Veterans Affairs Committee on June 5th, 2007

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

So this is why you feel it has to be Stats Canada that would have--

[Pierre Allard]

I think Stats Canada would be a good place to start.

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

It's your opinion that the operations in the Balkan states, by that time, the--

[Pierre Allard]

By that time they were getting better data. There are still some loopholes in the reservist data to this day.

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

A couple of members already talked about it, but is this issue with The Hill Times just an anomaly, a couple of voices, or are there some steps to take to begin to develop a more intimate relationship with...?

The exact topic we're talking about...you have professionals....

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

You're out of time. It means more opportunities in the future.

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

You have no idea how great that point was going to be.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Sir, but I will, because there's a spot. Immediately after Mr. St. Denis speaks there's another Conservative spot, and it's yours.

Mr. St. Denis.

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

I won't be long so that David has lots of time to continue.

An important and valuable point is made about looking at needs as the veteran has made a choice to ask for help, either with family prompting or his or her own prompting. Some may avoid asking for help for the longest time, feeling, as many people do, they don't need it, even though they do. There's the needs way of looking at it. The other is, what can we do as a society to keep people in their homes longer? In other words, what are the needs relative to Mr. Smith's ability to stay in his home longer and therefore have a better quality of life, and at the same time it costs less. We see this in the nursing homes available to the general population. It seems to me, before I ask you to comment, that we have these silos, and it's the way bureaucracies work, where you have these bureaucracies that see their programs in isolation from other programs. For example, CMHC has programs to help people repair their homes. If you could invest a couple of thousand bucks into fixing a bathroom or repairing a roof in an older home, but keep the senior there that much longer, you'd save a lot of money, and they'd have a better quality of life.

Could you comment on the needs, but at the same time the broader element that staying in your home as long as you can is better for you, your family, and society as a whole?

[Pierre Allard]

I want to go back to a comment I made awhile ago. I think Veterans Affairs Canada was very prescient in 1981 when they introduced the veterans independence program. It is one of the best programs. It is what I would call a standard. It's unique across Canada because it provides some very simple processes, if you want, that do exactly what you have asked me about, which is to keep seniors in their home.

Those two elements are groundskeeping and snow removal. What is it that a senior needs if he wants to stay in his home? He needs those two basic elements--snow removal and groundskeeping. VIP also has an element of home renovation, because you're quite correct that CMHC has a home renovation program, but there's not enough money in that budget, and most of the time when you apply for a CMHC home renovation, you're told the money is gone. We have advocated in the past for putting more money in that pot. That is also why, keeping the philosophy of VIP in mind, we have been advocating for a seniors independence program, modelled on the VIP that is in place at Veterans Affairs Canada. It's the cat's meow for helping people who want to stay in their home to stay in their home and save taxpayers money.

It won't work for everybody. It won't work for those high-needs people. And there is a burden on the caregiver. Staying in your home does create a burden on the caregiver, and that should also be recognized. In simple terms, let's adopt the seniors independence program. Keep seniors in their home.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you. There is a minute and 12 seconds.

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

I'll make sure David has his....

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

There you go. That's very kind.

Mr. Sweet, you have six minutes.

He was on a roll.

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

I just have one question. I want to get some clarity around what the challenge is for the Legion to bridge to the more modern veteran. I don't even like using those terms because we already said that a veteran is a veteran is a veteran. But we have to try to, in this case.... For example, you just told us something today that I wasn't aware of, that in 1998 you had an operational stress symposium in P.E.I. Is that right?

[Pierre Allard]

Yes. It was in Charlottetown, with Veterans Affairs Canada officials, Canadian Forces mental health people, specialists from the National Center For Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in White River Junction in the United States, and some specialists from Australia. We held the first national symposium on operational stress injury, and we're very proud of that.

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

I'm looking here at page 4, at the complexity right now anyway. Obviously the GAC report is trying to eliminate this. But for the life of me, I cannot see why there isn't a desire for the returning veterans in fact to embrace the Legion, because if you've got professionals who can navigate you through this, as well as looking after something that, after our meeting the other day, was obviously a major concern of these veterans of the operational stress injury....

I'd just give you an opportunity to respond to that, about that challenge.

[Pierre Allard]

The challenge I think is in communicating our message, and that's very difficult. People are ready or not ready to receive a message. That's why we've come to realize it's very unlikely that we will touch the still-serving member and bring him into our organization, though we do that, sometimes with great success. We're hoping to capture the Canadian Forces still-serving member when he retires. But we have to pass on the message that what goes on at the Legion is more than what happens at the branch or at the provincial command; it's what happens at all levels of the Legion.

To be seen as professional service delivery experts is a challenge. Service delivery from the perspective of Veterans Affairs Canada has changed over time. For example, they had pension officers who were very visible, sometimes even in Legion branches. They were there, available, talking about benefits, services, etc. We had certain areas where we were the expert and nobody else was playing--for example, departmental reviews. Well, all of a sudden the bureau of pension advocates started doing departmental reviews. Because we have a good relationship with them, we sort of said, well, okay, we'll go along with that. But that's really not in their mandate.

We now have a program that is delivered to Canadian Forces members in a transition interview where we are not present. The transition interview takes place on the base. It is a process that is entirely in the hands of Veterans Affairs Canada or a Canadian Forces case manager, and we're sort of on the outside.

So we have a greater challenge to make it known that we have services to offer. We're allowed a very small window at SCAN seminars, which are a career transition training session of two days for Canadian Forces members. We're more or less allowed 10 to 15 minutes, and we have to get our message delivered.

So it is a challenge. We recognize that, but we are trying to adapt by using modern methodology, if you want, website information, etc.

We are also attacked. There's no doubt you've seen what was published in The Hill Times yesterday. I did bring a copy of our rebuttal. I would like to leave it with you--a number of copies. You can read it. Hopefully they'll publish it. Again, when you're attacked by somebody who's using little tidbits of information, it's kind of difficult to counter it, but we will work at it.

The message I would like to give is that we will survive. We are an institution. We've built our new headquarters in Kanata, and we intend to be there for 50 years, as much as we were 50 years downtown on Kent Street.

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

Is your document in both official languages?

[Pierre Allard]

Unfortunately, this is not translated.

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

The clerk can translate it, and then it can be tabled after.

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

We're switching now. We're switching, and I'm going to talk really quickly here.

Thank you again for coming today. You're always a very interesting guest to listen to.

Regarding the new Veterans Charter, there are a couple of comments I would like to make. The first one is that it is a working document. The minister and this government are open to recommendations that aim to improve it. When it went through, it went through rather rapidly, and I found some fault with it myself. I think there's room for improvement, and we're working towards making those kinds of improvements.

Every once in a while in this committee, although it is very non-partisan because of who we deal with, there will be the odd comment. One came from my colleague, Mr. Valley, earlier today, who said he was trying to embarrass the government into acting. I would just like it on the record that this government has acted. We implemented the new Veterans Charter. It was the first thing we did. We've put in place the ombudsman position. We've put in place the Bill of Rights. And we are currently, at this committee level, trying to determine what the needs are for improvement to the VIP program.

Now, there are times when it feels like pushing string up a hill to move forward. We've also gotten very involved in the post-traumatic stress portion of it, which is a very important aspect but has very little to do with the traditional veteran.

There was one other comment I wanted to make. You were talking about having Defence and Veterans Affairs put things together, because Defence looks after acting members and Veterans Affairs looks after veterans after they've served. There's a fine line in there. I don't think it would be called a turf war, but there are definite lines as to who looks after what. To blur those lines is very difficult to do, because for an active member, Defence is who looks after you. If you're a member who has finished serving, Veterans Affairs looks after you.

So I understand your frustration, but I did want to point out that slight difference.

Now, we've listened to all of what you've had to say today, and I just have one other question for you. I think I heard you say that the Royal Canadian Legion feels it's losing some connection with the modern-day vet and that you're trying to bridge out and do that. If there is one message that you want to leave for today's modern-day vet, what would it be?

[Pierre Allard]

We care.

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

Okay. Fair enough.

I would like to also add that I think the Royal Canadian Legion is doing a remarkable job of taking traditional veterans into the classroom and having today's generation meet yesterday's generation so that they can appreciate what went into giving them the freedoms they enjoy today. Keep up the good work. I think you're doing a marvellous job, and I'd love to see you branch out and become more involved with modern-day veterans.

Thank you very much for appearing today.

[Pierre Allard]

I might answer quickly on one point you raised, the point that there has to be a delineation between still-serving members getting their services in the OTSSC clinics and the veterans getting their services in the OSI clinics. The reality is that there is a capacity problem in mental health. There are just not enough mental health providers. In addition, both of these clinics provide services not only to the clients but also to their families, so here we have the dual problem of a family of a still-serving member also possibly facing a transition to a different process.

To a degree, the recommendations I made are actually symbolic. If we can call them at least by the same nomenclature--and sometimes there is a certain visibility to nomenclature--they're all OSI clinics, operational stress injury clinics. Eventually they all serve the same members. There have been some discussions in actually trying to ensure that you can get services from either clinic, because they don't have a footprint across the country; they have a footprint, but not a sufficiently wide footprint. Let's say a Canadian Forces member may be at a base where there's no OTSSC clinic, but there is an OSI clinic. Why should he go three hours down the road to get his services at the Canadian Forces clinic when he could get them at the VAC clinic?

This was an item of suggestion, not an item of discussion, not only between the Canadian Forces and VAC but also with the RCMP. We were seeing progress. Unfortunately, I think the turf wars have re-established the ground rules that we will stay separate.

You asked for a simple recommendation; I gave you a simple recommendation. Capacity is a problem, so let's open up these clinics where there's a need and not force people to drive three hours down the road to the other clinic because that's the clinic that's been designated to provide their mental health, keeping in mind that families are also recipients of that mental health.