Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 20th, 2007

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

That's it; we want a summary

[Suzanne Tining]

...generally which elements were rejected.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

We'll be receiving that soon?

[Suzanne Tining]

Yes.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you, Mr. Gaudet.

Now on to Mr. Shipley for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Minister. Ms. Tining, congratulations on your appointment. It's nice to have Ms. Bruce back also.

I just want to reiterate a couple of things, actually. Mr. Minister, we're at the stage where we are now because this committee has worked very well together. I'm new on the committee, as some of us are, and I guess I would have to say to you that this committee has taken the view that, as you've said somewhere in your brief, it's all about “taking care of those who take care of us”. I don't think there's anything better said than that.

As we've gone through the choices on where we would be at today, this committee sat down and, rightfully so, started to look at what was important in terms of the charter that had been passed. Then we wanted to move to the ombudsman, and we're having that discussion, and that report is coming shortly. It will hopefully be put out this week. That has taken us next to the bill of rights, and that's where we're at right now. Through that discussion, this committee also said that the VIP and health care review was something that needed to be looked at.

Mr. Minister, I want to say that I'm glad that you recognize and understand the significance of what this committee has to do in terms of that. I think it's going to be a more complicated discussion, quite frankly, than the bill of rights. So I would ask that when the committee starts to look at the VIP health care, those recommendations that will come from there would be certainly looked at seriously by you and your ministry. Do you have any comments on that?

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this fits in with Mr. Shipley's comments in terms of individual MPs, whether on the committee or otherwise, and with what Bev has said about our commitment to veterans. One of the things that we're aware of around this place, the House of Commons, a parliamentary democracy, is that we wouldn't be serving if they hadn't served. That is basically what Bev is saying. That's something that we are always aware of. We have one of the greatest democracies on the face of the earth, and whether it's the Prime Minister or an individual member of Parliament, we're here because they stood up for us and what we believe in, in terms of freedom, democracy, and rule of law. Many of those families have sacrificed themselves and are still sacrificing themselves to those very values.

I want to thank individual members of Parliament. Although we're sitting formally in a committee this morning, many of you will know--and my chief of staff, Jacques Dubé, will tell you this--that the number of individual members of Parliament we talk to every day is almost amazing. I have a parliamentary liaison person, Bev Desjarlais, who is a former member of Parliament, and other members will tell you this on both sides of the House--and this is anecdotal, not scientific--but without question we have at least 15 to 20 members of Parliament a day, every day, coming forward to talk about issues or concerns that involve veterans in their constituency or sometimes in some other part of Canada. Truly, there's no one issue that unites parliamentarians more than veterans, regardless of political stripe. It's one of the very few things that does that. Actually, when I was appointed, everyone in cabinet said, “The Prime Minister gave you the best job in Canada.” One day I made the mistake of saying that out loud in front of the Prime Minister, and he said, “No, no, the people gave me the best job in Canada.”

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

The truth is, it is a very gratifying job, Mr. Chairman, and the fact is that we're here to do a better job. I think we do have a very high client satisfaction rate, up in the high eighties. Our objective, though, is to get it higher. That's one of the concerns we have: how can we work together as parliamentarians to make it better for veterans? Again, at the end of the day, we have to be as committed to them as they were to us, and still are to us, in terms of this country. That's basically it in a nutshell. We're just working hard to get it better.

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

One other question. One of the things when we're dealing with a bill of rights is that a bill of rights always seems to raise a flag because it gets into the legal mumbo-jumbo of meeting all the requirements of the Constitution and our Canadian bill of rights. The concern is that it will get tied up before people can make use of it and access it. To paraphrase you, we want to keep it very simple, in ordinary language, on a card they can carry, that would be acted upon in a very timely manner. Do you believe that can be accomplished?

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I think so, Mr. Chairman.

We're talking about an ombudsman and a bill of rights. The strongest ombudsman for a veteran will always be his or her member of Parliament--there's no question about that in my mind--and our respective legions, support groups, and veterans organizations. It's hard to define which one is more important to a veteran, because they're all important.

There's no question there's a special relationship between veterans and their members of Parliament, regardless of political stripe. Probably the strongest support veterans will ever get is from their individual member of Parliament. They know they'll always have the ear of government. I'm not saying that because we are government, but I think it's always been the case. When members of Parliament go into the House of Commons, I think they always feel pretty comfortable crossing the aisle to talk to the Minister of Veterans Affairs, because there's a commonality there that is very seldom evident in other government departments.

The bill of rights is almost a support document for that reality. When you hear a complaint--and I'll hear complaints as well, it's not all good news I hear--you respond to it as quickly as you possibly can in defence of a veteran. That's the way the department works. If we hear a complaint, it's investigated immediately.

This veterans bill of rights, where a veteran could look at his little card and say he's entitled to be treated fairly, decently, and with respect.... Even if something like respect is not part of the equation in terms of how a veteran is treated, the department immediately responds to that. I know we've had instances in the past where we had complaints about employees. Those complaints are immediately investigated and, if necessary, dealt with quickly. It's something we don't belabour or talk about; we respond quickly, as the former minister will attest.

It's something Veterans Affairs has done consistently well over the years. At the end of the day, we're not serving 1,000 or 2,000 people, we're serving hundreds of thousands of veterans and their families. Mistakes happen in a system that big. Think about it. You've got 11,000 veterans in priority access beds, contracted beds, across the country, veterans who are not capable of functioning without the assistance of that high level of care. Mistakes can happen, but incredible as it may sound, the complaints in terms of treatment of veterans is minuscule in terms of the overall delivery of these programs.

The truth is, we're doing a pretty good job, but we can do better. We can take a further look at some of those programs to make them better for veterans and their families. That's what we're committed to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Over to Mr. Valley for five minutes.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr. Minister.

I feel I have to lighten it up a little. You mentioned the people of Canada and the Prime Minister giving you the best job. I notice the people of Canada tend to correct your mistakes.

I have a very serious question, and you may want Ms. Tining to answer because of the field she came from. It has to do with the first nations and Métis veterans who came back after the Second World War. I grew up on stories from my father of how difficult it was to access the re-establishment fund. This was a fund that was paid to veterans when they returned, to go into business, to buy land, to buy a home, or whatever. There were tremendous problems with the first nations and Métis accessing that fund. To this day, we still have issues over it. When I was on the aboriginal affairs and northern development committee, we had a delegation from the Métis trying to access this fund. I'm wondering how the bill of rights is going to help these individuals.

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Do you want me to answer the question?

[Suzanne Tining]

I would like to suggest, if it's okay with you, Mr. Valley, that Verna provide the background.

Frankly, I haven't been through all the briefing documents yet, in my first few weeks. I know we had a special consideration for first nations veterans, but I don't know the details of how it was implemented, so if—

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Maybe I'll take 30 seconds and set it up for the committee.

The difficulty was in the remote parts of Canada, where they didn't have access to the department, as people in Winnipeg or Toronto had. In Lake Dryden, a community of 6,000 people, my dad had a hard time. The first nations and the Métis had a much harder time, through language difficulties, and so on. That's really where the problem started.

[Verna Bruce, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Veterans Affairs]

As part of the work that was done around taking a look at what happened to aboriginal veterans when they came back at the end of World War II, we looked at first nations, Métis, and non-status.

Your question is with respect to Métis. We've done a fair amount of work with the National Métis Veterans Association, which received a substantial amount of money from the government to do a study on what happened to Métis veterans when they came back at the end of World War II.

They gave us a list of about 163 names of Métis veterans, and we did very exhaustive file reviews. I must say that Veterans Affairs has files going back to 1918, and everything is in the files.

As we looked at all of those files, we couldn't find anybody who did not receive the benefits they were entitled to at the end of World War II.

So the minister made the commitment that if a Métis veteran believes that they didn't get the benefits they were entitled to at the end of World War II, by all means come to the department. He's made the commitment that if we find somebody who didn't get the benefits they were entitled to, he would consider looking at providing them a payment, similar to the one to the first nations.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you for that.

My point was to make sure that in the veterans bill of rights we have that it's not only for new veterans, but for the veterans concerning whom we still haven't solved some of those issues.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

You still have a minute and forty seconds, if you like.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

I will give it to my colleague.

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

There may be time for a full round, but I can start with a minute if you want. Please keep me on the list.

I'll take this minute to make a comment and then come to questions later.

I have to admit to feeling a little empathy for the minister. I think we all know he's an honourable man who finds himself in an awkward situation with said letter. I don't think any of us would want to be in the position of defending the indefensible.

You might want to check the Conservative Party's website, since the letter's contents are there, and we can give you copies of that reference if you need it.

If I was in your shoes, I know I might be trying to find a way to disassociate myself officially from the letter, and trying to find out if Salpie Stepanian is still around. Maybe he or she would be willing to say, look, I had no proper instructions to deal with that.

Get it off your website, so that you won't be facing these awkward and difficult questions in the future.

I'll just make that comment, since I think it's only fair to the minister that he be made aware that it's on his party's website.

When I come back, I'll be asking about something else.

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

May I respond to that, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. Chairman, that's one of the realities in politics.

I can't resist saying this, but it's something like his party's commitment in 1993 to eliminate the GST—we're still waiting. So who made that promise and commitment?

I don't suggest for a minute that we're going to ignore the VIP issue. I know he's being very kind in how he's phrased this, and I'm going to be very kind as well in my response.

This is just one of the many challenges we have in Veterans Affairs to enhance the program, to do it consistently and not in an ad hoc—make it up as you go along—way. That's why I asked for a health care review, which is about a year to a year and a half away from completion. But there are some things we can and will do in the meantime.

Mr. St. Denis, we're going to make incremental progress on some of these files. We're going to advance some of them more quickly than others, but we want to do it as consistently and expeditiously as we can, in terms of delivery to the greatest number of people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

That'll be our time with regard to those five minutes, which started with Mr. Valley.

Now we go to Mr. Sweet for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for the opportunity to subject you to some questions, Mr. Minister.

For the record, you know I've said this to you directly, but I want to say that I've had a number of opportunities to interact with your department.

In the greater city of Hamilton we have the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry and the Argyle Highlanders. They have had a long tradition of dedicated military service over the last century in Hamilton. They continue to attract a lot of military participation, and we in fact end up having a lot of volunteers.

We've had some tough cases. Your staff has not only weighed in to deal with those cases in their department, but they have been very effective at liaising with other departments. I want to give you and the staff kudos for that. I appreciate it, and I'm glad you're there.

We had Mr. Marchand testify here last week, and he was describing some initiatives that are being taken to clear up the backlog of these thousands of cases.

Mr. Minister, are you dedicated to continue to allow him to do that, and to give him the resources to do it, so we can get this backlog cleaned up and begin to hear these cases in real time?