Veterans Affairs Committee on June 1st, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

You have two and a half minutes left, if somebody else would like to go.

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

Go ahead, Mr. Shipley.

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

As one of the things that came to mind, I go back to the idea of the work flowing. In terms of preparing an initiative, how do you help determine what that will be? When you're going to set up a department, how do you determine what is going to be needed in terms of the resources, the space, and all those other things? Do you go back in history, since we don't actually have an ombudsman?

In terms of the efficiency and how we're going to operate it, I'd like to have some comments. I know you're at this early stage of it, but obviously you know a lot more about it than we maybe do, and I wouldn't mind having some grasp of those initial thoughts.

[Verna Bruce]

In terms of the general way we would approach this, once there's a decision taken in consultation with the veterans organizations and government in terms of what the ombudsman will look like--what they will do, what their responsibilities will be--we have statisticians who, based on all of that, will help us work with our client caseload to get a general understanding of how many people are likely to come forward and what the workload is likely to be. People will be coming to the ombudsman; he'll need to have staff who can do the research. They'll be asking questions of the department, so we'll need to have staff who can answer the questions. Then you build it from the ground up, based on how much demand you think you'll have.

Keith, as ADM of corporate services, can tell you a bit more about how some of the actual calculations are done, if that's of interest.

[Keith Hillier]

At the end of the day it's your best professional judgment. You'd certainly need to do research in terms of volumetrics that other people are getting, looking at the type of client base and at what the volume was on start-up. From that standpoint, the first thing is to really understand how many could come in, but it's also very important, particularly for start-up, to build a system that has some elasticity in it, because you may find that the volume may be greater, notwithstanding how good your research is or how good you thought your professional judgment was when you made those decisions. You may need to be able to expand.

On the other hand, if you don't get the volume you had expected, then in terms of good, efficient use of government resources, you need to be able to move in whatever way you have. There are going to be certain fixed costs in setting up an office; those things can be somewhat time-consuming, but they're doable. I can say that, because I've been around the government for quite a number of years and I've been involved with setting up new operations. There are specialists who can do that sort of thing for us. My sense would be that you would probably err on the side of making sure you had enough capacity to deal with the volume.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Shipley, I apologize deeply. We will get you, I'm sure, in a later question period, but now we're over to Mr. Valley.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the witnesses for coming here today. It's my first opportunity to meet you and to ask you some questions.

I appreciate your comments about the challenges this new office is going to bring and how you have to get it right, because we have heard and do hear in our ridings about the veterans who are unhappy. You mentioned the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. We know through time, especially when you're dealing with Second World War vets, that they're unhappy with the way their cases are handled. You lose credibility if you do that, so I'm happy to hear that at the start you're trying to get this right and trying to stay free of influence and make sure this is independent.

I note that the ombudsman for National Defence and the Canadian Forces pointed out to the committee in 2005 that they have access when they're in the forces and nothing when they get out. So it's timely. I don't know that I agree with Ms. Hinton, but the fact is we're here to get something done, so I hope this moves forward quite quickly.

I have a question about Ste. Anne's Hospital and the information that they already have an ombudsman to deal with health care. Can you explain if there would be interaction between these two ombudsmen, or do you see one taking over from the other? Can you enlighten me on exactly what this ombudsman does?

[Verna Bruce]

This ombudsman would have a role very different from the one at Ste. Anne's Hospital, which is very focused on resident care, but how the two would fit together is not yet decided.

Keith, you may want to jump in here.

[Keith Hillier]

No, it certainly hasn't been decided. The one at Ste. Anne's has a very specific role. It is the only departmental hospital we operate, and it's very specific to the residents. The ombudsman we're looking at in terms of Veterans Affairs is much more general and would serve not just the people who are currently clients of Veterans Affairs Canada, but also those people out there who may feel they should be clients of Veterans Affairs Canada but who may have been refused a service or a benefit, etc.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

You mention a number of stakeholders and all the people who are going to be involved in this. Has there been much work put into talking to the people who will become veterans? I'm not sure if you would approach that group--you may have--but all the people who are serving in the armed forces are going to be our veterans in the future. I'm wondering if they have an impact on our discussions, because they have an ombudsman who serves them right now while they're in the forces. Are they part of the stakeholder group you would speak to?

[Keith Hillier]

At present we've been dealing with the major veterans organizations. With regard to people who are members of the forces, we haven't developed a full consultation plan. As a matter of fact, we are going to be meeting...I have a multilateral meeting with veterans organizations next week. We're looking at some sort of outreach to members of the Canadian Forces through an electronic means--a bulletin board, in some sense--because there are tens of thousands of members in the Canadian Forces who potentially could be clients. We're looking at whether we can come up with some sort of electronic means of engagement in that particular area.

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

I certainly hope they become clients, because the only way they won't be your clients is if they're not with us. So we're hoping they're going to be your clients.

We do see that there are comments that have been made. Anytime you try to start something, we all know there can be problems with it and discussions and controversy. How do you deal with the controversies? Is it through more engagement with, say, the legion or any of those who have concerns about what's coming? I think most of us would think this is a positive step and that we need to move forward on it, but when there are controversies in the development of any program, how are they approached, and how do you make sure people are engaged?

[Verna Bruce]

We actually have a very clear standard in Veterans Affairs Canada that we really don't do anything without consulting with veterans organizations. So we have very well-established relationships. We meet with most of those organizations on a very regular basis, and through the years we've been involved in a lot of different issues, where perhaps people have had slightly different points of view to begin with. But through the consultation process, which we're getting good at by now, we've generally been able to bring people together around a common core, at least, of consensus. We do have staff who are quite used to doing that, and we have worked on building good relationships with the veterans organizations—but it will take a lot of work.

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

I congratulate you on your efforts. When we see the results, I'm sure we'll have more questions, but thanks for trying to do this, and let's get it done.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Monsieur Gaudet.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You must be somewhat familiar with the organization chart of the ombudsman's office. How many employees can there be, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100? What's your opinion on that subject?

[Verna Bruce]

You mean currently in the Department of Veterans Affairs?

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

No, I'm talking about the staff surrounding the ombudsman.

[Verna Bruce]

Oh, the ombudsman. We haven't gone that far yet in terms of even identifying how big it would be, because we are just beginning. We do have to be clear about what the role is, or what they're going to be expected to do. Then we'll take a look at what resources will be required to make that happen.

At this stage of the game, we don't have anybody in that role. We do have Keith and a couple of people working with him to do the consultations with staff, and that seems to be fine so far.

Does that answer your question?

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

To a certain degree, yes. I imagine you know that those who appear before the Veterans Review and Appeal Board and don't obtain satisfaction will be going to see you. Even if the Board agrees to pay a pension, for example, if people aren't happy, they'll be going to see you. So you'll almost have to have as big a staff as the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. That was my question.

[Verna Bruce]

I hope it never gets that big, but it may.

[Keith Hillier]

I can share a thought with you. As Verna has mentioned, we haven't got any estimate of numbers, but at the end of the day—and I think there will be an initial surge—if we end up having to put more and more people in the office of the ombudsman, that's not necessarily the right direction to go, because it may be indicative of other issues.

If we ever got to the point where in fact everybody who came to us for service ends up with a complaint to the office of the ombudsman.... I'm being a bit extreme here to make a point, but the point is not to add more people to the office of the ombudsman; it's to understand the systemic reasons why people feel they have to go there.

There is always going to be a certain group of people who will feel they haven't gotten a fair shake, if I could put it in those terms, for any type of service or benefit in society. But certainly the goal of the department is to get it right, up front, and then to deal with cases, unfortunately, where something either did go wrong, through human error or what have you, or where there are people who will not accept a decision if it isn't in their favour, which there will always be.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Will you be travelling across the country, or are there two or three specific places where you may go? Will people all have to go to the same place?

[Keith Hillier]

That decision hasn't been made, but it would have to be part of the organizational model. Again, from some very early research, there are offices of ombudsmen that are virtual offices in terms of having people who work for the office of the ombudsman in various geographic regions. There are others that are very centralized.

I think the first step is to understand exactly what the mandate of the ombudsman is going to be, and what that may mean in volumes of work, and then try to spin out where we should be located across the country, whether we're centralized or not. But we're nowhere near making those decisions.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

From what you say, it might be better from the ombudsman to report to the House of Commons so that he's not in conflict of interest with the department or with veterans.

Will you propose that you be accountable to the House of Commons?