Veterans Affairs Committee on June 12th, 2023

[Maureen McGrath]

We approve, on average, 2,000 new cases a year.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Okay.

Mr. Harris, is medical data collected while people are in the Canadian Armed Forces forwarded to Veterans Affairs Canada?

[Steven Harris]

It is not forwarded without the request being made by the veteran.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

It's just a form to sign. Is that correct?

[Steven Harris]

That's correct.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Okay.

Is there a possibility that this could be done automatically?

[Steven Harris]

The Privacy Act, among others, prevents us from obtaining the veteran's medical record, unless the veteran requests it. In that case, we would be be able to obtain the necessary medical data related to medical problems.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Why, when a person leaves the armed forces, would they not be required to sign the form automatically? Health problems may appear after the veteran leaves, and going back can be complicated for the veteran.

[Steven Harris]

Because many veterans do not need the services of Veterans Affairs Canada. We do not need the medical records of people who are not coming to us to use our services.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

They may not need services when they leave the forces, but effects related to their service may appear later on.

[Steven Harris]

As soon as there is an appearance of disability or illness, we can have access to their file if the person gives us permission.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I understand, but this leads to additional delays for the veteran.

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets and Mr. Harris.

I would like to welcome MP Heath MacDonald on Zoom.

Now let's go to Ms. Rachel Blaney for six minutes, please.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much, Chair.

I did my best to listen to the discussion about SISIP and the criteria.

What would be helpful for me is if we could have both SISIP and VAC share the criteria that they use to determine whether a medical release is related to military service, and if they could divide that between the portions of men and women.

It sounds like around sexual trauma there isn't MST. It's not something that SISIP is looking at. Perhaps you could just write that down on something to us and send it to the clerk. VAC, if you could let us know how many are medically released based on MST, that would be really helpful. I assume, unless you say no, that you're good to do that.

Mr. Harris, I'm going to come to you first.

I understand there is a service delivery branch dedicated for processing disability claims related to MST. I'm just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about how long it's been in existence. Is it a permanent or temporary unit? Are the workers permanent or temporary, and is there a ratio of that? Are the adjudicators medical professionals? It would be helpful.

The last part of that question is this: How many claims are they processing on a monthly basis? If you have daily or weekly numbers, we're open to that as well. Are the number of claims increasing?

[Steven Harris]

Thanks very much for the question. There's a lot to answer in that.

I'm going to ask the director general responsible for that area, Trudie MacKinnon, to do her best to tackle, I think, the seven questions.

[Trudie MacKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Harris. Thanks for the question, MP Blaney.

First off, here at centralized operations division, we established a military sexual trauma unit in 2020 in order to deal with the files that were coming forward in regard to sexual trauma, sexual harassment, and gender-based discrimination in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Since we established that unit in 2020, we have received approximately 3,580 claims over the past number of years. We have done a lot of work with regard to our policies and procedures to address and deal with these types of claims when they come forward.

For example, we have updated our policies to accept the applicant's statement. That means they do not need to provide corroborating evidence. Very specifically when we're dealing with cases of sexual misconduct, that often happens in private. There are often no witnesses to verify or to vouch for the claimant. We have accepted their applicant statement as evidence, and we move forward from there.

In addition to that, we give the MST, military sexual trauma, claims high priority. They go into their own queue, and they are processed on a priority basis. Oftentimes it takes years for applicants to come forward, bring these stories forward to us, and submit their claims. We're very sensitive to that.

In addition, we have done a lot of training with our disability adjudication staff so that they have what we call informed trauma training. The staff is sensitive to the issues that are being brought forward and are able to communicate with our clients in a sensitive and respectful way, because, of course, these issues are very difficult for people to bring forward.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

That sounds great. You've answered about six of the seven questions. It just shows again that women are usually very effective. When men think it's too much, we just get it done.

You didn't answer if it's permanent staff. Is there now permanent staff in it?

[Trudie MacKinnon]

With regard to the unit, it itself is permanent. It has been in place since 2020. It is our intention to keep it in place as these claims continue to come forward. There is a mix of permanent and temporary staff, as is the case in all of our operational areas. Right now there are what we refer to as our indeterminate permanent staff and term staff who work on these types of claims.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Do you think you could get the percentage to us? Of 100% of staff, how many are permanent and how many are temporary? If you could send that to us, that would be great. I would appreciate that so much.

[Trudie MacKinnon]

Absolutely.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Harris, I'll ask you again, and you can decide who answers.

One thing I found very interesting is that I've had a couple of veterans come to me who had issues happen when they were serving in the CAF. They had stuff for their disability, for example, a wheelchair. They transferred to VAC a while ago, and if they still have the tools that they need to survive, which they received at CAF, it seems that VAC sometimes has a hard time actually servicing them.

For example, we had one veteran who actually had to pay for her wheelchair repairs. VAC said that CAF had given her the wheelchair, and they knew she'd been a veteran now for several years, but they didn't cover that.

I'm just wondering if that's a block that you see and what you're doing in your department to fix it.

[Steven Harris]

It's always very difficult to hear about veterans who may be struggling with either getting equipment or getting access to treatment. It's difficult to respond to those specific cases without having some additional detail.

I would say that in general we want to make sure of two things. One is that when individuals are transitioning over and leaving the Canadian Armed Forces and the supports they have there, we have everything in place to support them when they transition to a Veterans Affairs client, for example. We always want to do that.

Sometimes people leave the Canadian Armed Forces in between. There was an earlier question about what happens in between when somebody leaves and maybe doesn't recognize that they have an illness or an injury and they come back to us. That's perfectly fine; we will help to fix it in that case.

The answer is we should always make sure that people have everything in place when they are transitioning from one department—from the Canadian Armed Forces—over to Veterans Affairs. I won't tell you that there aren't instances, as you have pointed out, where maybe something is amiss. We're working to address all of those in individual cases and as a collective to make sure that all policies, programs and everything else are in place to help support people to transition effectively.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Where would that veteran go then? It sounds like you're trying to solve the problem and it's something that, hopefully, doesn't happen frequently.

Where would they go? Definitely one of the concerns was that we were not getting any guidance for how they would get those supports in place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

You have 30 seconds, please.

[Steven Harris]

They should come back to Veterans Affairs. If there are individuals who can't get connected through the department, raise it up to somebody who is appearing here, like myself or others and we will look into the individual case.