become a colonel or whatever.
6:45 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Mr. Burke, you mentioned the idea of turning DND and VAC into one department. I wouldn't fundamentally argue with that, but you mentioned your suggestion of having veterans, qualified people, at the bases to deal with.... I'll pick Cold Lake as an example. You have a bunch of veterans in the area, and you obviously have military serving folks. For the folks who would be servicing the veterans side of it, are they civilians or are they military in a unified Department of National Defence?
6:45 p.m.
National Service Officer, Ottawa, NAV, National Alliance, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
Well, yes, it's envisioned in that way, and there are a lot of ways of doing it. I can use multiple examples. If you use Cold Lake, for instance, you have somebody who has 20 years in and you're now medically releasing them. What do you do with them? You shove them out the door. He's now going wherever.... Most of the ones in Cold Lake—you know Cold Lake—are delivering pizza because there are no jobs.
So what do they do? It depends on what trade you are.
Also, out of lot of things missed in this committee that I see, you're missing the part that you're an injured vet. Going to your example of Cold Lake, yes, they may look injury-free, but when they go out to work, they might not pass things like.... Suncor, for instance, now does drug testing prior to employment, and most of our vets who are now medically released need those medications in order to function, right?
So they can't be employed on the Suncor oil field, but yet they could be employed on the base, because they know the military culture. They know what's going on. Then, when you bring in a civilian Veterans Affairs person, they would learn the culture, and when the member comes in the front door.... Because we are going to have those members who don't want to deal with military people—
6:50 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I understand.
My question was more about these people who would be part of this integrated Department of National Defence.
6:50 p.m.
National Service Officer, Ottawa, NAV, National Alliance, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
You would have both.
6:50 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Would they be civilians or would they be uniformed people dealing with the veterans' issues?
6:50 p.m.
National Service Officer, Ottawa, NAV, National Alliance, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
Well, you would have both, because when you leave.... I went through the medical release process. You're basically dumped out the door. This would actually stop that process from happening. So for the military person, right now you get a military case manager who looks after you medically. I'm sure you've all heard the whole thing about the military case manager. The military case manager has your file sitting there. What happens now when you're released? You're transferred to Veterans Affairs down the street.
I could use an example that I know of. It's in Trenton, Ontario. They moved the veterans office twice on the base, at a cost to the Trillium fund instead of Veterans Affairs, and now they've moved it to downtown Trenton. All the veterans in the area were used to going to the base. Their friends are on the base. They know the base. In answer to your question, they're used to going in and seeing.... If you were to do what we're asking, in one week you would be talking to the military sergeant who is your case manager or whatever, and then he would basically take the file...and now you're talking to Susan, who is your civilian counterpart in Veterans Affairs.
You would no longer need to have two heads of departments. You would no longer have to wait the 16 weeks for that file to fly everywhere that it's going to go to, which is Tunney's Pasture, by the way, because I did run medical records for three years, with 550,000 files, so I know where the records go, and that's where they sit. You would eliminate that for the short term.
6:50 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I need to squeeze in a quick question, because I'm going to be cut off.
Should the member leave—