Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 4th, 2006

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

What is the annual salary of the ombudsman? Is it $100,000, $175,000 or $200,000? You can quote an amount in either Canadian or Australian dollars.

[Roger Winzenberg]

I don't have that information, but it's equivalent to a departmental secretary or a deputy minister. In the Australia context, the ombudsman is seen as the equivalent of a deputy minister or secretary, and the remuneration rates are set by an independent remuneration tribunal. If I had a ballpark stab at what the figure would be, it's probably somewhere between $250,000 and $350,000 in Australian dollars. I don't have the precise figure.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

You've given us a pretty good idea of what an ombudsman earns when you say that his salary is on par with that of a deputy minister. We more or less know what a deputy minister earns.

You've answered my question very well. Thank you very much, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

That's five seconds over. That's perfect timing.

We'll now go to Mrs. Hinton for seven minutes.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Welcome. I read your report with great interest. I can tell you from the beginning that I wouldn't want to be the Commonwealth ombudsman. I can't imagine the nightmare of looking over the shoulder of the federal police, the post office, defence, and all the rest of those. That would be a hard job.

One of the things I noticed in here is the difference between a gold card holder and a white card holder. It's mentioned twice, and I'd like a little more detail on it, if I could, please. Could you explain that one?

On the size of your veterans contingent, you named a number in here somewhere. I can't find it at this point in time, but in terms of the number of veterans, do you find your veterans are growing in numbers, staying stable, or shrinking?

[Roger Winzenberg]

In terms of our veteran population, we have around 330,000 veterans. The bulk of them are of World War II vintage. I think the average age is about 83, so we're seeing a decline. I think the projections are that the number will probably decline to somewhere around 200,000 by about 2015. Whilst Australia is involved in what we call “warlike activities” in a number of regions around the world, there's nothing on the agenda that is going to replace the volume of veterans who served in World War II unless we have a World War III or something of that magnitude. So the veteran population is declining.

In terms of your question about gold cards and white cards, in Australia we have a different set of health arrangements from what you have. Under certain criteria, we'll give a veteran a gold card. What a gold card entitles them to is health treatment for any health-related matters, and they don't have to be related to service. For example, take one of the criteria to get a gold card. If you have warlike service—that is, you've served in a warlike theatre of operation, such as Vietnam, since we were in Vietnam and had 50,000 Australians there—when you turn 70, you automatically get a gold card. That covers you for all your health-related requirements, irrespective of whether any of them are related to service or not. That's why our budget for veterans last year was something approaching $11 billion, whereas I think your budget in Canada is something around $3 billion, because we cover all health-related matters.

In terms of the white card, if you don't qualify for a gold card, you get a white card. A white card is like the Canadian system. It only covers you for your war-caused health-related problems.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

One of the other things I noted with interest is the way you get around it. You have your ombudsman reporting directly to the Prime Minister, as your statement said. One of the issues that has been raised by a number of witnesses who have come is the concern about combining defence and veterans affairs, because there are two different ministers. Under our system, with two different ministers, if you were to combine those two things together, the ombudsman would have to have...“masters” is the wrong word, because they're really not going to be masters, but the ombudsman would answer to two separate ministers. Under your system, they answer directly to the Prime Minister. You've had this in place for thirty years now. Would you do it any differently, or would you stay exactly as you are today?

[Roger Winzenberg]

May I just clarify this? The Prime Minister administers the ombudsman's legislation, but the ombudsman still tables his report and reports to the Parliament. In terms of his annual report, whilst he gives it to the Prime Minister, the legislation mandates that the Prime Minister must table that report within fifteen sitting days of receiving it.

The ombudsman, under the legislation, has the power to table special reports, either publicly or into the Parliament, so it's not correct to characterize the ombudsman as reporting directly to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister administers the legislation, but within the legislation, the ombudsman has the power to make reports directly to the Parliament.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I'm fine with that, but what I'm trying to get at is whether the ombudsman actually has any regular interaction with the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and the Minister for Defence. Or does he do his own thing, do his report at the end of the year, and use the system that you've explained here in your presentation?

[Roger Winzenberg]

The way it works is that the ombudsman tries to resolve problems at the lowest level within the agencies. The vast bulk of the problems, as the stats indicate, are resolved fairly informally, normally by phone calls or a quick note from the ombudsman's staff to the relevant agency, as I understand it. This is probably more appropriately a question for the actual ombudsman himself, but there are interactions between the ombudsman and, normally, the heads of agencies where warranted.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

You have one minute.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Shipley, do you have a quick one?

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

Can I just follow up on Mrs. Hinton's question?

In terms of the satisfaction rate, when you have an ombudsman who reports to and actually is committed to six different ministers in terms of the overall reporting, how does he deal with the conflicts that will come because of the overlap between one ministry and the other? An example would be Veterans Affairs and the Ministry of National Defence.

[Roger Winzenberg]

In Australia it's fairly clear in terms of what each agency is responsible for, so as far as I'm aware, there's very little issue with overlap. But you will note in terms of the structure of the ombudsman's office that the group that looks after defence also looks after veterans affairs. So in an organizational sense, like agencies are grouped under the relevant senior assistant ombudsman. But certainly in my experience, we haven't had any overlap or those sorts of problems. If a citizen is not getting a service from a particular agency, it's fairly clear that the agency has that responsibility, and it's fairly clear where the ombudsman needs to go to resolve that issue.

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

I'll maybe come back.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right.

Now over to Mr. Valley with the Liberals, for five minutes.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Winzenberg, for coming today. I apologize for coming in late. Dealing with the media is never easy, and you have to take the time if you want to get elected again.

You're here for 18 months. I hope you won't have to suffer through two winters.

In one of your statements you said that the ombudsman can make special reports to the relevant minister, the Prime Minister, and the Parliament, or release a public report. You go on to say that there's an annual report.

If the ombudsman makes a report to a minister or the Prime Minister, can that become public after? Does it automatically fall within the 15 days of the annual report? If you're dealing with somebody and you make a report to a minister or the Prime Minister, will that become public eventually?

[Roger Winzenberg]

That's purely at the discretion of the ombudsman. The legislation allows the ombudsman to make any public reports that he desires. In terms of the annual report, it's just mandated that when he reports to the Prime Minister as the minister responsible for his department, so to speak, in a public service sense that report must be tabled in Parliament.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

That's part of the conflict we're struggling with here as we try to develop this system--where this individual's loyalties lie. We've touched on the fact that they can be appointed by Parliament, appointed by a minister.

You're saying that he could make a report to the Prime Minister, and he could make that public if he wanted to, after. That leads to the question: Has that ever happened, in your knowledge: that the ombudsman made a report, probably felt not enough action had happened on it, and then actually gone public with it?

[Roger Winzenberg]

I'm not aware of that.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

It would be a bit of a career-limiting move, I would suggest.

He can be reappointed up to seven years, I believe, was the answer there.

[Roger Winzenberg]

That may well be your observation.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

You're being very careful. And that's very good to do, I guess. I'll have to remember that.

You mentioned 17,000-some reports. That's in the ombudsman's office for all of Australia. Would you know if the number is rising in veterans affairs or defence? I'm just trying to see if there's a trend. In Canada, the veterans are becoming much younger. We have a group coming in that's much more aware of the situation, much more aware of their rights and what they can expect and how they can expect to be treated when they leave the forces.

Do you have any idea or indication if there's an increase?

[Roger Winzenberg]

As I said earlier, in terms of veterans affairs, the complaint volume has been bobbing along at the 200 mark over recent years. There was a spike last year because of one particular issue. In terms of the totality of the complaints, from the information I looked at, I think it was running at about 17,000 the year before and a bit below that mark the year before that.

The difficulty in trying to track the volume of complaints is that as successive governments add new functions to the ombudsman, that opens up, in effect, a new avenue for new levels of complaint.