Veterans Affairs Committee on June 19th, 2023

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

That's a huge portion. Just going back to that, I know that right now, but not today, our committee is actually doing a study on women veterans. When it comes to dealing with women, you already talked about how there seems to be a bit of a longer period of time for whatever reason and that it is not clear. I'm just wondering, in terms of the cases, whether you have a sense of how many women veteran files you have. Is there a particular pattern with women?

[Christopher McNeil]

I can tell you that about 16% of our files are for women. Part of what we are dealing with is a historical disadvantage that women have faced. If we look back and take responsibility, we see that women were denied at a higher rate. They were withheld. They got partial entitlement at a higher rate. For example, in my experience, pregnancy may be a risk factor in just about half of the conditions. Often, if a woman was pregnant, part of her entitlement was withheld even though, when we look at it objectively, the evidence doesn't necessarily suggest.... Women have faced a harder burden. Our experience has been that they tell us—and it's true—that they interact with a medical system that is essentially made for men. That has been the challenge. I don't think there's anything particularly different in the nature of the claims. They make claims for back injuries, neck injuries, leg injuries and PTSD. They have all the same types of files. It is about how they interact with the system and how they have been treated on those files; for example, not necessarily being seen as combat when in fact they were combat veterans.

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

That's really interesting. We had a veteran here last week who was saying that it would be good if we actually saw that recognized in terms of women's claims. It's just to understand the history of women serving and to modify the process so that women are acknowledged for that. It sounds as though you're seeing a very similar thing and actually making decisions that prove that is the case.

[Christopher McNeil]

We're tying to understand their experience and adjust our approach to that experience, recognizing that the system is not necessarily the same.

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

Thank you.

How many of the cases that VRAB has involve minority veterans groups such as the LGBTQ2S+ community or indigenous veterans?

[Christopher McNeil]

We don't have those stats. I can't give them.

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

What's the barrier to having those stats? You have stats for francophones and stats for women.

[Christopher McNeil]

We have francophone stats primarily because we have francophone hearings or English hearings. Gender has always been collected, but we don't always have collected. I'm sure if you dug down deep enough into some of the records, they're probably there if they self-identified. We are a small organization and we tend to get our stats from VAC. If a data point exists somewhere, you could probably get it, but we don't do that.

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

That's interesting.

I think that's my time.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

We're going to start our last round of questions. I'm pleased to invite Mrs. Cathay Wagantall.

Go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Thank you very much, Chair, and I do appreciate your being here, Chair.

I'm just going to take a moment very quickly to put a motion on notice today so that you're aware of it. I'll read it:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs undertake a study of no fewer than 8 meetings regarding the anti-malaria drug commonly known as Mefloquine, Mefliam, Lariam, and other brand names; that the study encompass the complete history of the drug distributed to members of the Canadian Armed Forces...from its first distribution to the present day; that the study consider all aspects of the use of Mefloquine and other anti-malaria drugs by the CAF, including, but not limited to its distribution, pricing, clinical testing, dosing, follow-up, side effects, a review of the latest research, a comparison with the experience of Canada's allies, and other related topics; and that the Committee report its findings to the House.

This committee, back in the day, did a brief study on this issue. We are far behind the rest of the world in acknowledging the damage this drug has done to our armed forces. I think it would be great to do a study. I will just put that on notice, if that's okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

That has been well received.

Go ahead, please.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

I'll go to my questions.

We had a group of women here. I think it was on Thursday. I would say it was the best testimony and the most difficult testimony we have heard to date. It brings up some questions.

I'm going to quote what was said by one of the witnesses, Captain Louise Siew. She's my vintage, so maybe that's why I really appreciate where she was coming from. It's because she has the history. I will read into the record what she said:

As someone who enrolled in 1975, I can state that overall the military, forced into this change in the 1970s, did so begrudgingly and with an unwillingness to accommodate women. They maintained this posture for as long as they possibly could. They proactively dismissed, mistreated, humiliated and even hurt us.

Both policy and culturally based barriers set conditions for abuse and harassment—physical, mental and sexual—and negated our voices.

She went on to say:

The CF needs to account for the conditions of service that women endured in the past and the resulting health and well-being effects.

That's for CAF. She continued:

As well, VAC needs to recognize the impact of this history in their adjudication process for disability claims and in the availability of programs and services to meet the needs of all women veterans.

When you're talking about the dynamics that are different around women, I think this pretty well puts it in a nutshell. Every one of these women faced some form of, if not complete sexual abuse while serving in the military as part of that effort, I think, as she says, to dissuade women from being involved in the armed forces.

We talk about benefit of the doubt. You talk about a lack of evidence and criteria being very much what motivates your responsibilities in dealing with appeals.

In light of the fact that with the current legal case, they are just taking the word of these women who are part of that program as fact for what they went through—because there's no record of this—if VAC moved forward with this, how would that impact information that comes to you for appeals?

Would you find that even now, there are circumstances where you're trying to work through a case and there isn't evidence available in this regard?

[Christopher McNeil]

No. I would say not. I won't say it's judicial notice, but as a country, we have paid significant settlements in recognition that both women in the RCMP and women in the military suffered sexual violence. That's not a question anymore in front of our panels. That's a fact, so when women tell us their story, that's it.

It's also from our perspective.... In fairness, I should say the board participated with Professor Eichler at Mount Saint Vincent University, who did a study that looked at our decisions. We were like the rest of society. Our decisions really suffered from the missed sexual violence...no corroboration, no report, no....

Since the Heyder and Beattie lawsuit, VAC has implemented a number of what I would call evidentiary things—no need for corroboration, a broader lens of what's military, military vet, military.... All these cases now, historically, we probably saw out of 100.... We probably turned over cases that were basically turned over on the same evidence on which they were denied before.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

With military sexual trauma in these circumstances, I would appreciate it if you guys made the effort to go to Thursday's hearing and listen to what they said, because they seemed to face incredible difficulty in getting claims processed that, to some degree, are related to the emotional and mental struggles they face, which are very hard to prove.

I'm concerned that we do everything we can. If there's an area where benefit of the doubt has to be considered, I would say of anything, this would be it.

[Christopher McNeil]

We would agree.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

I appreciate that very much. Thank you.

What I see here in the lack of evidence and criteria that you're talking about that you then have to deal with...I don't want to put you out of a job, but why are these things not being dealt with up front when they are being presented?

If a document is too difficult to read, why is that put into an appeal process? Why is that not dealt with directly so that it can simply move through the system without going through this additional step?

[Christopher McNeil]

That wouldn't be my experience. My experience is that the documents don't exist.

For example, when veterans apply to VAC, they don't have access. When they go to BPA, the BPA tells them they need x, y and z. They get those documents at the front end, but they're not there now. I can't speak to the front end. Maybe there's an education thing out there that would do this.

Essentially, the case gets heard once and you start to see the weaknesses. By the time it gets to us, it gets more focused. We're not deciding certain things. They're just missing that one piece of evidence. That's the advantage of BPA in Canada, compared to anywhere else in the world: free legal advice.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much.

We'll now have Mr. Wilson Miao for five minutes.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today. I'd like to thank you for your patience while waiting for us to vote.

Over the past few years, I understand, the Veterans Review and Appeal Board has been receiving funding, including the $6.2 million you mentioned in your remarks. Also, in budget 2023, there's a proposal of $156.7 million over the next five years.

What do you plan to do with this funding, and is this funding helpful in the effort of assisting veterans and dealing with the backlogs?

[Christopher McNeil]

Of course it would be helpful.

Our plan with this funding is twofold.

One, the minister has the power to appoint what's called temporary members to the board, so we're in the process, for the first time, I think, in the history of this board, of appointing temporary members. In my time as chair.... It's the first time in probably 20 years that we have 25 board members. We've operated with around 20 members and we're in the process of replacing three of them right now. It is about members, but it's also about staff on a five-year plan: Take these cases, process them, eliminate the backlog, and then reduce them.

The board has not seen a lift in its core funding for well over 20 years. The board has suffered from a bit of a structural deficit. That's part of what that funding is. It's to create permanent staff for the board to deal with cases going forward.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you.

I understand a veteran no longer needs to wait for a decision to receive mental health benefits.

How many veterans have applied for the mental health benefit, and is it helping with the wait times?

[Christopher McNeil]

That is a VAC question, because, by the time they get to us....

What I can tell you is this: We do not see many entitlement claims for mental health. What we see is the extent of the disability argument. VAC is granting entitlement on the front end, but they may say the disability is a 40% disability. They're coming to us on that.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to share my remaining time with the parliamentary secretary, Mr. Samson.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Miao.

All three witnesses, thank you for joining us today and thank you for your service.

Mr. Bouchard, I'm going to take this opportunity to further discuss the early resolution pilot project your team has launched. You feel it might help resolve less problematic cases. Could you tell us more about it?