Veterans Affairs Committee on June 6th, 2006

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Burdett and Mr. Allard, for appearing here today.

I'd like to begin by telling you that I couldn't agree more with you on one of the comments that you made in your presentation, that veterans have a right to be provided with equal benefits in any part of the country in which they or their dependants reside. Geographical location should not determine the quality or level of service. I could not agree with you more. I think that goes without saying, and I believe everyone in this room feels the same way.

There was so much contained in your presentation that it's going to be hard for me to nail down just a couple of things. I'm going to have a series of questions, and if you could answer them, I would be very much appreciative.

As we said earlier, we are just in the process now of finding out how an ombudsman should work and what a bill of rights should be about, which is why we're hearing from witnesses.

To start, could you tell me, in a few minutes, about the input and the consultation you had, for example, with the previous government for the new Veterans Charter--and please feel free to use some detail. I know it was the Conservative Party that promised to install an ombudsman and a bill of rights for veterans; however, did these topics ever come up during your discussions with the previous government on the new Veterans Charter?

Now that our government is in the consultation stage, which we heard about from Mr. Hillier and Ms. Bruce last week, can you tell us about your vision for how the Legion will work with both the ombudsman and the bill of rights, and do you see a formal relationship between the Legion and the ombudsman?

I haven't had an opportunity to go to your website at this point, but you've posted on your website the veterans bill of rights. Can you tell us a little bit about that, how you arrived at this document? Is there something of a draft nature, or did you have consultations with veterans and other veterans groups when you drew this up?

Another issue that continually comes up among modern-day veterans is that they're not as comfortable as the traditional veteran with the Legion atmosphere. That was one of the reasons the idea of an ombudsman was first raised. What is the current ratio of veterans versus civilians among Legion membership? This is all about veterans, so I just want to know if you could give me a rough ballpark number.

To close, what role do you foresee the ombudsman playing with respect to the department and the veterans it serves? For example, if you could give the committee some advice on how the government should proceed with this initiative, what would you say?

[Mary Ann Burdett]

Thank you for all those questions. I can't begin to remember what the ones in the middle were.

Your first question was on consultation on the new Veterans Charter. I can answer that one. There was tremendous consultation with the veterans organizations. This has been going on for six years. It started in July 2000. There was consultation with the veterans organizations, with the military, with families; it was ongoing. I spent so much time in Ottawa the last couple of years that my family thought I lived here, and most of that included consultations and visiting.

In all those consultations, was the issue of an ombudsman or the bill of rights ever raised? Yes, indeed. There was discussion on absolutely everything that could come up around it. As to the exact content of those discussions, in the number of meetings we have had over the past years, I do not remember exclusively.

I do know, and I repeat what I said earlier, that one of our problems with an ombudsman has always been that everybody has a different concept of it, and one of us doesn't necessarily know what the other person's concept is when we're discussing it. One person is saying, absolutely not, under any circumstances; and the other one is saying we definitely need one with lots of teeth.

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

What is your vision? What is the Legion's vision of an ombudsman?

[Mary Ann Burdett]

I'm sorry, Madam, but we really haven't had time to put that together. We have been looking at this situation. Originally the Legion said no ombudsman, that it was not a necessity.

The Legion, like everything else, is progressive. It has to change. Society is changing. Things are changing. We are trying to make our organization more helpful to our young military personnel, and if they feel comfortable with an ombudsman, we will look at an ombudsman. But for me to sit here and tell you what I think that ombudsman should do right now, I can't.

We just came out of a meeting where it was discussed and where the initial things were kicked around a little bit, but now we have to go back to our veterans services committee and then we will be meeting as a complete group, the dominion executive council, at the end of June in Calgary. All of this will be presented to them before I can tell you what the Legion policy is, or even what our vision is, because we are a grassroots organization. Pierre and I don't make the rules; our people tell us that's what we're going to do.

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

That's perfectly fair.

And the other questions?

[Mary Ann Burdett]

Have I missed some?

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

I was making notes as you were speaking and you said you posted something on your website about a veterans bill of rights. Can you tell us about that and how you arrived at the document?

[Mary Ann Burdett]

Yes, that's not a problem at all.

It is a Legion statement as to what we felt should be included in a veterans bill of rights. It is in the presentation here very much as it is on the website. Our committee came up with that, and it was written to a great extent by our office staff and approved by the dominion president and the chairman of that committee, who happened to be the same person. It was put on the website and left open for input from any of our branches, our members, our commands and so on, to change or to combat and have input or changes made to. That also will be gone over again at our upcoming meeting.

Unfortunately, we cannot meet quite as often as we would like to, but we try to move things as quickly as possible.

[Pierre Allard]

We did get some proposed amendments, because it is only a draft, a living draft. We got some feedback from branches and commands and we amend it as we get those drafts.

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

Then I'll repeat that last question. Because you're getting input from members, I ask you if you could give me any idea of what the current ratio of veterans versus civilians is among the Legion membership? Is it 50-50, 40-60, 10-90?

[Mary Ann Burdett]

Not off the top of my head. I wouldn't want to make a statement on that without having a more accurate source. To be quite truthful, it isn't something I've looked at recently to see what the ratio is. It hasn't seemed of vast importance because we are there for our veterans and their dependants, and if you're a veteran yourself or a civilian, as long as you're working toward the cause, that's what's important to us.

[Pierre Allard]

When we represent veterans and their families, which we do, we do that for free, and we do that whether or not they are Legion members.

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

I think you do a marvellous job, by the way, but if you could get me that number I'd appreciate it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I know it's an exciting presentation because everybody is going over time, but I'm trying to keep to what we set out as our schedule.

Monsieur St. Denis, five minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

I second what Ms. Hinton has just said about the Legion. I have a northern Ontario riding with about 18 legions stretched across a large area. The services, social supports, and the opportunity for recreation and social life they provide to their members is incredibly important.

First, on the notion of an ombudsman, I appreciate you want to know more about where the government is going with it. I think we all do. In your thinking on the subject of an ombudsman, assuming there was one in place, would it be your expectation that the ombudsman would help a veteran exclusively with respect to the services of Veterans Affairs? Or if there was a program provided by the Government of Canada elsewhere, outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs but relative to that veteran--for example, Canada Pension disability--would you see a veterans ombudsman helping a veteran with a wide range of federal services, or strictly through Veterans Affairs?

As this idea of an ombudsman is developed, it occurs to me it's an area that I don't know if anybody has explored.

[Mary Ann Burdett]

That is a very interesting question. To my knowledge, it isn't an area that anybody has gone into. You have given us food for thought. Unfortunately, I can't give you much of an answer, but it will be interesting to add that to the things we want to think and talk about.

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

I certainly don't have a strong opinion either way on it myself. But it does occur to me—as acknowledged around the table by all—that many of our veterans are elderly, certainly those from the Second World War and Korea, and the easier we, as a country, can make it for them to seek redress, seek the programs to which they are entitled, the better service we'll provide to them.

When it comes to the bill of rights itself—I'm relatively new to this committee—there is the new charter, and we try to square the efforts of a charter and what a bill of rights might do. I know a lot of progress was made under the previous administration.

Could you summarize, with a bill of rights, if there were one overriding concern or objective you would write into that charter, if you had to pick just one, what would that number one be? To me it would act as a starting point; you want to start with people's first priorities.

[Mary Ann Burdett]

You ask the tough ones.

Just before I answer that, I would like to go back to your first comments regarding the ombudsman and his going into other areas in which he might be able to help the veteran.

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

He or she.

[Mary Ann Burdett]

Or she. I'm partial to men.

That is something our service officers do, both at branch level and command level. They look to other areas as well as at what the Legion or Veterans Affairs has to offer. They will assist the veteran with municipal, provincial, federal help--anything they may know about. So part of that job is in the works now.

Anyway, I won't linger on that.

On your second question, on what we would pick as number one, that's really very difficult.

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

Not that you would be limited to one in the end, but what is your first priority, if you could? It's okay if you can't. Just reflect on it at your leisure.

[Mary Ann Burdett]

I could probably give you a better answer given a little more time to think of it. But I would say veterans have the right to receive fair and equal treatment irrespective of rank, position, or status. Everybody gets fair and equal treatment.

The other thing I'm very strong on personally is the privacy issue. Those veterans must be very assured that their personal positions and situations are not being chatted about anywhere, except with themselves and their immediate representatives.

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

Is my time up?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

It is.

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

Thank you very much. Keep up the good work.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.