Veterans Affairs Committee on June 15th, 2006

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

But define low income for me, if you would, please.

[Brian Ferguson]

Low income would be guaranteed income supplement type of income.

[Ken Miller]

It links to our definition of low income in the war veterans allowance program. I don't have the numbers with me today, but I could certainly provide those to you. There's an income ceiling defined within that program, so if someone falls below that income ceiling, then by definition they're considered low income.

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

I would appreciate it if you could supply that. I'm sure all members would be interested in that threshold. Thank you.

That's it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right.

Now over to our friends with the Bloc. Monsieur Perron.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I only have a few brief comments. First, I want to thank you for coming.

Is the VIP also available in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Italy and the United States? If so, I would ask you to send the committee a very brief comparison between the system in Canada and those in other countries.

It was mentioned that this would be more costly in certain regions than others. I'm talking about the cost per client per region. Would you be able to tell us how much the VIP costs, on average, in the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes? You could send us a computerized table showing the costs. That could show us where the problems mainly stand.

That's all. Once again, thank you very much. Keep up your good work.

[Brian Ferguson]

We will get that information for you, to the best of our ability.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

I learned that one of the program access criteria is income. I was told that didn't include family income, that it was limited to the veteran's income. So when a veteran is married and is living in a couple and is authorized to enter the program, the spouse's income is not taken into consideration.

Is that correct?

[Brian Ferguson]

I think you're correct on that point, but we'll get back to you. It's the veteran's income, and that's the way the system works.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

That means that, if a veteran is living with a person who has a good job and a significant income, he can nevertheless receive support, and, upon his death, his spouse also receives money under the program, even if her situation does not meet the income test. Are the income tests reviewed when the spouse becomes a widow?

[Brian Ferguson]

We'll get back to you on those points. I think that's correct. We did not attempt to put an income test in the continuation of the benefits. It does provide an entry point. It was brought in because if you didn't get VIP because of pension or other reasons, this was another way to get into the program. But you're right that these situations arise as a result.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I think Mr. Valley indicated that he was interested.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I have a quick question, similar to what Mr. Perron said. In talking about Canada and the world, you say we initialized this program, but where would we fit in the world with our VIP program? With our restrictions on eligibility, the amount of service we've put into it, and the threshold we provide for these veterans, how do we stack up against any three you want to pick?

[Brian Ferguson]

In undertaking to carry out the analysis that Mr. Perron requested, I've done a lot of work with other countries to compare what we have and what they have, and I don't recall other countries having the VIP program. I've just asked Ken if he's aware of any, and we're going to double-check that and get back to you. This is a fairly unique program, so it may be the only one.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Your opening statement kind of indicated that the world had followed Canada's lead, but I understand that.

[Brian Ferguson]

I understand what you're saying. We'll get back to you with that information.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Hopefully we're still the best, or we might have to adjust that study.

That's all, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you, Roger.

I think at this stage we can say we've exhausted our questions. I would like to thank our witnesses very much for their appearance here today. I'm sure we've all learned a great deal more.

Now we have a motion to deal with. We started with two, but I believe we're going with Mr. Shipley's.

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

I think Mr. Perron has a friendly amendment.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I have a friendly amendment to propose, since the two motions are similar.

Bev is interested in visiting all the institutions where care is provided to veterans, whereas David only wants to go to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. To make both of them happy, I suggest that we add, after the words “to Canadian veterans”, in the third line, the words “starting with Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec”. That would solve the problem of both colleagues. David Sweet would be happy, because he could visit the Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue institute as a priority, and Ms. Shipley would be happy as well, since everything would be included in the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

That's acceptable to me.

Mr. Shipley.

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

On a little clarification, I agree with Mr. Perron that they could be combined. I don't want it left that I said the motion would indicate that we would go to all of them. We would look at the list, choose which ones, disperse, and get a variety of different ones that were best suited for us to visit. That could include Mr. Sweet's.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

It doesn't take off your last part:

“[...] locations chosen from a list [...]”

That is straight. The only thing it's putting into your motion is that we must go to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue because they would want it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

That sounds fine with me. I think the clerk clearly understands the intent. Maybe we'll just proceed to the vote, unless there's any debate. Then I'll explain the process from there.

(Motion as amended agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I mistakenly took part in the liaison subcommittee today because it was over the budget. They just had their meeting today. I'm not sure if they're having one next week. I will have the clerk go ahead and prepare the budget. He'll probably want to have some informal consultations with everybody on this list and where we want to go.

That's that, unless there's anything else.

The meeting is adjourned.