Evidence of meeting #20 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 years.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Roméo Dallaire  Quebec, Lib.
Thomas MacEachern  As an Individual
Ray Kokkonen  National President, Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association
Daniel O'Connor  National President, Last Post Fund
Melynda Jarratt  Historian, Canadian War Brides
Joseph Gollner  Patron, Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association
Don Chapman  Subject Matter Expert, British Columbia, Canadian War Brides
Irene Mathyssen  London—Fanshawe, NDP

6:15 p.m.

Conservative

Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, Mr. MacEachern, please accept my heartfelt condolences. This isn't intended to soften anything, but I was listening to Global—I'm certain it was Global news—three days ago and I had to listen twice and I'm still not sure I got it right and I haven't downloaded it. It's my understanding that 100,000 U.S. soldiers have taken their own lives. Recently they were saying there are as many as 22 per day. And when you state there's no secret that we have a problem, there is no secret that we have a problem.

One of our fellow members of Parliament, Harold Albrecht, brought forward a piece of legislation as a national framework for suicide prevention. And I'm not sure that had that framework been in place, it would have prevented your tragedy. My hope is when that does unfold it applies to the military of course, first and foremost. I don't really have a question for you, I just wanted to make that comment.

You've been very fortunate with your employer. That's my understanding: that they've been compassionate, understanding. But I hope what you will do for us as a committee is—after the fact, I'm not going to ask you right now—to identify in writing what assistance you feel should be available to you under those circumstances if you didn't have such an employer. I want to leave that thought with you, sir, and I hope you would consider doing that for the committee.

Mr. O'Connor, thank you for acknowledging the work the government has done in your area. You've answered all my questions. You were very comprehensive in what you still feel needs to be done, and there's really not much more I can ask of you. You've done a very good job presenting.

Mr. Kokkonen, I'll say the same. You've done a very good job of presenting, been very clear on things. But I want to put one question to you, sir, and maybe Mr. Gollner as well. It relates to the Veterans Ombudsman's report. Some of our witnesses have stated we should simply accept the recommendations of the Veterans Ombudsman and get on with it and that's it. That's the document, those are the recommendations, that is what this committee and the government should be recommending and moving forward on. Do you agree with that statement, sir?

6:20 p.m.

National President, Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association

Ray Kokkonen

Yes, I think the entire veterans consultation group has agreed on that. They are behind the Veterans Ombudsman's report. Everything doesn't happen at the same time, and I think most rational people recognize that. However in the veterans community, it's gotten to be a bit of a controversy if you use the word “incremental”. There's a feeling that we should do these things right now.

So at that end, they've identified the three issues. The government asked us several times for priorities. The consensus was that all these recommendations made by this committee and everybody else are important. But then the veterans community recognized eventually that they can't do that so they've given three top priorities, and those have been presented time and time again by all the organizations.

6:20 p.m.

Patron, Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association

BGen Joseph Gollner

Mr. Chair and Mr. Hayes, the ombudsman has a unique capacity to do detailed work because he has full access to the Veterans Affairs files and data and statistics. Many other people try to do an analysis of Veterans Affairs, but the Privacy Act and other legislation doesn't permit it.

Consequently, the Veterans Ombudsman has produced very legitimate, well-researched papers, the likes of which we have never seen before, at least in public, setting out in a clear, forthright manner that everybody can read and understand, and he has been consistently supported by the various ministers of Veterans Affairs or else the reports would not be where they are today. And they are used as benchmarks by many people. So we're fortunate to have that position available and have the outcome of the Veterans Ombudsman's office.

6:20 p.m.

Conservative

Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

6:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Greg Kerr

Thank you very much.

We'll wrap up our questions with Mr. Rafferty. You have six minutes, please.

April 3rd, 2014 / 6:20 p.m.

NDP

John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to everyone for being here today. I'll try to ask everybody a question, if we can fit it in.

Before I begin, I just want to say, Mr. MacEachern, that I think you show an unbelievable amount of courage being here. I'm not sure I could do the same thing. I do congratulate you on that, and I thank you for being here.

To Mr. O'Connor, you have an M.B.A., and it seems to me you've probably heard of the “no go” theory of administration, which is that you keep saying no until people go away. That seems to be what happens a lot in Veterans Affairs, or at least that's the sense that I get. It may happen right across the government spectrum.

But when you talk about the Last Post Fund and making sure that it's enshrined in the Veterans Charter, have you given any thought to the sort of language that would be used to put that into the charter? I'm sure “respect” and “dignity” would be in there somewhere, but have you given any thought to what that might look like?

6:25 p.m.

National President, Last Post Fund

Col Daniel O'Connor

I haven't given specific thought to that, but the program as such is very well documented within Veterans Affairs Canada. It would not be hard at all to extract a paragraph or a sentence or two from what is essentially the mandate of Veterans Affairs to run the funeral and burial program.

So that language is there, but I haven't given that any thought myself.

6:25 p.m.

NDP

John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

You're certainly welcome at a later date to send the clerk a note if something does occur to you, some good language that you might think would be appropriate.

6:25 p.m.

National President, Last Post Fund

Col Daniel O'Connor

Well, I did have a look at it, and I noticed that section 57 deals with the death benefit. It would be a perfect place to put it; that's what I was preparing to offer to the committee. Instead of talking about a “member”, one just simply inserts the word “veteran”, and puts in the funeral and burial program there as a benefit. It's a death benefit, effectively, for the family members who remain.

At any rate, I will give that some further thought.

6:25 p.m.

NDP

John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Okay. Thank you for that.

Mr. Kokkonen, you talked about the new Veterans Charter and making it a truly living charter. You talked about the regular critical reviews.

I wonder if either of you have given any thought to what that timeframe would be in terms of regular reviews.

6:25 p.m.

National President, Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association

Ray Kokkonen

Of course we're aware of what the general recommendation was from some of the other veterans organizations, and that was two years. In fact General Gollner and I discussed that last night, and even this morning, and we decided that we would not give any sort of timeframe to it. I think there are people better qualified to make that type of judgment than we are.

We definitely look for a legislated mandatory critical review of the new Veterans Charter. That's the only way to keep it a living document.

6:25 p.m.

NDP

John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Thank you very much.

Mr. MacEachern, we've heard from many other witnesses that the transition between DND and Veterans Affairs has always been a problem and continues to be a problem, even if it's just something as straightforward as having a caseworker follow up from DND through Veterans Affairs, which doesn't happen now.

Considering your experience, I wonder if you would have any suggestions that could make that transition more smooth and appropriate.

6:25 p.m.

As an Individual

Thomas MacEachern

As mentioned earlier, possibly it would be a merging of the departments, DND and Veterans Affairs. I'm not sure of the history of it, or of why it was set up that way. Probably it was the sheer volume of, at the time, the post-Second World War veterans, or maybe even after the First World War. That would be my guess. But if it were one department, one seamlessly operating under the other....

One of the issues we've had, by the way, in putting these appeals together has been access of information. One department doesn't necessarily allow the other department access to their information either, in this case DND; veterans can't necessarily get access to all the information—in a timely fashion, anyway.

I just want to mention one thing that came to mind, just on the topic of that. I'm sure everyone saw on the news yesterday what happened in the United States at Fort Hood. I don't think it will be a surprise when it probably will come out that it was a soldier who had been acting out under duress and PTSD.

Those are the types of situations that hopefully we don't start to see here. But if the numbers and the volumes, and now that we're out of that conflict zone.... I just wanted to acknowledge that unfortunate incident and bring it to light and top of mind that these are the types of things that could happen.

6:25 p.m.

NDP

John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chapman and Ms. Jarratt.

You talked about war brides accessing Veterans Affairs services. I suppose, in your experience, almost all of them have. I think it was a much more straightforward process then.

6:25 p.m.

Historian, Canadian War Brides

Melynda Jarratt

Yes, it was fairly straightforward. There was very little complication. I'm sure there were some people who didn't agree with what happened following their husbands' deaths, for example, with pensions, but it seems to me they've had generally the same experience.

I think Don would like to speak to that.

6:25 p.m.

Subject Matter Expert, British Columbia, Canadian War Brides

Don Chapman

I would like to mention something, because I have a financial background.

Mr. MacEachern, you're absolutely correct. This is not a zero-sum game. So if you don't spend the money correctly to help these soldiers, somewhere, some way down the line it's going to get very costly, including possibly a Fort Hood incident.

That's all.

6:30 p.m.

Historian, Canadian War Brides

Melynda Jarratt

We were discussing this yesterday, in terms of the lump sum payment versus pension that Don was talking about.

You might want to take that, Don.

6:30 p.m.

Subject Matter Expert, British Columbia, Canadian War Brides

Don Chapman

My adopted father-in-law was a Japanese prisoner of war. If back in 1946 we had given him the value of $350,000, it would have been about $22,000 to carry him forward for the next 50 years. Try living on $22,000 in Vancouver.

The other side of that is very interesting, because he didn't talk about it very much, but finally, just before he died he mentioned that he had nightmares through the 1990s. That was 50 years later.

6:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Greg Kerr

Okay, that's your time, sorry. It's six minutes for everybody.

I want to take the opportunity to thank all our witnesses today for a lot of good information and comments. As you can imagine, some of this we have heard before, which is actually a positive thing. We certainly thank you for taking your time and making a commitment to be here, and we certainly will take your presentations very seriously.

I'll just mention to the committee that on Tuesday we're going to have a short business session after the first round to deal with some issues.

We are now adjourned, with our thanks. Thank you very much.