Veterans Affairs Committee on June 12th, 2023

[Steven Harris]

Mr. Chair, with your permission, I'd ask Melanie MacDonald to talk about some of the stuff we're doing on gender-based analysis, particularly as it comes to disability adjudication. She can give you some real, practical examples of the kinds of things we're changing and working on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Go ahead, Ms. MacDonald.

[Melanie MacDonald, Team Lead, Disability Benefits Entitlement Eligibility Guidelines (EEG) Modernization Initiative, Department of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Chair, I'm part of a team that is updating our entitlement eligibility guidelines. We currently have 45 entitlement eligibility guidelines. These are policy statements that support decision-makers to render decisions on the entitlement portion. It's that first step of the decision-making process. We also have a team that's working to modernize the table of disabilities.

As part of the modernization of these two key tools that support our decision-makers, we are applying a GBA+ methodology to this. What has happened is that we're looking at what the medical condition is, at the causes of that condition and at whether there are any differences between females, males and other folks that identify as sex- or gender-diverse. We're looking at whether there are differences in the military population and we're looking at age. We're looking a variety of variables that may contribute to a person's developing of a certain medical condition.

One of the things we're really excited about is the very first new EEG that we have published in about seven years or so. It is a new EEG for sexual dysfunction. It's the first EEG, or entitlement eligibility guideline, that is sex and gender inclusive, in that we look at the impact on females and the impact on males. We have consideration in the entitlement eligibility guidelines for the causes of sexual dysfunction, including military sexual trauma—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. MacDonald.

[Melanie MacDonald]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I'm sorry to interrupt. Your time is over.

Mr. Desilets, I invite you to take the floor for a quick two and a half minutes to ask your questions.

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

Okay.

You're not being generous, Mr. Chair.

Ms. MacKinnon, I have a couple of quick questions for you.

You said earlier that sexual trauma claims are given high priority.

What does “priority” mean to you?

[Trudie MacKinnon]

Good morning. Thank you for your question.

Specifically, what that means is those files do not sit in our queue. Once that file is received and we have identified all the information we need, it moves directly to a decision-maker and jumps ahead of other files in the queue, given the trauma and, oftentimes, mental health distress those clients are under. We feel it's important to prioritize those claims. When we receive it and all the required information to render a decision, we move it directly to a decision-maker, so they can process.

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

Okay.

In concrete terms, if someone files a claim tomorrow morning, when will you meet with them?

[Trudie MacKinnon]

We have been processing the claims for military sexual trauma within our service standards. Normally, we process those claims within our 16-week service standard. Now, many of them get processed more quickly than that, depending on the volume of MST claims coming into the system and what we're receiving on a monthly basis.

I would be happy to come back to the committee and provide more detailed information with regard to the turnaround time, but the vast majority are processed well within our service standard of 16 weeks.

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

If it is possible for you, I would like you to give us that information because, to me, “priority” means responding immediately or finding a solution when the problem arises. However, if we are talking about service standards, that is a bit worrisome.

How many people are on your team? Do they hold permanent positions or contract positions?

[Trudie MacKinnon]

Each veterans benefit team is made up of approximately 20 to 25 staff members. That includes intake officers, benefit program officers who adjudicate less complex claims and disability adjudicators, who are all nurses. There are between 20 and 25 on any given team, and that's how many would be on the MST team. They are also, as I mentioned earlier, a mix of both permanent and temporary staff.

I've committed to MP Blaney to come back with the data for that team. Certainly, we'll be happy to do that.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

I would now like to invite Rachel Blaney to take the floor for two and a half minutes.

Please go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think you're always generous, so I can't agree with my friend Mr. Desilets on that.

I have a question about the veteran and family well-being fund.

I'm curious about whether we could get shared with the committee what the criteria are. How many women's groups have been funded since 2018 through this program? How many applications are denied every year? I'm also curious about whether there are particular criteria focusing specifically on women veterans—on organizations led by women veterans for women veterans.

Those things would be very helpful to me. Is that something you could provide the committee with, Mr. Harris?

[Steven Harris]

We can certainly provide the committee with that. We have criteria published on the actual website around the well-being fund itself.

You're quite right that we have prioritized certain groups over the course of the last number of years. I'll let them give you the details specifically. We have prioritized giving funding to groups that support women, indigenous organizations and others, as well— homeless initiatives, for example—over the course of the last number of years, recognizing that these are key areas of priority.

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

Excellent.

One thing that comes up repeatedly in conversations with women veterans is the area of sexual dysfunction. There seems to be concern that there isn't enough support for women experiencing sexual dysfunction. I'm wondering whether we could get the numbers of women and men who have claims in for sexual dysfunction, to give us an understanding.

I'm also curious whether there's any work being done within the department to explore how to make this a bit more acceptable for women and more inclusive, so women feel they can come forward. I'm hearing that a lot of women are being told it's not something that is taken care of. It's not something that's considered.

I'm wondering whether any work is being done to educate women and do outreach to women veterans on this issue. If I could get those stats, as well, that would be helpful.

[Steven Harris]

We can certainly give you some of the stats with respect to that.

With respect to the work that's under way, Melanie was speaking to that a bit earlier around one of the eligibility entitlement guidelines that has been modified on this. We are continuing to work in that area.

Unfortunately, I don't think we have the time to go into much detail about it, but if we're allowed, I would certainly ask Trudie and Melanie to speak a bit to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Blaney. I think you're watching your time so very effectively.

Mr. Rogers, you have three minutes. After that, Mrs. Wagantall will have three minutes to end the session.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Given the short time, I just have a couple of quick questions.

What are some of the most common misconceptions by veterans, particularly women veterans, about services and benefits that are available to them post-service? How can we improve communications to ensure these veterans know about what options are available to them? Is there anything more we can do to make sure they know exactly what's available to them as they transition?

[Steven Harris]

I don't know that I would call anything a misperception if somebody is feeling a particular way around the supports they're getting. That's a valid point.

Clearly, in the past, we had some difficulty in making sure we could make decisions and make advances equally on issues of importance to men and women veterans, because we saw male veterans coming forward to us in large numbers, but not so much in the case of women veterans. It's taken some time for us to do that.

Trudie and Melanie are amongst the people in the department who are working very diligently to make sure all issues with respect to women veterans are being addressed with importance. We've taken this seriously from a gender-based analysis approach. We look to review programs and make sure there's no discrepancy and no difficulty in terms of the eligibility for a woman veteran who might be coming forward.

I would just say, “Please, do come forward. Come and see us. Come and talk to us. Even if you feel as though, for some reason, a friend or a colleague has not been able to get the support he or she was looking for, please do come forward and see us.”

We are continuing to improve our processes. We want veterans to come forward and get the help they may need and that we can offer. We want people to come forward.

The biggest ask and what we continue to do is certainly try to encourage people to come forward to make that process as easy as possible.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you.

There are misconceptions or misunderstandings. In a lot of cases, we heard witnesses in the past make certain statements about not knowing exactly what was available to them.

Do they understand what's maybe available to their spouses and the rest of their family members?

[Steven Harris]

As part of any transition process, we do transition interviews with the serving member, male or female, woman or man. Often, we invite their families to come and join, and their spouses in particular, so they can be aware of not only the benefits that are available for the veteran but the benefits that are available for the families in terms of supports as they help to ensure that the veteran is doing well and that the veteran's well-being is in a good position.

We also work with the Canadian Armed Forces on a whole range of services that are in place to help support the families through places like the military family resource centres.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

That's good to hear, Mr. Harris. Thank you very much for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

I now invite Mrs. Wagantall for three minutes, please.