Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 6th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

We have Mr. Hillier before us today, and I'll go into that in a bit.

To give everybody a heads up, I did want to note that on Monday we have Brian Ferguson, the assistant deputy minister; Verna Bruce, the acting deputy minister; and possibly Ken Miller, for the beginning of our study on the bill of rights.

Today we're wrapping up with regard to the veterans ombudsman. You're our last witness, sir.

The way we will proceed is for you to have 10 or 20 minutes, as you see fit, then afterward we go with questions.

Mr. Hillier, the floor is yours.

[Keith Hillier, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Department of Veterans Affairs]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon.

I'm here today to clarify comments that were attributed to me with regard to the timeframes required to establish a veterans ombudsman through legislation.

In the spring, I met with veterans organizations bilaterally, including the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association, of which Tom Hoppe is the national president and Larry Gollner is the chair of the Bill C-45 implementation committee. I have been involved in consultations with veterans organizations recently, including the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association, at which time Mr. Hoppe and Mr. Gollner were in attendance.

During the spring meetings, potential timeframes to establish an ombudsman were discussed in general terms. Discussion included the understanding that creating an ombudsman through legislation would undoubtedly take longer than, for example, establishing an ombudsman through other means, such as a ministerial directive.

No explicit timeframes were stated for any potential options. At no point through these discussions did I indicate that the creation of a veterans ombudsman via legislation would take five years.

At no point throughout these discussions did I indicate that the creation of a veterans' ombudsman via legislation would take five years.

In fact, the actual time to create an ombudsman for veterans via legislation is strictly a matter governed by parliamentary rules and procedure and would be entirely subject to the will of Parliament. I have no influence in these matters, and as you can appreciate, if my comments have been interpreted to mean that it would take five years to establish an ombudsman through legislation, it has been a misunderstanding, for which I apologize and am here today to clarify.

I thank you for this opportunity to provide clarification in this matter, and I welcome your questions and your comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Wow, that was brief! Two minutes.

Mr. Cuzner, for seven minutes.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

My seven minutes will probably be as brief as Mr. Hillier's.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hillier. We're used to seeing each other on either sides of the plane either coming from or going to Halifax.

You say you really hadn't indicated any time period, or it was simply an arbitrary—

[Keith Hillier]

I have actually no idea where this idea of five years would come from. For example, if you look at the Veterans Charter, that was implemented in somewhat less than five years.

From my perspective, when we had some discussions—and actually the most recent discussions I had with this particular organization did not have any discussion of timeframes—when we talked about this back in late spring or early summer, we said if we go through a legislative process it's probably going to take a longer than a ministerial directive. But certainly five years was never ever discussed in any meeting that I've been present at, so I really don't know where it came from. I'm at a loss.

If in fact there's some misunderstanding, I'm sure that in the future I'll be speaking with these individuals. These are certainly honourable gentlemen, and as we move forward, I'm sure I will have further consultation with these gentlemen and if there's any misunderstanding it will certainly be clarified. But I don't know where the five years would come from.

It seems to me that it's really left to the will of Parliament. If it is the will of Parliament to proceed with the enactment of any legislation, I would suspect that honourable members would probably want to move more quickly than five years.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Certainly what's come through in the testimony and the questioning from both sides of this committee is that we want to make sure we get this right, and get it right out of the box. Still, we understand there are veterans who realize the importance of the creation of this position and know that time is of the essence as well.

To that end, would you be willing to comment on the fact that we're not reinventing the wheel? We have some excellent examples, and I think we've received some great testimony here at the committee as well to shed light on past experiences. When we look at the ombudsman for national defence and the experiences we've received there, does it give us a step up? Does that give us a foot ahead in the creation of this new position of ombudsman for Veterans Affairs Canada?

[Keith Hillier]

I think the fact that we already have ombudspersons in the Government of Canada, including Mr. Côté at National Defence, who I know has testified before this group, provides a lot of wisdom and insight as to ombudsperson models in Canada. I think we should use the information and experience we have as a government in moving forward with an ombudsman specifically to deal with Veterans Affairs matters.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I think what's come out loud and clear is that we're almost in a position to identify best practices of ombudsmen and best or most pertinent applications in this case. I think five years certainly struck the entire committee as a bit of a surprise when it was entered as evidence. I don't think we would see it taking that long.

To that end, is there somebody else on the opposition side who would like to speak?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Rota has indicated he would like to speak.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Hillier, are you in town on other business, or did you come just to speak to us?

[Keith Hillier]

No, I'm here on other business as well.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Very good. That's all I wanted to ask. I just wanted to clarify that. That's fine. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Go ahead, Mr. St. Denis.

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

Thank you.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

You could get the whole side in, Mr. Chair.

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

I'm not sure if you are familiar with the testimony we heard from Mr. Winzenberg, who is here on secondment from Australia. He has a pretty senior position in their equivalent veterans affairs department in Australia, as I understand it. He didn't represent the ombudsman's office there, but he seemed quite knowledgeable. In their model, Australia has what you could call a master or super-ombudsman; then that's broken up into six different divisions and broken down from there. They have created an ombudsman and then worked it down through all of the various departments and agencies.

This proposal starts at the other end. It starts within a department. We already have, as you've noted, a defence ombudsman. This is a proposal for Veterans Affairs. There may be other departments with ombudsmen at future times; that's not our concern. Do you see any problems in starting from the bottom and working up, versus the Australian way of starting from the top and working down? This presumes that you agree with the idea. Maybe you can answer whether you agree or disagree on either side.

[Keith Hillier]

I'll answer in a couple of ways, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I support the concept of an ombudsman. Any model of an ombudsman has its pros and cons in terms of how you go about this.

From my perspective, the actual decision as to whether we will have one for all of the Government of Canada is really a decision the Government of Canada will have to make. I think that when I was at this committee the last time, one of the honourable members suggested how many ombudspersons should there be, or something of that nature, but it isn't a decision that will be made by me as the senior executive responsible for this particular file. The Government of Canada will have to look at it on a horizontal basis to decide whether they want to go with the Australian model, which as you duly noted is one ombudsperson for all of government, with specialists in each particular department, or whether they want to go with individual ombudsmen. That is a Government of Canada decision that will have to be taken.

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

This committee will be looking at a draft report in the very near future. If we report back to Parliament in February, and Parliament deals with it expeditiously--that may be an ideal scenario and leaves aside a spring election--so that by the fall it is all done, how long would it take from the administrative side, in your estimation, to actually put in place the office or the person?

[Keith Hillier]

It's difficult to say, because we don't know what it is, but I think we're safe in saying it would probably just be a few months. We've done some scenarios inside the place, looking at technology, looking at infrastructure and what have you, to support the ombudsman. So in fact if legislation is brought in or if an ombudsman is appointed through another means, the department would be able to react fairly quickly to support the ombudsman. But I think it's very important to note that if you look at all the models of ombudsman, they are independent individuals. They would need time to create their own office. Certainly they would want to tie into things such as corporate infrastructure; they wouldn't want to develop their own computer network or what have you. Certainly we would assist and it would be up to the ombudsperson herself or himself to decide how much time they would need to get the specialists they would need.

Certainly, from my experience, I think you need a multidisciplinary team. Among the people who would work in the office of the ombudsman, I think they would have very varied skill sets, depending on the nature of the cases and, to a great extent, depending on what the mandate of the ombudsman is.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Just to let you know, you were about 30 seconds over, but when you said that you had 16 seconds left, you actually had 15. I was impressed that you were within one second of that. That's why I gave you the extra 30 seconds.

Mr. Perron.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today.

I will get the blues of Mr. Gollner's testimony. He said the discussion during which you said it would take five years to create an ombudsman had taken place a few days earlier, something like one to two weeks before. But you said this meeting occurred in the springtime.

Did it occur recently or last spring? I am lost. I am not trying to find who is telling the truth, and who is not. I would just like you to give me briefly this information, because I have more questions to ask you.

[Keith Hillier]

Yes. I'm quite happy to respond. I met with Mr. Gollner in British Columbia in the spring--it was probably late April or May. I met with him and the then-president of their association, a gentlemen by the name of Mr. Dave Munro. Subsequent to that I met, on a multilateral basis, with veterans organizations here in Ottawa. That was in June. Mr. Gollner was at that meeting as well. My last discussion with Mr. Gollner took place about ten days ago. It was actually on the same day as they appeared before this committee. It was several hours earlier. As a matter of fact, we had to change the time of the meeting to be able to accommodate their coming to this committee.

At that point, I was not at the meeting. I participated by teleconference; I had a personal matter that required me to stay on Prince Edward Island that particular day. I did call in to the discussion and I was on the line for probably 10 to 15 minutes. At no time did we discuss any timeframes for the implementation of an ombudsman during that meeting.

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

What he said is that you discussed this during this meeting. Let us forget about this.

Let us try to find out how much time it would take to create an ombudsman position.

Back in 1968, during Expo '67, the premier of the Quebec nation met the New Zealand ombudsman. The Quebec nation ombudsman, called the protecteur du citoyen, existed then and was operational.

My question to all those around this table is this: How come it is so long to find a suitable model, when we have so many good ones in this country? Ontario did not follow exactly the Quebec model, but it changed it, and New Brunswick and Alberta did the same thing.

We have in this country ombudsman offices that work fine. We have the expertise. I challenge all those around this table to work hard together to create a veterans' ombudsman. But we will have to stop hesitating and find the will to create it.

We should try to stop scrutinizing documents and discuss endlessly like we have been doing since 1962, when the suggestion to have a general ombudsman was first discussed. Do we really want to create this position or is this just political idle talk? You should respond and we should get on with it and establish this position rapidly.

Thank you, that is all I had to say, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Do you have a response, Mr. Hillier?