Veterans Affairs Committee on June 6th, 2006

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I feel as though asking questions of the legion is almost like asking my grandparents what to do, because the Legion's been such a part of my life. I am a 32-year member. I know I don't look old enough to be that. I had to say this before my colleagues said it—

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

You do to me.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Well, thank you. I'm aging quite rapidly down here in Ottawa.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

He joined in preschool.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

If they can't throw me off, my own colleagues will do it. Do you see that?

I want to make a couple of comments and then ask a couple of direct questions.

The legions are the centrepiece—I'm from northern Ontario—and are the focus of our communities. We know we've struggled through a lot of these things. I applaud your efforts to stay at arm's length, but there has to be some way we can find—and we need recommendations from the Legion at some point on how to do it—to support the legions in the communities, because doing so is going to support our veterans. We have a new crop of veterans coming up and we're going to add to them every year.

There has to be some way we can do it. I don't have the answers, but the Legion must know something to do with it. They're not social clubs, as you termed it, and we understand that. The fact is, we have to find a way to do it, because the Legion is the face of the community for supporting our veterans.

Now I have two direct questions.

Ms. Burdett, you mentioned earlier—and I'll return to the ombudsman, which is the topic of the day—that you're confident from the discussions you had today, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that there's going to be an agreement in place. I don't know whether there's anything you can share with us or whether it's all confidential. What happened today that has changed your opinion?

At the same time, could you answer the question...? I heard you answer one of my colleagues across the way; I think the question was when you first heard about the ombudsman. Can you tell us from your memory when this all started? Where did it come from? However did the day arrive that somebody said, “We need an ombudsman for our veterans”? I haven't been able to gather that out of all this discussion today. Maybe you could qualify that for me.

Then I have one last quick question, if I'm allowed time.

[Mary Ann Burdett]

First and foremost, I'm sorry you feel that talking to the Legion is like talking to your grandparents. Believe me, son, I'm not that old.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

I realized that statement was going to go that way.

[Mary Ann Burdett]

However, as far as when the issue of the ombudsman first arose is concerned, as long back as I can remember being involved, it would come to the front every so often.

When was the Woods commission? Was it in the sixties?

[Pierre Allard]

The year of the Woods commission was 1961, and it's been—

[Mary Ann Burdett]

Yes, and it's been on the burner ever since in various areas, but—I keep harping on this—we have never sat down together and said, this is what we think an ombudsman should be. That is what made the difference this morning.

No, I don't wish to make public the things we were kicking around at this time—some of them will go out the window and some of them will be incorporated—and it is not my place to do so. But you could tell from the feelings in that room that we were no longer a hundred miles apart; we were coming together on an important issue.

The reason, probably, that it hasn't been done sooner is that nobody has spearheaded it before in that sort of situation and because we didn't each understand what the other thought an ombudsman should be.

[Pierre Allard]

Actually, in 1966 there was a minority report from the Woods study. It's interesting that some of the same concepts that were discussed in 1966 are coming back again this time around. I think we all have to collectively deal with these issues and see what we're comfortable with.

I suspect your committee will be presented some options by the government that you will have to feel comfortable with, as we will in our executive council.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you. My comments had nothing to do with your age, but with the fact that in my family, when we grew up, my parents didn't speak about sending us to university; it was about joining the Legion at the first opportunity.

I have one quick question for Mr. Allard. You made a comment, and I have to ask because I sat here last week, about more lawyers being added to the.... I thought we were talking at that point....

[Pierre Allard]

It was more lawyers for BPA, the Bureau of Pensions Advocates, who actually act as advocates or representatives. They just hired six lawyers in various districts across the country.

Just to show you that we collectively keep informed of business processes, we do some of our representation at review level with BPA lawyers, who are there to cooperate with us, if you like, while we do all the appeals with service officers of the Legion here in Ottawa. The tribunal members come to our headquarters to hear appeals. That's why we have back-and-forth discussions about processes. That is the issue with these lawyers, who are the advocates with the Bureau of Pensions Advocates.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you very much, and thank you for the Legion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Now back over to the Conservative Party. I wonder if Mr. Sweet or Mr. Mayes have any questions.

Mr. Mayes.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

I agree that the question here is, what is broken that we need an ombudsman to fix? At the last meeting, the only reason I could see was the statement made that there was a sense of mistrust out there and that an ombudsman was needed as an advocate for veterans looking for a way to approach, I guess, the department.

We need to understand why there's that mistrust before we can get back to what the role of the ombudsman would be. I'm a little bit confused, and I agree exactly with what you're saying, that before we can move on, we've got to find out what the role of the ombudsman should be.

My concern from the last witnesses was with the volume the Veterans Review and Appeal Board was going through and whether it was an issue that things weren't moving along fast enough. Do you think the delivery from the department is timely, or do you think that's an issue that something like an ombudsman would speed up and I guess provide better access for veterans?

[Mary Ann Burdett]

I'm going to leave part of that to Pierre, because I'm not sure what effect an ombudsman would have on that at all. But you will recall that they have suggested that it is one department that is understaffed; they are short of people, and they've been trying for a while to increase the number of people in the VRAB. So it would of course be handled in a more timely manner if they had more people to do it, and they are actively working at that.

Pierre.

[Pierre Allard]

It's quite true that there is a backlog throughout the system. Having said that, it is an evidence-based system, and if there are people who might not be happy with whether or not they got a disability pension or a disability award, there might be some individuals out there who mistrust the department.

Having said that, I also see a very timely turnaround at the first decision level within the department; I have seen some decisions lately that are turned around in two or three weeks, which indicates to me that timeliness is taking place. Some of the delays occur when you need to go and get some medical diagnosis. That is then a function of our medical care system; we don't have enough doctors and we just don't have enough specialists. So this is where some of the delays occur.

But generally speaking, I have seen the department being able to turn around decisions at first level very quickly, and the VRAB is also very quick. Having said that, they need more members.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Right.

[Mary Ann Burdett]

If I may just finish that off, you spoke of a lack of trust in the department out in the field. I'm not sure that's it; we mentioned the surveys earlier. But I'll tell you what does happen: anybody who is not satisfied with the answers they get from the department is immediately not only distrustful, but they can also be very vocal about it. Those are the only ones we ever hear from, and there is always that faint possibility that the eligibility factor was just not there to start with. So we have to be prepared to hear the negatives, not the positives. They never come telling us what a good job anybody has done, but always what they didn't do.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Chair, if I could just follow up on that, if you hired an ombudsman, there could be some mistrust of the ombudsman too. So there's always going to be somebody who mistrusts government, or a process, or whatever. I don't think an ombudsman is necessarily a solution for that problem. I guess what we're searching for is what is the purpose of an ombudsman?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right.

Just to let you know, this next segment will be for the NDP, but they are not here today.

Mr. Rota, you haven't asked a question yet.

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

I'd be honoured to do so. Do I have to lean to the left or can I simply ask my question?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I always like it when you're leaning to the right, Mr. Rota.