Veterans Affairs Committee on April 3rd, 2014

[Melynda Jarratt]

We weren't either.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Can you provide the committee with the involvement of your organizations in the consultation with the government of the day? What were your positions? Where were your recommendations? Were they implemented?

[Ray Kokkonen]

I'll give a short answer first. The CPVA was one of the organizations that resisted the fast passage of the new Veterans Charter, because it just simply didn't get the scrutiny that we thought it required. Of course, that's all history now.

But for the other parts of this question, I'd like to pass it on to General Gollner, who has lived those times too.

[BGen Joseph Gollner, Patron, Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association]

Mr. Chairman, we don't have the time to go into the evolving new Veterans Charter. As General Dallaire said very succinctly this afternoon, it was an ongoing process, but for reasons—dare I say it here, perhaps political expedience?—the new Veterans Charter was brought forward and it was given swift passage, as we've heard. Even senior members of the Veterans Affairs staff, including the late Jack Stagg, who was the deputy minister, said that it was unfinished legislation and they needed more time. But it was brought before the House and, as we know, passed unanimously in a day.

There were gaps that were identified. The business that was identified, again by General Dallaire, of the lump sum was not part of the discussions. There was Dr. Neary's study, and that was part of it, but there was also ongoing work within Veterans Affairs and the finance committee, probably the Treasury Board also, on how to take this document forward.

We talked about the philosophy of dedication and duty, but that wasn't a topical issue. The underlying sort of premise of the discussions was how they could save money. That was in the time when the government of the day was focused on trying to save money, so there were some adjustments made that surprised all the veterans advisory groups involved in working committees and one thing and another. For literally years those observations and concerns were overridden, and the bill presented.

But I go back to Jack Stagg, who was the deputy minister. He was a key and instrumental player, and he was very concerned when it went through so quickly that, as he said, and I just said now, it was unfinished legislation. We have paid the price of that for the last nine years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lizon.

We now go to Mr. Valeriote, please, for six minutes.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you all for taking the time to come up and speak today. If I don't necessarily get to you with a question, it doesn't mean that your ideas haven't been received and will be brought forward.

Mr. MacEachern, condolences certainly aren't enough. Others have expressed them. Frankly, they are hollow if they are not met with some form of reaction to it, and I apologize for what you have been through.

I met with the department today on a briefing to talk about the details of the new Veterans Charter and its application. While I was with them I was thinking about our social covenant, our sacred obligation. Over the weeks and months, I've been thinking about it and trying to define it. What does it really mean? I've come to the conclusion that, because those who go to fight on our behalf when called to go anywhere we send them and are prepared to give up their lives without limited liability, Canadians', not the government's, but Canadians' liability should also be unlimited. It's a reciprocal covenant, not just one-sided, but reciprocal. So what I'm hearing is that we're not carrying our side of the bargain on all of this.

I want to speak specifically to the comments you made—you listened to Senator Dallaire—about a concern that there are a lot of people out there right now suffering, and these events of suicide could very well happen again and again to the point where there will be more victims of this war after their return than before.

I also heard from others before. Just this week I heard from the National Council of Veterans Associations in Canada, Brian Forbes, and last week Canadian Veterans Advocacy through Michael Blais that things have to be done now. I'm concerned, frankly, that by the time this study is over, by the time it's prepared, by the time the minister receives it and responds to it, far worse things are going to happen.

Do you believe that things can be done right now to start changing this? What I'm hearing is there's a wrong culture right now with the bureaucrats. They are more like an insurance company that wants to deny a claim for whiplash in a motor vehicle accident, and it shouldn't be that way. You shouldn't have to prove your claim. You're injured. That's it.

Can you respond to that?

[Thomas MacEachern]

I think you've stated it eloquently. Certainly from the position of people on this side of it, that's what it feels like.

One other veteran who prepares these claims for other Afghan vets did seven tours over there and he, himself, became PTSD-diagnosed after seven. He now spends his time preparing pensionable award claims for other veterans who are coming back and he describes it as a battle. He says the battle now is at home and the battle is to get care for these people.

You have to do the paperwork first and it takes a minimum of three months. I was reading a website the other day on the veterans and what they consider to be a successful turnover rate of claims is 80% within 16 weeks or something. It was just a staggering number. How can you even benchmark that as a success or have a benchmark like that when you're dealing with this issue, a life-and-death issue?

The best thing I've read on the subject in the last while was testimony here, I believe it was the March 7 session. I think it was from the NATO veterans association, which said you need crisis response teams.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

And we need it now.

[Thomas MacEachern]

Exactly.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

We ought not to wait before this report is submitted.

I'm seeing everyone nod yes.

[Thomas MacEachern]

How that happens, I don't know, but...

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Yes, Don.

[Don Chapman, Subject Matter Expert, British Columbia, Canadian War Brides]

I come at this in a very different manner. I have been fighting the Canadian government bureaucrats for 40 years. I've written a book on it. I know what's it like to come up against brick walls.

I'm also an airline pilot. If something goes wrong in your cockpit, you don't want to just sit there and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it until you hit the mountain.

This is something that needs to be done now. In essence, these soldiers serve the public, but so do you, and the entire Canadian population is saying, do something about this.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I thank you for that.

I do have one more question, and it's quick.

When I met with the ministry today, they told me there were a little over 7,000 cases that they're managing and they have caseworkers who each have on average 40 people on their load. I worked that out to about 170 people. I see that as overstrained, underfunded, and underqualified. You said, “It's not my experience”. That doesn't help when you're in the middle of this kind of circumstance.

Would you agree, based on your experience with your wife, or any others on the panel, that the caseloads are too high and they're not properly qualified to serve our veterans?

[Melynda Jarratt]

I'd say deal with the problem now and we'll work out the details later. I don't think that you can quantify the value of someone's life. It's impossible. After they're gone, we're going to be dealing with a deck of cards that is collapsing into the ground and it's going to be too late. We need to deal with it now. Let's get it over with.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Yes. Anyone else?

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

I guess everybody's in agreement.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thomas, are you in agreement with that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

You're not allowed to ask, Frank, you're out of time. But if any of them do want to respond, I enjoyed your question very much, but I assume everybody's finished? Or does anybody else—

[Thomas MacEachern]

Just quickly, if I could add, Mr. Chair.

One of the paradoxes of that is a lot of people may bring to the conversation that the last thing we need is more bureaucrats. Yet ironically, yes, I think we need more people in places to be dealing with this. The caseloads are large.

One of the better caseworkers she had indicated that, and apologized. She said she was sorry, but.... And it all goes. There's a rotation, right? Everybody waits their turn. There's no prioritizing. So once you come into the queue, you're in the queue until it comes around. Unless it's an exceptional special case, you wait until your turn comes around and wait until the paperwork's done.

[Ray Kokkonen]

Mr. Chair, could I comment?

There was an interesting article, actually a bombshell of an article, by the Veterans Ombudsman in The Hill Times, I think it was yesterday or the day before, where he actually rebutted a previous proposal by Michel Drapeau and a colleague about changing the organizational structure of VAC. Rather, he said, that the problem is in the front-end application process. By changing that process, we could probably speed up things very much.

Of course, a couple of things he mentioned in there were, first, that even the Canada Revenue Agency accepts certain documents without verification at that time. I think the second comment that stuck in my mind was that Veterans Affairs Canada should assume that most veterans are honest.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Gill, please, for six minutes.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank our witnesses for appearing before the committee and helping us with this important study.

I also want to echo the comments made by my colleagues to Mr. MacEachern. We are extremely sorry for your loss, sir. Words can't necessarily replace anything, but we really feel for you and your entire family in your loss. Thank you for having the courage to appear before the committee and share your experience with us so that we might be able to help others.

I understand that your wife served approximately 23 years in the service. Am I right?

[Thomas MacEachern]

Yes, 23 years over a period of 27, and part of the reason for that is.... She was an exemplary soldier, had extremely good reviews and was listed as promotable. In 1994 while in Germany, she brought forth a case of sexual harassment against her supervisor, and that was the end of her career. She appealed to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and won, and DND was forced to allow her to come back into service.

When she came back into service, she redressed in earnest to get back her position, rank, and pay: denied, denied, and denied. That was part of what led to her ultimate frustration with the service. She had given her entire life and everything to the service. She loved her job. Everything was going very well. It went sideways, and she could never get over that.

Since this happened, I've gone through her personal papers. She had 22 boxes of military documents: her entire career, all the redresses, all the cases, and all the Veterans Affairs studies. There were two large boxes for Veterans Affairs in the last few years. Going over that case of the sexual harassment, I look at it today and I go, “There's no way that this would be allowed to happen today.” But it did then. Essentially, they said, “You know what? We're tired of hearing this. Why don't you just go away?” But once that case was presented, Human Rights turned it around in something like three weeks and said, “Yes, you definitely have a case of sexism here.”

That was the beginning of her difficulties psychologically, and she sought help in DND for stress and anxiety in Germany at the time. It's documented. It's on record. Her release form lists all the things that she had been treated for by the medical people on base during that period of time in five years—she had a five-year posting there—and under “treated for anxiety and depression” was “resolved with counselling”. There was no further follow-up. Then, on her second tour, there was another similar incident while in Kingston. She was based in Kingston at the training school there and had a relapse of depression, essentially. The resolution of that one was to see the padre. There was no further action taken on that later.

Again, those are touchpoints in DND, and this is sort of a separate issue, but those are the points at which, again, early on, there was opportunity, I think, to probably address what was really going on at the back of her mind, although it was pretty obvious to her. She was deeply, deeply hurt by that, and the second phase of her career was all about getting back in and getting restored so that she could get back to where she was. It just...well, it never happened.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

There's a second question I have, sir. You mentioned that she was receiving a pension of roughly $172 per month, I understand. Was that the only form of payment she was receiving from the government?