Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 1st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Good evening.

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number two of the Standing Committee on Veteran Affairs.

Pursuant to the order adopted on Tuesday, December 14, 2021, the committee is meeting for a briefing with the Minister of Veterans Affairs, the Hon. Lawrence MacAulay. The Minister will be accompanied by Deputy Minister of Veterans Affairs Paul Ledwell for the first hour. The deputy minister and departmental officials will stay on for the second hour.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely by using the Zoom application.

The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so that you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

Today's meeting is also taking place in a webinar format. Webinars are for public committee meetings and are available only to members, their staff and witnesses. Members enter immediately as active participants. All functionalities for active participants remain the same. Staff will be non-active participants and can therefore view the meeting only in gallery view.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind all participants at this meeting that screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted.

Given the current pandemic situation and in light of recommendations from health authorities, along with the October 19, 2021, directive from the Board of Internal Economy to keep safe and stay in good health, all those attending the meeting in person should maintain a physical distance of 2 metres from others and wear a non-medical mask when circulating in the room. In addition, it is strongly recommended that masks be worn at all times, including when participants are seated in their spot. They must practice good hand hygiene and use the hand sanitizer at the entrance to the room.

As Chair, I will enforce these measures throughout the meeting.

I'd like to thank members and our guests in advance for their cooperation.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of either the floor, English or French. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately and I will ensure interpretation is properly restored before resuming the proceedings.

The “raise hand” feature at the bottom of your screen can be used at any time if you wish to speak or to alert the chair. For members participating in person, proceed as you usually would when the whole committee is meeting in person in a committee room. Keep in mind the Board of Internal Economy's guidelines for mask use and health protocols.

The Clerk is in the room, and he will alert me if anyone wants to speak and I can't see them on-screen.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room, your microphone will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. I will remind you that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

With respect to the speaking list, the Clerk and I will do our best to maintain the established speaking order for all members, whether they are attending in person or virtually.

I would now like to welcome the witnesses. We are honoured to have with us the Hon. Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Veterans Affairs, and Paul Ledwell, Deputy Minister of Veterans Affairs.

Given that we had a vote, we will begin this two-hour meeting at 7:25 p.m. and the meeting will therefore adjourn at 9:25 p.m.

I'd like to tell the speakers that I will monitor their time. When they have one minute left, I will alert them, and when their time is up, I will let them know so that they can end their speech as quickly as possible.

With that, Minister MacAulay, you have the floor for the next five minutes.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be back here at your committee to talk about what our government is doing for veterans and their families.

Since I became minister back in 2019, this committee has done important work in helping us reduce wait times, finding ways to support veterans' organizations and making sure my department is running as smoothly as it can.

I want to congratulate you on your election, Mr. Chair. I know you care deeply about the folks who serve our country in uniform.

It's also important to note, Mr. Chair, that today is the first day of Black History Month. From the western front to operations here at home and around the world, for more than a century, Black Canadians have always been there, and we thank them today.

Before I begin, I would like to take a moment to comment on some of the unfortunate things we have seen in the past few days in Ottawa.

Everyone has the right to protest in this country, but the disrespect shown to the National War Memorial, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the National Aboriginal Veterans Monument was completely disgusting. The National War Memorial represents all those who have served, fought and died for our country. A Canadian soldier was murdered on the very spot, and there were people climbing and celebrating on the tomb of another. To see that from the protestors was shocking, disgusting and a slap in the face to every Canadian veteran. I hope we never ever see anything like that again in this country.

Now, before I take questions, I would like to provide a few remarks.

I know, Mr. Chair, that some veterans are frustrated with the amount of time it takes to get a decision on disability benefit applications. I want them and all of you on the committee to know that reducing processing times is our number one priority. Over the past several years we've hired hundreds of staff, made improvements to the application process and simplified decision-making for some medical conditions. We're making more decisions, and the backlog has been getting smaller.

This includes making progress on francophone applications. We've opened an office in Montreal, with 30 people working exclusively on French applications, and we have an additional five bilingual teams.

We've made good progress—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Excuse me, Minister. We have a problem with your microphone. Can you lower it a little bit, please?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Okay, will do.

We're making great progress, but there's certainly more to do.

As you may know, the department has already received approval to extend some 168 backlog staff, which should help us continue to make good progress on the backlog. We've committed to making the investment we need to make, and we will continue to focus on this vitally important issue.

I also want to point out, Mr. Chair, that budget 2021 included some items that affected the veterans community as it relates to benefits, including a program that will immediately cover mental health care costs for veterans with PTSD or depressive or anxiety disorders while their disability benefit application is being processed. The changes to these regulations are currently out for consultation in the Canada Gazette, and we expect this to be fully implemented by April 1.

Mr. Chair, I know another area of concern relates to case management. Our case managers make sure that veterans with more complex needs receive the support they need. It's absolutely vital work, and we're lucky to have the folks who work on this at Veterans Affairs. I know they're dealing with backlogs and workloads that are too heavy. Over the last few years, the department has considerably increased the number of case managers in order to meet the increased needs of our veterans. As of last November, there were 476 of them in the department. We promised during the campaign that we would hire more, and we will.

To close, Mr. Chair, since forming government six years ago, we have invested more than $11 billion in new programs and services for veterans. We've hired the much-needed staff to ensure veterans are getting the services they need. We're going to continue to do everything we can to make things better for the folks who serve with our flag on their shoulder. There's certainly still a lot more to do.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much, Minister.

Now we are going to the first round of questions.

I start with the first vice-chair, Mr. Frank Caputo. The floor is yours for six minutes, Mr. Caputo.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First off, may I remove my mask? Second, MP Valdez has her hand up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Okay. Great.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you.

I would like to give notice for this motion that I put forward. It's just notice of motion. Here's the text:

That, given the shameful and disrespectful behaviour shown by protesters at the National War Memorial, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the National Aboriginal Veterans Monument, the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs undertake an urgent study to review these actions and that witnesses include the Ottawa Police Services, the Royal Canadian Legion, the Assembly of First Nations Veterans Council, and government officials from Veterans Affairs Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces, and Public Services and Procurement Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

Ms. Valdez, I should tell you that we have received your motion, but as you know, the rules dictate that a notice of motion must be provided 48 hours in advance.

So we cannot debate this motion, but as prescribed in the Standing Orders, we will submit the motions to the subcommittee, which will do what is required. Then we will consider the motion at committee.

We will now pick up where we left off.

As I was saying, Mr. Caputo has six minutes for his questions to the Minister.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thank you for joining us. I intend to ask you questions about caseloads and backlogs.

Minister, you would agree with me that it's obviously important that we provide timely service for veterans and their families, correct?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Yes, sir, I do.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I'm sorry, Minister, but is there a lag between us?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Can you hear me, sir?

Frank, can you hear me?

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Yes, I can hear you. There's just a little bit of a lag, I believe.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Okay.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Minister, part of providing the best care possible is to provide this care within an appropriate amount of time, correct?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Of course that is correct, Mr. Caputo, and that's exactly what we intend to do. That's exactly what I have been working on since I became Minister of Veterans Affairs.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Part of the reason—

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

As you know—

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I'm sorry, Mr. Minister.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

As you know, we've made a number of investments in this area to speed up the application process, and we will continue to make sure that we put additional benefits in place to make sure that this is done in a timely manner. We have decreased the backlog, but as you know, there's much more to do, and we intend to do it.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Minister, if you could make your response proportional to the duration of my question, I would appreciate that, please, with respect.

Minister, you've acknowledged that when caseloads get too high, it can lead to burnout for workers, correct?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Well, of course I would have to let the department indicate what burnout has taken place. I understand that on caseworkers there has not been much of a change. In fact, I believe in the last year there has been less sick time than there was the year previous. That's basically where we are, but—

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Okay—

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

—you are right: We have to work on more caseworkers, and we've indicated quite clearly that we would.