Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 4th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Shipley, when you finished off last, you indicated you maybe had more questions. So five minutes for you, if you like—

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

Thank you.

A quick clarification. In terms of the Commonwealth Ombudsman, it's broken down into six, and the Defence Force Ombudsman covers the veterans and the national defence, or what we would call the Canadian Forces or the military. So it covers both. Is that how how it should be read?

[Roger Winzenberg]

The ombudsman wears the hat of Defence Force Ombudsman as well as the Commonwealth Ombudsman. In terms of the way the office is structured, the senior assistant ombudsman who looks after the defence matters also looks after veterans affairs, the Veterans' Review Board, and I think the other agency within the defence portfolio is the defence housing authority.

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

Of those six that they look after, is there any way of breaking down the proportionate amount that would go towards the veterans, the ex-service, and those who are serving now? You have six components. Is there a breakdown of the workload that goes to each of those?

[Roger Winzenberg]

I did get some preliminary figures. Within the national office in Canberra there's a small team that looks after the defence matters, and that's of the order of four to five people. Within each of the state offices there are also investigation staff that do on-the-ground work. So it would be an addition of the state office staff and the core group in Canberra. I don't have the exact number, but—

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

Yes, but those would be available. Okay.

Do you have a bill of rights in Australia?

[Roger Winzenberg]

No.

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

Part of what we're developing, as this committee, is a bill of rights, following through with the commitment that we had as a government. We wanted to see that the veterans had an ombudsman, not unlike what our Canadian Forces and other groups have across the country, so we've been going through this process. I think pretty much everybody is onside now, and we just need to do it right. So I was just wondering if part of the bill of rights was something you had in Australia or not.

We have a Veterans Review and Appeal Board , which has had a fair bit of discussion about how it operates, actually. You also have a review board, a Veterans' Review Board. What percentage of the workload of the ombudsman is related to the review board? You may not know the answer to that question, but I want to have on record the idea of the percentage of work that goes into the ombudsman, that goes towards the appeals that come out of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, and the process of getting through that board.

[Roger Winzenberg]

As I said in my introductory remarks, the ombudsman has no jurisdiction over the merits of decisions that come out of the Veterans' Review Board. The ombudsman only looks at issues of process and administration--i.e., systemic issues.

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

That's what I'm trying to get at with the process.

[Roger Winzenberg]

There were no complaints last year, 2005-06, about the Veterans' Review Board, and the year before there were two complaints. As I understand it, complaints are in the order of one or two per year.

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

Around the Veterans' Review Board.

[Roger Winzenberg]

Yes.

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

That's good to hear.

Do you go to the veterans and get any type of feedback that would say if the ombudsman is performing a good job or if the ombudsman is not performing satisfactorily? Is that well accepted and something that is seen to be very worthwhile in Australia?

[Roger Winzenberg]

I think the Commonwealth Ombudsman conducts his own stakeholder or client satisfaction surveys. I don't have any feeders on what's come out of that. As the Department of Veterans' Affairs, we conduct client satisfaction or veterans surveys in the same way vets do here, and our figures are similar. They're running at the low 90% mark. Given the low number of complaints the Australian ombudsman receives in relation to the Veterans' Review Board, it is fairly indicative that this set of arrangements is working reasonably well.

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

You have relayed that there are 330,000 vets in Australia. We have the traditional veterans of World War I and World War II, but not many from World War I are left. Then we have what we call the modern-day veterans. How have you distinguished between and been able to deal with the two? It was brought up earlier by one of my colleagues. How do you differentiate between the requirements, needs, or services the modern-day veteran will have and what the traditional veteran would have? Is that a big issue in Australia? Is that something the ombudsman has to deal with very often?

[Roger Winzenberg]

Within the Department of Veterans' Affairs, we have a specific policy area that concentrates on that and we use the term “younger veterans”. That group looks at the needs of the younger veteran group, what their requirements are, and how they differ from the older veterans. They provide advice to the minister on what policy directions or settings are needed to address the concerns of the younger veterans.

There is anecdotal evidence that the younger veterans are probably more aware of their rights than the older veterans and they're probably more likely to assert those rights than the traditional veterans.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you very much, Mr. Shipley.

Now on to Mr. St. Denis, for five minutes.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Winzenberg, for being here. It's extremely helpful.

A quick question to start. I noticed on page 2 the three major statutory roles. The third is compliance auditing. Is there an Auditor General position as well in the government?

[Roger Winzenberg]

Yes.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

This is additional to that.

I was struck by the statistic that there were in the order of 250 complaints from Veterans Affairs' clients versus some 17,000 general complaints. That says there are not a lot of veterans in relation to the total population or the Department of Veterans' Affairs is doing extremely well or they are too shy to come forward.

What is the veterans population in relation to the total population?

[Roger Winzenberg]

The veterans population is around 330,000 out of 20 million.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

So that's significant.

[Roger Winzenberg]

It's probably more significant than your 220,000 out of 30 million or 32 million.

I think the Department of Veterans' Affairs does do a good job, and that's evidenced by the high satisfaction survey ratings the department gets. Normally, most issues between the veteran and the department are sorted out within the department or through the Veterans' Review Board without needing to have recourse to the ombudsman.

Like the Canadian Department of Veterans Affairs, we also have a very good relationship with the veterans and the veterans organizations. We work in partnership with them and there's mutual trust on both sides. So it's this sort of environment we work in, and I think that's why there's such a low level of complaints.

If you contrast that with our social welfare agency, which I think makes up the bulk of the 17,000 complaints--I think they account for 8,000 to 10,000 of the 17,000, somewhere in that order--where there's not that sort of partnership or—