Veterans Affairs Committee on June 1st, 2006

[Keith Hillier]

From my standpoint, I can't comment on that position, but having said that, the reporting relationship is one thing; there is also the issue of how an ombudsman is created, whether it's created by statute or by regulation, or what have you. There are as many models of that as there are ombudsmen, but that is again part of the consideration.

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

I have another problem. I have a lot of them this afternoon; things are not looking good for you.

There's the Veterans Charter, which was passed in May of last year; there's the Veterans Bill of Rights, which you're working on; there's the ombudsman, a position you're examining; there's the Veterans Review and Appeal Board; and there's the Federal Court of Canada.

But how can we fit all that together and make it work smoothly?

[Verna Bruce]

That will be part of the review process. We have to make sure that whatever we do with an ombudsman, it doesn't create more problems with the formal part of the system—and that will be part of the review.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Monsieur Gaudet, there are still two minutes left, if you'd like.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

If a veterans ombudsman is appointed without being affiliated with another ombudsman, will the office have enough resources to handle all the complaints filed by veterans, while remaining independent of the minister?

Perhaps I'm asking the same question as my colleague, but this is a concern for us.

[Verna Bruce]

The goal we would have is that when we come up with a design for an ombudsman's office, we would look to have sufficient funding to make that work.

[Keith Hillier]

If I could just add to Verna's comments, in terms of looking at the resourcing, first of all you have to nail the model down, but we've really looked at resourcing with a two-pronged approach.

It's important for the office of the ombudsman to have independent resourcing from the department, so that they can have their own financial controls, etc. It's also just as well to recognize, particularly in the start-up phase, that there are probably going to be significant numbers of inquiries directed at the ombudsman's office, so it's very important that the department has the resources as well to be able to respond to those types of inquiries that would come forward.

For example, if you have a situation where a veteran is complaining to the office of an ombudsman about the length of time it's taken for a benefit to be obtained, or a service, or what have you, and then they write to the office of the ombudsman and find that the turnaround time with the office of the ombudsman is slow—either because they don't have sufficient staff, or there is insufficient staff in the department to do what needs to be done with a résumé of the file, or what have you—then in fact we've really accomplished nothing. The veteran would become, I would think, rather cynical, and at the same time would say, “The ombudsman's office is really not much better than the group I'm complaining about.”

It's really important that we get it right, and I think we should be realistic that there's probably going to be a bit of a surge at the front end, as there typically is in these things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you.

Now we're going to have Mr. St. Denis for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here on a very important subject.

I'd like to start off with a few comments about the office of ombudsman for veterans. I listened carefully to my colleagues, and I agree that we want to avoid the silos and the isolating of one ombudsman from another. Not only does it add cost, but it also maybe prevents the sharing of best practices and so on.

That said, I personally believe there should be an ombudsman dedicated solely to veterans, and that function should not be added to the Defence ombudsman, simply because veterans' issues are different from those of active service personnel, and the full attention of an ombudsman I think is required.

Although whether in support of an ombudsman at Veterans Affairs and an ombudsman at DND and an ombudsman in the different departments, there needs to be some kind of an ombudsman's secretariat or ombudsman general, I don't know. I think fundamentally we need to have one dedicated to the veterans, and then the issues of how we resource them, to me, are important but secondary after we focus on the veterans.

Among the different models you've researched elsewhere, have you seen both a DND/veterans ombudsman and a veterans-only ombudsman?

[Keith Hillier]

Not to this date. What we've seen generally is a department-specific ombudsman or a government-wide ombudsman. If you look at the Australian model, it is one of the examples where there is a general ombudsman but there are specific things relevant to defence and veterans.

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

I'm hoping that Canada will go towards a dedicated ombudsman for the reasons stated. There are a lot of specific issues, and you would develop a body of knowledge and experience on those issues that would improve and make service better as time goes by.

I'm new to this committee so maybe this has been raised before. Does the funding for veterans' advocates, the fine folks who travel around to the legions and whatnot, come from Veterans Affairs Canada? How does that network support it?

[Verna Bruce]

It depends on who you're talking about. If you're thinking about the advocates or the lawyers who represent veterans and friends of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, they're departmental. You may be thinking about some of the people who work for the legion. I see we have Pierre Allard here from the Royal Canadian Legion. I'm not quite sure who you're speaking of.

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

Again, I'm new to this area. Constituents of mine will say, “The advocate was through town recently.”

I have a large rural riding. Is that program fully funded by the legion?

[Keith Hillier]

No. I think if your constituents are using the word “advocate”, that refers to a group of lawyers we have. They're part of the department called the Bureau of Pensions Advocates. They represent the veteran at no cost to the veteran in cases of a pension adjudication.

The Royal Canadian Legion has service officers who do the same function, but that's a matter within the legion. They are not employees of the department. The word “advocate” refers to our lawyers who are deployed regionally across the country.

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

Okay. I'm glad to have that cleared up.

Then, based on that response, there will not be even a dotted line relationship between an ombudsman's office and these folks. Advocate suggests advocating for the needs of a veteran; ombudsman suggests the role would include advocating for--I'm not sure, I guess they're supposed to maintain an unbiased view--in a sense, the veteran, because the veterans come forward with a complaint. Anyway, I'm glad I have that cleared up.

The final point, a point I raised the other day with another witness, was that the veterans from World War II and Korea, who obviously are a much older group, and the new veterans we create with each retirement of our current personnel are not only different generations, age-wise, obviously, but also their experiences are vastly different. The World War II and Korea experiences were much different from the kinds of experiences our personnel are having now. They come from different paradigms.

When you design an office of an ombudsman, do you factor in that you're going to be hearing from people who are from different paradigms? An example I used was a veteran who was injured in training when he was maybe 18 years old in the first days or weeks of his being enlisted back in 1943. That's different from another ombudsman's professional requirements. Do you factor in the different paradigms that the veterans will be coming from?

[Verna Bruce]

That would be a part of it for sure, and with the new Veterans Charter we now have a suite of five new programs that Canadian Forces veterans are eligible for. As we build the mandate for the ombudsman, you're quite right, those are the kinds of things that need to be taken into account.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you very much.

Now we have Mrs. Hinton for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, and welcome.

The Veterans Charter was meant to do exactly what you've just described, and the objective of the bill of rights, in my opinion anyway, is to provide veterans with a service guarantee as to what they can expect when they deal with the Department of Veterans Affairs. To me they're tied. The bill of rights and the ombudsman are linked together. If you don't have a bill of rights, then what can the ombudsman pursue? That's my line of thinking anyway.

In your discussions with the veterans organizations, what are the most important items to them that they want to see in this bill of rights? For example, what areas are they focusing on when you ask them about the bill of rights and what it should look like when it's finished? That's one question.

Secondly, I know this initiative is still in its early stages, but to get down to a specific issue regarding the ombudsman, how will this person be chosen? Will they be appointed or will there be a competition?

Now I'll wait for the answers.

[Verna Bruce]

On the second point, it's way too soon to tell. Until we know what the mandate is and how the ombudsman's office is going to be created, we have no idea how that's going to happen, so that will be part of the consultation process.

With respect to comments from veterans organizations, it's difficult for us to say who said what. I'm sure you're going to want to hear from the veterans organizations, but I'll ask Keith to give you a general view, without attribution, in terms of the kinds of things he's hearing.

[Keith Hillier]

It's quite interesting. We've been in contact with the six major veterans organizations and I've done bilaterals with five of the six organizations. I think there are a couple of messages, and they can speak for themselves, but certainly when I sit back and reflect, they're talking about, first of all, keeping it simple: keep it very simple, in common language; make sure veterans can actually understand what it is. They're saying it's a place to be able to pull together the service standards we have, the this and the that, and it's all in one place.

I can say that there's agreement on things such as that veterans should be treated with respect, there should be speed of service, and our communications should be simple and clear. Those are some of the key elements. There are other areas, obviously, of some disagreement, and that's what consultation is about in terms of being able to move forward.

I think most veterans organizations are of a view that it is a stepping stone to the ombudsman, and certainly it's seen that one of the roles of the ombudsman would be to uphold the bill of rights, as you suggested. The Veterans Charter was the start of a process; the bill of rights is another step; and the ombudsman is but another step on that journey.

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

Thank you.

The charter was about programs. The bill of rights is about what veterans can expect from their government. At least that's my opinion on it. And the ombudsman has a serious role to play in this. We have a lot of groups in this country that have done the very best they can for veterans, but they don't have any legislative ability, and I'm assuming that the ombudsman would have powers to do some of the things that we want to see happen.

[Keith Hillier]

With respect to the powers of the ombudsman, of course those have not been developed. What the powers or the responsibilities of the ombudsman will be will form part of the consideration. That will be part of developing the model.

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

In a more general view, I'm curious to find out what these new initiatives will mean for Canadian veterans. I'm aware of several countries that have either had an ombudsman or a bill of rights in place for some time, but it seems to me that initiatives like these fell by the wayside under the previous government. What will instituting these initiatives mean for bringing our veterans' services into the 21st century?

[Verna Bruce]

I think the view of our minister would be that veterans do deserve to have the very best services that we can provide, and a bill of rights and an ombudsman are both very clear in terms of part of the focus. We'll be doing what we can to make sure that they do provide a better level of service to Canada's veterans.

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

Thank you.

Is there time left, or shall I share?