National Defence Committee on Oct. 25th, 2016

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Often I will see a constituent who has medically released, and of course they're waiting, and they express frustration over the fact that they've been medically released for a condition that they acquired in the performance of their duties, yet when they go to apply for the Veterans Affairs benefits they have to fight for them.

On the one hand, they're being released because of this injury incurred in the performance of their duties, and then they have to convince Veterans Affairs that it was actually a duty-related injury. There may be prejudices on one side or the other, pecuniary decisions that have to be made.

In your opinion, what entity would be the best to determine whether or not the injury is performance related? They're going through two adjudication processes. How can we have one medical adjudication process?

[Gary Walbourne]

Well, that goes right back to the core of my report. When a member presents themselves with an injury or a malady, the first thing we fill out is a form called a CF 98. On that form there's a place to say where the accident or the injury happened and what the member was doing at the time. I think that clearly establishes that it happened on the job and that the person was doing a sanctioned Canadian Armed Forces activity.

That's adjudication. I really struggle with the logic I see being applied, that we know this and that the member is headed towards the breach of universality of service and is about to be released. We're releasing them for a specific reason, and we know when, where, and how it happened, but yet we'll send it to Veterans Affairs Canada and wait for an adjudication.

I wish I had a clear answer to your question. I'm not quite sure whether I understand this.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

What, if anything, should be the surgeon general's role in determining what the injury is and how the claim should be applied to benefits through VAC?

[Gary Walbourne]

As I've said before, I believe the surgeon general's shop, because all medical officers reside in that entity, can do the adjudication of service. We don't have to send this to VAC.

I also understand, and I'm sure you will hear, that there are complex cases and there are operational stress injuries that manifest themselves many years down the road. I don't expect the surgeon general's shop to handle those. I believe there will always be a need for an adjudication cell at Veterans Affairs Canada to handle those types of cases. Those that are extremely complex will require multiple medical reviews or will involve an operational stress injury that manifests itself many years later.

We have about 1,500 members medically releasing a year. I think about 600 to 700 of those releases are attributable to service. I'm not talking about handling 60,000 cases a year or 11,000 cases a year. If we go after those medical releases attributable to service and all who are medically releasing, the maximum is 1,500.

When I say that, people say it's going to generate a lot of work. I'm not quite sure I understand that either, because we've been giving this member medical assistance and programs and help and aid all along the way. We've managed that piece of the career. Contrary to popular belief, when a soldier becomes ill or injured, the Canadian Armed Forces do good work. They pull out every stop. The chief of the defence staff has recently said, and he has said it multiple times, that he would like to return as many people to work as possible. In order to do that, there's a very rigorous program wrapped around these ill and injured soldiers.

That's my position. I think we have full control. I think we can clearly see what the end of the day looks like.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Mr. Garrison, the floor is yours.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's a fortuitous day for you to appear before our committee. It's not only Navy Appreciation Day on the Hill, it's also Rainbow Day on the Hill. I have some students here shadowing some of the six out gay MPs today.

I want to echo the thanks for the work you do as ombudsman and for your focus on practical solutions that will actually make things better. I think you've done an enormously important task in getting your office focused on this area.

I want to ask you about something to start with today that is very specific, which I have discussed with you in the past. That's the situation we have remaining in Canada whereby thousands of Canadians who served honourably in the Canadian Forces were discharged based on their sexual orientation or gender identity up to 1992. Those Canadians, many of them still alive and still in the workforce, carry dishonourable discharges.

My question is about the competence and jurisdiction of your office. Could you, if you were asked, deal with the question of revising service records for those who were dismissed on that basis?

[Gary Walbourne]

This office was created in 1998, so I have full discretion to decide what I'll investigate from 1998 coming forward. For anything prior to 1998, I need ministerial approval to do it.

To answer your question, we have done pre-mandated investigations, Valcartier being the most recent example. If I were asked to look at this particular investigative piece, yes, our office stands ready to help in any way we can.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

You already deal with those who appeal against the conditions of their discharge. It's a kind of case you would already deal with. The question here is simply the date of these cases.

[Gary Walbourne]

Exactly.

For anything from 1998 forward, we have dealt with similar types of cases.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

In your preliminary look at this question, do you have some sort of estimate of how many people might be impacted by a revision of those service records?

[Gary Walbourne]

No, I'm sorry. I don't have that information.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I know there have been estimates of between 800 and 1,000 people who are still active. The practice ended in 1992, some 20 years ago, but many of those people who were discharged were in their twenties at the time of their discharge. They're still in the workforce carrying a dishonourable discharge from the Canadian Forces.

I wonder, from your experience, what the impacts are on those who have a dishonourable discharge from the military.

[Gary Walbourne]

Well, there is a negative connotation that comes with it. Sometimes people will experience difficulty in finding other employment. There is a personal burden of shame carried because of it, and because of those types of behaviour, people are not very quick to speak well of the Canadian Armed Forces.

We have an amazing organization. Do we get it right all the time? No. I think that when we have the opportunity to correct past mistakes, we should take advantage of it.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thanks very much. That's very encouraging.

What I would like to do at this point, Mr. Chair, is give notice of a motion that I intend to move in the committee. I'm sorry that due to some technical questions I don't have copies to distribute, because the clerk has had to help me with the form of the motion.

The motion reads:

That the Committee recommend that the Honourable Minister of National Defence authorize the National Defence and Canadian Forces Ombudsman to revise the service records of LGBTQ members of the Canadian Forces who received dishonourable discharges from the military based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

That's a motion that will be circulated as a matter of course and that I will bring forward.

I think what we've heard from the ombudsman is that his office stands ready to do this work. I think it's important work for us to do.

Something you said really resonated with me: that this is a matter of justice for those who received the dishonourable discharges, but also a matter of the image of the Canadian military, and that this would be a positive thing for the Canadian Armed Forces to do.

If this came to pass, would it place a burden on your office that you wouldn't be able to handle, or do you think that if, let's say, there were 800 individual cases to review, your office would be capable of doing it?

[Gary Walbourne]

It would be much like any other systemic review. We plan flexibility in our organization so that we can do what we've planned in the business plan, but also have the ability to adapt and respond to any ministerial directive we may receive.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I'm putting the motion before the committee because I wrote to the Minister of National Defence on May 12 asking him to authorize the ombudsman to take this action. I have received no response from the minister. That's why I'm putting the motion before this committee. I'll do it at the next opportunity.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison.

I'm going to turn the floor over to Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Walbourne, for coming today.

I want to follow up on what Mr. Garrison was talking about, because I think it will help at least my deliberative process. How long do you anticipate an undertaking like this would take, if there were roughly 800 cases to review?

[Gary Walbourne]

That would depend greatly on access to the files and how quickly I can get a response back from the department. Usually there is never a problem. Some of these files are going to be quite old. We may have to go back to the archives to get them. That would be the biggest delay I could see. Other than that, we would just wrap a systemic plan around it.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Have you done anything like this in the past in which you've had to go back, when it was authorized by the minister to do so?

[Gary Walbourne]

Valcartier would be a prime example.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Okay.

I'm just going over the statement that you made. You made an interesting comment in saying, “I have long held the position that outdated policies and procedures hinder the engagement of capable and committed personnel.”

You talked about the one example involving the home equity assistance program, and I have a question about that. Before I go there, can you give some more examples of policies or procedures that you're concerned about, maybe some of the most outrageous ones or ones that made you wonder how they were ever in existence?

[Gary Walbourne]

I wish I could give you a straight answer, but here's where we come from. If you read any policy in isolation, it makes pretty good sense, but when you put it in time and context and add the other contributing policies around it, it becomes convoluted.

It's not any one policy that's causing me problems, but when you look at a policy that's had a piece bolted on to it because we went into a different theatre of operation or we have a different type of veteran today.... It's when you start doing these bolt-ons that policy gets very complex and very convoluted.

As the lady was saying, we mapped out the release process this year. It's the first time it's been done. It's absolutely convoluted, but any point and box in that process made sense at that point in time; it's the totality that's causing the problem. So I can't give you any specific—

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

You don't have an example of when a policy has been bolted on to another one?