National Defence Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2024

[Peter Hammerschmidt]

That's a great question. I think I might have only a partial answer to that.

In acquiring property, we have authorities. We can do some of that ourselves, but we also normally work with PSPC quite closely. The extent to which PSPC and Defence would be involved in explaining the potential use of those properties I think depends on what the potential use might be.

I can only assume that we do have processes in place to engage local stakeholders if there will be military activity there. We do that now in almost every context. Bases communicate regularly with local stakeholders around activities. When there are operations and training exercises, we communicate with Canadians. In the context of a purchase or an acquisition of land for the purposes of military installation or activities, I imagine we would be communicating.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Yes. It's an unfair question, but having said that it's unfair, it's also significant in a number of contexts where the military is a huge presence in any community.

With that, I want to thank you on behalf of the committee. This has been very informative and helpful. We appreciate it.

We will suspend.

Mr. Powlowski, you need to do your testing. You can do that while we're suspended.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I call the meeting back to order.

For the second hour, from Veterans Affairs we have Steven Harris, who is with us physically and not virtually, from the service delivery branch; Shawn MacDougall, senior director, strategic planning and oversight, by video conference; and Nathan Svenson, acting senior director, disability and health care policy, also by video conference

Thank you, gentlemen, for your presence here and for your patience.

Mr. Harris, you have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Steven Harris, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Service Delivery Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs]

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for inviting Veterans Affairs Canada representatives here today to speak briefly about our role in supporting Canada's veterans.

As noted, I'm Steven Harris. I'm joined by my colleagues Shawn MacDougall and Nathan Svenson from Charlottetown.

First of all, let me say that the brave individuals who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces deserve our utmost respect and admiration. Their work is difficult and demanding, and it is often carried out in dangerous conditions.

Our gratitude alone is not enough. We also have a duty to ensure that Canadian veterans and their families receive the care and support they deserve. This is our collective responsibility.

Veterans Affairs is responsible for providing a full range of services that meet the unique needs of veterans and their families.

The department fulfills this mandate through the delivery of a variety of programs and services. Chief among them is the disability benefits program, VAC's largest program. This program provides compensation for permanent disabilities arising from service, and serves as a gateway to access other supports that help veterans deal with the impacts of these disabilities throughout their post-service lives.

Under the disability benefits program, applicants can apply for benefits for any medical condition they feel was caused by their service. This commonly includes conditions such as hearing loss, mental health issues, diseases such as cancer, respiratory issues and other physical conditions. VAC recognizes that Canadian Armed Forces members may have been exposed to environmental hazards during their service.

It is important that I highlight for the committee that VAC provides benefits for the impact of military service on a member—for example, a medical condition caused by exposure, as opposed to the exposure itself.

When veterans apply for disability benefits, they explain to the best of their ability how their current medical condition was caused by their service. The department confirms the medical diagnosis with a health professional and reviews each application, as well as the applicant's service and medical records, on a case-by-case basis to confirm that the applicant's condition is related to their service. For all types of conditions, the department considers both established and emerging research on the causes of the specific medical condition. This research is essential in establishing a causal connection between the service experience and a medical condition.

Health professionals and researchers at VAC convert studies on exposure in particular geographic locations, and in particular Canadian Armed Forces occupations, into a streamlined process that establishes a link between military service and certain conditions. In doing this, we alleviate some of the administrative burden veterans face when seeking benefits and services.

In order to improve our understanding of the long-term health effects and impacts of military service on veterans, VAC has ongoing collaboration, as you've just heard, with partners such as the Department of National Defence, Statistics Canada, veteran stakeholders and university-based researchers. Research is under way to examine cancer incidents among veterans by leveraging historical Canadian Armed Forces and human resources data, and the Canadian cancer registry. This research covers an important period of several decades and will inform disability benefits decision-making for veterans and their families. The collection and assessment of data and new research on Canadian veteran populations are essential in helping us expand our understanding of links between military service—including exposures—and certain medical conditions.

Finally, VAC is the current lead for a Five Eyes veterans research committee working on military exposures, which has performed a review of military exposure data sources from across countries. It is our hope that, through this continued collaboration, we will further improve our understanding of the impacts of exposures in military service.

We look forward to your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Mr. Allison, you have six minutes.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your opening remarks, Mr. Harris.

I understand what you're saying. When it comes to compensation, you look at a variety of things going on, and you understand what has gone on before. You take the cases individually.

If support is provided, what kind of envelope does the funding come out of? Is that in addition to what you have at VAC right now, or is it a different envelope? Is it something you have to go back to the government for, if you discover there are more issues or one-time payments—those kinds of things?

[Steven Harris]

At Veterans Affairs, we have a quasi-stat approach for funding. That means we are funded by the Canadian government to respond to and compensate as many veterans coming forward in a given year and qualifying as eligible for our programs as we can. When we speak about the disability benefits program, whether one, 10 or 10,000 veterans come forward in a given year seeking access to compensation for exposures, injuries or illness they've suffered as part of their service, we will have that money from the Government of Canada.

We have an estimate at the start of the year as to how many we think might come forward and how much money we might need. Through things like supplementary estimates and others, we can go back and get more money if needed, if we're processing more applications than is typical, or if we're seeing more applications than is typical.

It's a funding envelope that is flexible to allow us to compensate veterans who are deemed eligible for the program.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

You alluded to this in your remarks, and I will get you to expand a bit to understand what's going on with veterans and the potential: Obviously, if it's been discovered or talked about in the news, you guys almost have a matrix of things you're expecting to come up, something that's required to have services for.

[Steven Harris]

Again, we've been doing disability benefits for veterans of wars and Canadian Armed Forces service for nearly a century, compensating those from the First World War right through modern-day service. We've been exposed to a range of issues over that period of time, and we've built a model. We have a table of disabilities and supports in place to help veterans who come forward seeking our assistance.

We know approximately how many we might expect in a given year. That number has increased on a regular basis. It goes up by about 10% every year. We've seen about a 75% increase in applications to our programs since 2015, and that goes up annually by about 10%.

Who comes forward and with what kinds of conditions varies a little. We may have, as I noted, increases in applications for mental health benefits. That's been significant over the last number of years. We still deal with a number of physical illnesses or injuries. As a result of that, exposures are something we would look at to see whether or not there are increases in those areas and what we can do to help streamline the process for veterans and our own assessors, in order to make sure those decisions can be made as quickly as possible.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Is my time up?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You're at just over two minutes.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

Thank you. I'll give my time to my colleague.

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

What is that hard number? You said it increases roughly 10% per year. What is the hard number of veterans who are in the program at the moment?

[Steven Harris]

I don't think I have that exact number with me.

I'll ask my colleague. He might have the exact number of people in the disability benefits program.

Shawn, do you have it?

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Could you also have [Inaudible—Editor]?

[Shawn MacDougall, Senior Director, Strategic Planning and Oversight, Department of Veterans Affairs]

I don't have the exact number of recipients, but last year, we received around 80,000 applications.

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Okay. Do we have a geographic distribution of that number from B.C. to the...?

[Steven Harris]

We have a list by province of clients who have submitted applications or people who are established within the Veterans Affairs program. We can certainly share that with the committee, if that's okay, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Are the health care services provided locally billed back to Veterans Affairs?

[Steven Harris]

There are differences existing where there are service relationships to injuries. Veterans Affairs pays for a number of medical services that support veterans in that case.

If you think of something like a mental health benefit, when somebody might seek counselling from a psychiatrist or something, Veterans Affairs would pay for that cost. There are also costs that are paid for as part of the regular Canadian health care system.

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Regarding something specific in relation to exposure to contaminated sites, what is the proportion of claimants who are looking for health care services as a result of being exposed to contaminated substances versus mental health services?

[Steven Harris]

Compared to mental health services, I'd have to go back and look at that number.

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

With 80,000 people in the program, how many claims do we think are related to contamination?

[Steven Harris]

Exposure claims are likely to be far smaller. We had a large number of veterans coming out of Afghanistan who came forward and sought mental health benefits. That's very clear.

Exposure and cancers related to military service are much more rare as we see them in terms of applications in the system. As it's been noted, we see applications for conditions. The condition may be cancer, rather than the actual cause of exposure, so we don't necessarily track it in that exact same way.

However, the number of applications that come in for things related to exposure—respiratory problems, cancers and things of that nature—is significantly lower than mental health.