Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 6th, 2006

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

No, I am finished.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Okay. Over to Mr. Shipley for five minutes.

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

Thank you.

I have a couple of comments, and maybe I'll end up with a question.

I think it's really clear that this committee and this government wanted to move ahead with an ombudsman. You've cleared the road in terms of some of the questions that have come about in terms of the department, in terms of resistance, and in fact the endorsement of an ombudsman by your department. I think that's a great step.

Then I think it's up to us. We have met with a number of witnesses who have given us a variety of comments that have drawn us somewhat down the funnel of understanding what an ombudsman will do and can do, and some of the make-up.

I guess what I'm looking for is this. We do not want to short-cut the options that we have to look at. We have one chance to do it right; we should do it right the first time and not have to come back and redo a lot of things. I think we all recognize that nothing is ever cast in stone, and that there has to be some life to everything we do in terms of changing times as things go on, and we have witnessed that from what we call our traditional veterans to our modern-day veterans. So we must have something that's flexible in terms of what an ombudsman is going to be able to deal with.

I think this committee now has an obligation to make some decisions. We are the parliamentarians. We are the ones who have been gathering this information from a number of people. We will make the decisions, and the minister and the deputy ministers and the administration will carry out and get the resources to put it together.

I guess what I'm looking for now, so that we can move ahead--and I believe we can, because if it slows up, we will be the ones slowing it up. I mean, following parliamentary process, which is a drag at the best of times...but unless we get in the way of it, it will still be possible to move things along. So I think it will be the willingness of this committee to move along.

In listening to our witness, Mr. Hillier, about where it's going to be, where the staffing is, what is going to be required in it, what input do we want as a committee, I think we have to be clear to our department about what we want our input to be, so they can give the options to us.

I'm not going to pick sides on this thing. We're all here for the one objective, and that is to get an ombudsman in place. I think that's been clearly laid out and talked about by everyone, and I think everybody's on side for that.

Mr. Chairman, my question, then, is focused around what is the next step so that we can move ahead, clearly defined by this committee. Have we all the information we want? If we don't, now is the time to ask. I don't think it's fair to any ministry staff for us to send them out and then not give clear direction, because we're the ones who carry that responsibility.

To move to our next meeting and to our next step, then, maybe as a committee, after our witness leaves, we need to sit down and give some clear direction today about what our next step is. We need to move ahead and not become the obstacle, so that it doesn't take five years.

That's all I have to say. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Before we get to that, I think that's the last of our speakers in the rotation.

Yes, sir, go for it.

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

There is only one follow-up question, because you've answered the couple of questions I had, Mr. Hillier. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Mr. Shipley mentioned something that would be appropriate for you to answer. You did mention that you've read through all the transcripts. Is there anything you're missing right now, from the testimony we've gathered, for you to go out and do the job you need to do now?

[Keith Hillier]

No. Certainly what I read in the testimony was that the views were fairly divergent, I think it's fair to say, and some were very passionate. But I think at the end of the day we have to boil it down and say what makes sense and what is doable. You could probably pick some things from each of the presentations that were given here; there were some commonalities, but there were some other things that were fairly divergent. You have to really think about it in the Canadian context and say we want a made-in-Canada solution that is for our veterans.

For example, just to quote Mr. Winzenberg on Monday, he talked about the fact that the ombudsman was created in Australia many years ago. He talked about the size of the population, for example. They made the decision that based on the size of their country, the size of the population, that they didn't want to go with multi-ombudspersons.

That's a decision that the Government of Canada will have to make here, whether they go with multi-ombudspersons; i.e., someone for Veterans Affairs and DND. And there are a number of others around town that you're probably aware of. It has to be something that's going to work for Canada, but more importantly, at the end of the day, that's going to work for veterans and give them the type of representation that they deserve and that they feel will work for them.

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

And last, you've been asked this twice, but I want to make it clear for the record once more, because we've had a number of witnesses.

I also notice from both times in your testimony that you're quite a confident leader as well. Have you not had any resistance at all in the department that you've had to deal with where you may have to rally the troops as far as this initiative is concerned, for one thing because they obviously may feel it's going to be another level of oversight?

[Keith Hillier]

We are a department of 4,000 people. For me to sit here today and say that every one of the 4,000 people are out as cheerleaders of this I think would be an overstatement.

I've been around the organization now for about 12 years so I know most of the players, if I could put it in that sense. I think there is good support for it. I think we're at the point where people are trying to say, before I can say this is a good thing, show me what it is.

In terms of the concept, I've worked in a number of departments of government, I've worked in a number of cities, and I've never seen a group of employees more passionate, more caring, and more focused on their clients. That's not to take away from any of the other organizations I've worked with in the Government of Canada. But I encourage you to meet some of the employees of Veterans Affairs Canada, the front-line people, the pension adjudicators, the case workers. I assure you that you won't find a more dedicated group of people, a more compassionate group of people, anywhere in the Government of Canada, and I've been a few places in my career.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Okay. Now we're over to Mr. St. Denis.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't be long. If there's time, my colleague Roger Valley might ask a short question.

I've been listening carefully, and Bev is right about setting down some benchmarks, parameters. I have a question to you, which I might have asked Betty when we were talking about process.

The committee is going to express its views in a report, but I think it would be also fair to ask--governments do propose--is there a draft...? I wouldn't be offended if there was a draft somewhere in the department or in the minister's office against which the committee can compare. We all agree we want to do the best job we can for veterans, so is there a working document somewhere that we could have access to as we do our report? It may be full of great ideas, and I'm sure it is.

[Keith Hillier]

I'm quite prepared to provide any. Obviously there are certain confidentialities and issues of privacy that I have to respect because it is the law. But certainly any information that is permitted to be released will be released.

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

No, specifically is there a model of an ombudsman and his or her office that the government is prepared to put on the table?

[Keith Hillier]

No.

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

If you're uncomfortable with that, we can discuss it later. I just think governments do propose, and it wouldn't be unusual, as with legislation, for the government to lay something down and the committee respond.

Thank you.

If there's some time for Roger—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Go ahead.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

I'm not sure you can comment on this, Mr. Hillier, but this was provided to me by the researcher. Going back to Mr. Shipley's comments, I don't think--to slightly disagree with you, perhaps--that we have to get it perfect. We'll adjust it if it's not perfect. The idea is to get it in. We'll do the best we can, but it may need to be adjusted.

They gave us the figures for the question we'd asked last week of the Department of Veterans Affairs--specifically, how many requests were there for the ombudsman's service? It averages only about 200 a year. We might be envisioning something much bigger than what we actually need.

We have to build something that serves the needs of the veterans. I don't know what I can say other than that. I had expected the number to be a lot higher, because we'd heard that there were 17,000 requests at the ombudsman's level for all of Australia. Their forces are roughly the same size as ours, but we may have more veterans. I'm not sure how heavy their involvement was in the Second World War.

So it may not be as big as we envisioned, but let's get it going.

[Keith Hillier]

My sense is that, as I responded earlier, this is going to be a bit of the trick of trying to use the best professional judgment. If you look at Australia, though, I believe they established their ombudsman around the mid-1970s. My sense is that there's probably been some levelling off there.

The way that I would probably see this or the way that government programs normally work, whether they be an ombudsman or another service, is that when there's a new service there's usually a higher level of interest. Even if they're not real complaints, people are calling and saying, “I've heard there's an ombudsman, and I'm calling to find out how I go about making a complaint. Or do I even have something that you would be prepared to look at?”

So I think what we have to be prepared to do is make sure we have enough people to do not just investigations--or we could call them, as referred to earlier, forensic investigations--but also sufficient people to be able to say, “This is the office of the ombudsman. Can I help you?” Undoubtedly there will be an initial surge in interest, and I think it's very important that the ombudsman have sufficient resources to be able to respond to the surge that I believe will take place.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

We now have room for a Conservative. If nobody wants up, then it goes to Mr. Stoffer.

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

I can answer a question that Mr. St. Denis asked. I'll try to make it as clear as I possibly can.

We as a government made it clear that we were going to put an ombudsman and a bill of rights in place. The decision from the minister was that if we were going to do this and have the cooperation of the House of Commons, then it needed to be dealt with at the committee level. We needed to give the committee the right to make recommendations as to how this was going to proceed.

So that's what this is all about--listening to all of these different witnesses and listening to all of these different veterans groups so that we can come together as a committee and make a recommendation that the minister's going to consider.

I don't think there's a person in this room who hasn't had a heartbreaking experience with a veteran in their own riding. I've been part of this portfolio for more than three years, and I have heard some things that I can't believe are actually happening to people who fought for this country. So I would like to make certain that when we do it, we do it right.

I know that the charter was a well-meaning piece of legislation put forward by the previous government. I think it was done fairly well, but there were flaws in there that needed to be addressed before it ever went in. It is a living document, fortunately, so we're able to change those things as we go along. But I'd like to try to avoid those kinds of pitfalls when we put this position together.

I'd love to have nothing but time so that we could look at every single model all around the world, but that's simply not possible. We're going to have to look at what we've had in front of us. We're going to have to assess what the witnesses have told us, make the best decision we can possibly make as a group of people, and put that recommendation forward. Hopefully we're going to have, in very short order, an ombudsman position in place and a bill of rights position in place.

These are things that can't be ignored. They've been needed for a long time. We're going to move forward on them, preferably with the committee's consent and with input from the committee. We have passion from Mr. Perron, we have passion from a number of members sitting directly across from me from the Liberal Party, we have passion from the Conservative Party, and we certainly have passion from the NDP. Surely we can make this happen and make this work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Perron, on a point of order.

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

Order. Has the witness been dismissed? We began a discussion. Mr. Shipley mentioned that we should determine what we want to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Perron, I understand where you're coming from. Mrs. Hinton has five minutes, she's only three minutes in, she can spend it as she wishes.

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

I'm going to spend them by asking Mr. Hillier this.

Having worked in this department for as many years as you have, with all the experience you have, having read all the committee notes, how long do you think it would take us to put this together--with the help of the department and the help of our clerk, to sort these issues and put them in order as to the commonalities and the differences that have come from the witnesses? What, in your opinion, is the best course to proceed with this? How long do you think it would take?

[Keith Hillier]

I want to make sure I understand your question. Are you asking how long it would take to implement, or is the question how long this committee should take to sort out its position? It would be a consensus, I hope.