Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2006

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

In your report it says that the ombudsman's position should be reviewed after a couple of years--but reviewed to what end? I'm going to list a couple of things. Are we looking at the success of the office, or the ombudsperson and whether they've been doing a good job? Are we looking at the approach of the office, the satisfaction of the clients, or all of those things together?

The review is as important as the ombudsman, because we have to make sure we're serving veterans. Some thought needs to be put into a review; it needs to be extensive, and it needs to arrive at the goal we all want.

[H. Chadderton]

I think the review would be primarily of the job the ombudsman was doing. If there were flaws in the system he would have to accept responsibility, and there would have to be another study to decide how it would go. The committee was so strong an alternative to the ombudsman because they said that veterans had had enough. By that time they'd waited 30 years for pensions, and widows had waited 30 years for pensions. So the system is not perfect, but it was the way the committee felt we should go. Once the door opened, the committee felt very keenly that this was well worth considering.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you, Mr. Valley.

Now we move to Mr. Lévesque from the Bloc for five minutes.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Chadderton, I want to commend you on an excellent presentation. I would like to ask all my questions at once, and give you my vision of how things should work, and you can answer at the end, since speaking time is more limited on the second round.

Peter, my colleague over here, and myself often find ourselves defending retired veterans in our ridings who are experiencing difficulties. We have to deal with a number of committees. I want to commend you for thinking of the idea of an ombudsman. It is a very good way of addressing the problem of large numbers of appeals and we hope it will result in a more effective process for dealing with complaints.

Be that as it may, you have talked about a two-year term. In that regard, I'm wondering whether an ombudsman would really have time to deal with all the problems associated with resolving appeals. Very often, these are administrative problems associated with the operation of the Act itself. The ombudsman's job would be to resolve these issues, as I understand it.

You are also saying that the ombudsman would be appointed by the Government. Who would recommend him? Have you considered the possibility that a committee recommend to Parliament two or three candidates that you and the responsible departments deem to be appropriate or able to meet the requirements of the position? That committee would agree on the candidates to be screened in and then it would be up to Parliament to make a decision. That kind of process would ensure the ombudsman would be fully independent and retain his credibility with veterans. He would then make recommendations to the Department, rather than actually working for it. He would work for the veterans system as a whole, as I understand it. But if he had to be a middle man between veterans and the Department, he would be caught between a rock and a hard place.

In that sense, in order for the ombudsman to be truly independent, what kind of selection process do you think would be appropriate? And finally, it seems to me we should consider giving him an initial term of five years, so that he has time to restore some order and prove his effectiveness.

[H. Chadderton]

Certainly there was nothing in the report that would work against a five-year period, if that were considered necessary. I think you are absolutely right, sir, in saying that it should come to a committee. Mind you, the members of the Woods committee—and if I may say so, I myself—were fairly familiar with the way Parliament works, although I can't say for sure that in the report you would find the suggestion that it should go first to a standing committee. However, when we talked about Parliament, we were talking, as a first port of call, about a standing committee; I don't think there's any doubt about that.

That would mean that the report I have given you this afternoon would be longer, but we're trying to cut a few corners here.

I can see that a committee could look at this now and ask, what information do we have? Well, we have the Lindal minority report, and so far as we know it has the sanction of the Legion, but maybe not the sanction of the people within the department, because some of them may see their jobs going; I don't know. We certainly are not closing the door on them.

If my nomenclature is wrong, I'm sorry, but what we would have is an ombudsman's office first, which would go through the throes of being exposed, if I can use that word, to the committee system. The committee could then make its report. If the report said yes, and it carried, then presumably we would have all the railroad tracks out for an ombudsman and we'd see where he goes.

There's no magic in the two years, sir. That was just a question of asking how many years we would need. I think the answer was we don't really know, but so that we're not grasping something out of the air, we realized that if it had taken three years for the Woods committee to get to its conclusion, its conclusion would take perhaps another two years, if it's going to work. Who knows?

The whole idea of Canadian veterans' pensions being exposed to an ombudsman is rather new, but once you've said it and have made the decision, then you stand back and ask, what are the results? Is it working or not? It should be clearly understood that after two years we'd look at it. But it's not two years wasted; it's two years to find out that this is not the way to go. I think that's the way we would look at it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you, gentlemen.

Now we'll go over to Mr. Shipley for five minutes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chadderton, I thank you for taking the time to come and to be with us today and, as all of us do, thank you for your commitment, like that of many other Canadians, to our country through the armed forces. It has been exemplary, and we thank you for it.

There's been a fair bit of discussion—Mr. Lévesque brought it up also—about the independent part of being an ombudsman, being an advocate basically for the client, as we may say, and yet reporting back to the minister and Parliament—being an arm of Parliament. I'm wondering if you can help me a little as to how, respecting the ombudsman, we can settle our minds that in fact it really would be a role as an ombudsman for the veteran, whether it's on pension issues or other complaints or issues that would come up for a person.

What can we do to give the level of comfort to the veterans that this would be a spokesperson for them and that in fact this person would deal fairly and adequately with their concerns?

[H. Chadderton]

Naturally I think the level of comfort is very important. What I'm seeing is that if an ombudsman were to come about, then the two-year period would be very important. Having said that, is the ombudsman out there to make certain that the system is fair?

What if you had a situation where the adjudicator had messed things up pretty badly, and the applicant was very unhappy? If the applicant gets to the right track, puts his case there, the ombudsman would be looking at an administrative system. If he felt that despite everything else the system really was working, he'd have to say so. This doesn't mean that's the end of it. That means that in the opinion of the ombudsman, the system didn't work.

That might sound like so much hogwash, but you have to realize that the Woods report was three thick volumes and written by wonderful men, who have all passed on now. Of course Justice Woods was well known and at one time was the president of the Legion. The army was represented by Judge Gerry Nantel, and, of course, there was Mr. Walter Lindal.

I think one of the things we were striving for was a system where the applicant would feel that his case was being handled fairly. That's been one of the big complaints. I have spent a lot of my years working as an advocate, and they've been delightful. Quite often, when you find out what went wrong, you say, well, we have to fix that.

I remember the case of a man who felt he was entitled to a pension, even though he was not enlisted in the army. He wasn't in the armed forces, but he got his day in court, so to speak. That's the kind of thing that establishes an area of discomfort in the system. It soon gets around that it isn't going to work.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Going back many years, you talked earlier about where things got bogged down in committees.

[H. Chadderton]

Yes, terribly.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I think what you're seeing is that this system didn't serve the individuals and veterans well, and that the ombudsman is an opportunity to take a different look at how things could be served.

I just want to go back. We've had veterans reviews, we've had people in, and we know there's a backlog in terms of those sorts of reviews. I'm wondering if you could do two things: give an opinion on the review board and on whether it's still useful.

[H. Chadderton]

Mr. Chairman, may I refer this case to Mr. Forbes, because he's the lawyer?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[H. Chadderton]

He's the one who is in close contact with the people, and he handles all those naughty cases for us.

[Brian Forbes, Association Solicitor, The War Amps]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would answer that quite simply by saying that you have to remember the Veterans Review and Appeal Board only hears cases that affect the Pension Act and the allowances under that act. Under the new regular force charter, the VRAB will not be hearing cases affecting a large part of the department's work in the area of earnings, lost benefits, rehabilitation, job placement.

The role of the ombudsman in that context would be invaluable, because the ombudsman would be the only independent authority outside of the system that would review those types of departmental decisions. The VRAB's jurisdiction has been severely narrowed by the new regular force charter, and even under the old act had nothing to do with health care benefits and so on. Without wandering too far afield, if you're looking at a bill of rights, isn't that a concept that the ombudsman would be looking at as well?

Maybe to answer your direct question, I think the VRAB still has a role with regard to individual disputes, but one of our concerns over the years has been that if you do not get a satisfactory decision out of the VRAB, you're faced now with having to go to the Federal Court of Canada. The Federal Court of Canada has produced, in my humble judgment, a lot of rather bizarre decisions affecting veterans over the last ten to fifteen years.

I would suggest to you that an ombudsman would produce a much more lucid type of decision, hopefully being someone who is more knowledgeable of the veterans field, someone who has a unique knowledge. As a lawyer, going to the Federal Court, putting it badly, is a bit of a crap shoot, because you don't know whether the judge has ever looked at the veterans Pension Act and whether he's going to give you a decision that's going to be helpful for the system.

I've given you a rather long answer, but those are my thoughts.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

No, but that's good. I appreciate that.

I guess I'm done. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you.

Now over to Mr. Valley for five minutes.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, and I don't expect to use all my time, Mr. Chairman.

I have a couple of questions and I'm just going to say some of the things that have been said. The ombudsman would be a non-political appointment, report to whoever requested the information--the minister, a veteran, MP--and would be an independent agent under the Minister of Veterans Affairs. That's the one point I want to make. By recommendation of Parliament is how he gets there, and he can be removed.

Some of that is somewhat confusing to me, and maybe it's because I just got here a little while ago. I don't know that all of that makes sense; we'd have to look at it. Is that the way they do it in the systems where they're successful right now? You mentioned some Scandinavian countries, some countries where they do have ombudsmen, and it is working. It's protecting and helping the veteran, helping the system improve itself, making sure everything works. One of your comments in here is that it's not his job to do the department's work. The department has to do its own work, which I appreciate. Is that the way it works in the successful countries? How did you arrive at some of these recommendations? Are they all in the Woods report?

[H. Chadderton]

Yes, you would find parts of them that you would have to put together and make the jigsaw puzzle make some sense, because we looked at various ombudsmen.

Basically, if you go to Mr. Garner's report, which I included, you would realize that in there is the situation we were faced with, and we're still faced with--that is, he really can't overstep. If the ombudsman oversteps, he's in trouble. And how can you count on him being fair? It's very difficult.

If you use, for example, the case of the ombudsman for DND, the decisions that have come down--one in which I was involved, concerning a group captain, which was successful--there is so much about it that maybe what we're doing here is trading Peter for Paul and neither of them are going to do their job.

We think the ombudsman is worth a try; otherwise the Woods report would never have touched it.

I'm just looking at it very closely, but I did a comment for Mr. Justice Bora Laskin and Chief Justice Brian Dickson, who were looking over my shoulder saying, “Let's make sure that as a reporter you're picking up what we think we're picking up.”

That report was published in the Canadian law review journal and two or three other places. That was going beyond our mandate, and some people didn't like it, I might say. But we really reached a point where we said we have to come up with something. You just can't spend three years of your life and come up empty-handed, because the information we had was a lot more than we had when we started. Distill that information and maybe you're going to get somewhere.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

So we're not really looking for the perfect system. We need a system in place, and then we'll adjust it as we go.

[H. Chadderton]

Yes. In fact, I couldn't have said it better myself.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you.

As just one last comment, there is a lot of good stuff in here, but the part that bothers me is the wording, “under the Minister of Veterans Affairs”. If he's going to be an officer of Parliament or some kind of agent of Parliament, I think that's the part we have to look at, if we want to maintain true independence.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Now we'll go over to Mr. Sweet for five minutes.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Chadderton, I too would like to thank you for your service and for your advocacy for veterans as well.

We've had some witnesses in the past who have challenged just how connected some organizations are to current-day veterans, and so on. So I just want to ask you--and I apologize if it was mentioned--what size is the membership of all the organizations? Do you have an aggregate number for all the organizations that you represent right now on a national--