If I may, I'd like to read a quote. This is a quote from Deputy Minister Jack Stagg to the parliamentary subcommittee, this august body's predecessor, and this is what he said:
What we found in the pension system was it was a kind of perverse system, in effect, because we had quite a large number.... We took a number of files between 1998 and 2002 and looked to see how many people were coming back to us for additional pensions. People were making this their life's work. We had people coming back anywhere from 9 to 17 or 18 times, looking to boost a pension.
Mr. Stagg added:
We try, of course, in Veterans Affairs, to be fair and to judge rationally how sick or how disabled someone is from the services they rendered for Canada. They will tell us they are sicker than what we believe--
--and I must emphasize “what we believe”--
--or what they can prove, and it becomes a kind of adversarial battle.
I'd like to point out to all the committee members that the basis for any application by a veteran to the Department of Veterans Affairs is medical information provided by professional medical practitioners. It is not based on what I may think I need. The big complaint we have--and it points directly to what you said about consistencies within the inconsistencies--is that they are taking these assessments made by doctors and saying that they are not true to the extent to which the doctor has stated. In many cases it's very difficult for the practitioners to define in reasonable terms that are acceptable to the department exactly what the extent of the problem is.
I will give you a specific example of this. According to Minister Thompson, there are practically 9,000 veterans who have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or related operational stress injuries. According to DND, the majority of these people suffer from a long-term disability that severely restricts their employment outside of the military, and yet these 9,000 people often are assessed at a disability level of 25% to 30%, and, based on what Mr. Stagg said, they then have to go back between 9 and 17 to 18 times and prove that the original assessment was unfair.
I hope you can understand why this is a very traumatic experience for people, and it very well illustrates the problems veterans experience currently with the appeal and review system.
Thank you, sir.