Well, thank you for letting us speak tonight.
My name is Jim Scott, and I am the president of the Equitas Disabled Soldiers Funding Society, referred to as Equitas, which is a non-partisan organization supporting a lawsuit going through the Supreme Court of British Columbia by returning veterans of the Afghan war who claim that they have disproportionately low benefits under the new Veterans Charter compared to those under the Pension Act or their counterparts in the province under the workers compensation program.
The main issue is a true disability pension for soldiers with claims under the new Veterans Charter.
Over a lifetime, disabled soldiers are financially disadvantaged when you compare them to those served by the previous Pension Act or their counterparts with provincial claims. To make this determination, we have looked at approximately 200 files provided to the law firm of Miller Thomson, which works on this case pro bono. We see their actual benefits, not the benefits that are promised often to committees by Veterans Affairs Canada, and we see that many of these veterans are denied the benefits that are promised to politicians from Veterans Affairs Canada.
Now, to go back in time into these halls here, disability pensions in Canada started in 1914 provincially. By 1919 they were extended to the military. Disability pensions ensure income. They are not taxable, they are not subject to clawback, and they equal the gap between what individuals would have made if they were healthy and what they are going to make with their disability. This had been a Canadian tradition for 100 years, up until 2006. In return, the Canadian worker and the military are not allowed to sue for greater benefits, so soldiers are not allowed to sue under the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act. That has been a tradition of Canada for 100 years; however, that tradition has changed, or an attempt has been made to change it.
The main difference between the provincial programs and the federal programs is that the provincial programs are funded. The federal program isn't, and that's why I'm here asking for money.
There is no program to pay for the disabled soldiers when they return from Afghanistan, because we don't have a fund. It comes out of a budget. Therefore, there's tremendous pressure on Veterans Affairs Canada to trim, to deny, to reduce the amount of money in each budget, and they do a good job.
The position is that there is no pension and that we have to reduce the cost, but Canadians do not agree. In fact, great promises were made during the last election to restore pensions. The problem for the new government is the cost. It's also the fact that a lot of these pensions are based on post-traumatic stress, which many people don't believe is real. There's also a need to keep civil servants working in Charlottetown, administering complex programs instead of a one-off pension that needs little administration. There's a mistaken belief that if you give young 20-year-olds a bunch of money, you're helping them. This has proven not to be correct.
Given that the new veterans benefits are not the same as a true disability, the soldiers took the Government of Canada to court. The power of the government was backed by specific legislations saying they can't sue.
The courts saw a different version. They awarded for the soldiers, saying that things have changed so much that they have a case that can be argued. What they said is that this action is about promises that the Canadian government made to men and women injured in service to their country, and about whether it is obligated to fill those promises.
Immediately, the Canadian government appealed that decision, stating that the Canadian government has no duty of care to soldiers. There is about to be a ruling, but as a signal to where that ruling may go, recently the appellate court has allowed new evidence to be entered into its decision. That new evidence is the promises, made during the last election, of pensions for all disabled soldiers. We expect this appellate court ruling within weeks.
In closing, disabled soldiers and men and women injured serving their country should have pensions by tradition. It's a fundamental value. I'm asking this committee to restore the funding that's required to restore that value to our armed forces. If we need cost savings, let's look at how we're administering our programs and the billions of dollars of administration costs. We cannot have cost savings at the expense of actual pensions.
Thank you.