Veterans Affairs Committee on March 13th, 2008

[Claude Petit]

That's right. They'd have to come into Saskatoon. Their appointments to see doctors or specialists and so on are usually in the Saskatoon-Regina area. My complaint about this is that they're not....

I'm drawing a 92% pension--it got racked up from a couple of jobs out in Edmonton--but I don't see a doctor. They don't call me in for two years. They don't check on me to see if I'm dying. I get the VIP program. They don't ask me how my health is until I go in to see the doctor again, which is every two years.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I'd like to move on to the core payment of $20,000 for status aboriginals. There are other core payments for merchant veterans and so on. I still don't quite understand this myself, but for the non-status aboriginals, or the Métis, certainly there would be records of their service. Were they looking for, or were they entitled to...?

I know there was tremendous mistreatment of aboriginals who came back and who weren't eligible for land under the Soldier Settlement Board after World War II. The mistreatment has been well documented and well acknowledged. With regard to a non-status aboriginal, I appreciate the problems in terms of remoteness and so on, but I'm not clear on the core payment. What would be the basis of this?

Mr. MacPhee or Mr. Petit.

[Alastair MacPhee]

I'd be glad to answer that question.

The essence of the complaint was that aboriginal veterans were unable to qualify for the benefits under the Veterans Charter of 1945.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

That's right.

[Alastair MacPhee]

The core of the NAVA membership complaint is that there was a lack of understanding of the pre-war conditions that the Métis and non-status Indians had lived in. There were low levels of literacy and numeracy, and poor education.

More importantly, there was even a lack of interest and a lack of will to think about the needs of these veterans. There were no procedures established to deal with this group at all. In the document that NAVA submitted to the UN, they called this a flagrant discrimination against aboriginal veterans who were non-status Indians and Métis--when, by the way, there were more of them, sir, than status Indians.

That's the essence of the claim. There was no point in the process where people revealed their aboriginality, that they were non-status or Métis or anything like that. As Claude says, when the bullets are flying, nobody's asking you--

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Yes, and that explains it better. What you're saying is that there was total cultural disconnect between this group and the government of the time, and because of that cultural disconnect, they weren't able to connect.

[Alastair MacPhee]

Yes.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you.

Monsieur Gaudet of the Bloc Québécois, cinq minutes.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think I saw you for the first time in 2003, when we made the trip to Korea. I was part of the Canadian delegation. That was the first time I was able to appreciate first-hand the work veterans did. I realized that, in Korea, you got the recognition that you should get here at home.

In the spring of 2007, I took part in a meeting of the Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. That was when I found out that, out of a budget of $10 billion, $4.6 billion went to administration. Does the same thing happen at Veterans Affairs Canada with the aboriginal association? I am going to put the question to Mr. MacPhee.

[Alistair MacPhee]

That's a good question. In the world of aboriginal people in Canada, when you hear about huge amounts of money being spent, that's for Indian Act bands and reserves. That's where the majority of the money goes, and non-status Indians and Métis are simply left with the.... There are smaller amounts of funding that flow from the federal government.

For example, I know--and I have seen it in minutes of your previous meetings--that you were talking about type 2 diabetes. You heard testimony from Health Canada that there was an aboriginal diabetes strategy. Well, it sounds good, except that it only has prevention and education dollars for non-status Indians and Métis. Any health strategy needs five pillars--care, treatment, research, and other elements--to be a successful strategy.

So that's the story of how it rolls out, and that's a core element in how the federal government chooses to deal with aboriginal people.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you.

I am going to read recommendations 15 and 16, which I am sure you know by heart.

(15) Veterans Affairs Canada in cooperation with NAVA establish clear guidelines for federal officials so that they can monitor culturally-sensitive long-term care for aboriginal veterans and explicitly those facilities operating under contract to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

I would like Mr. Petit or Mr. MacPhee to tell me what that means.

[Alistair MacPhee]

Number 15 is what you'd like an explanation on, I understand.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I do not want you to explain it; I want you to tell me what you are expecting from the government.

[Alistair MacPhee]

Yes. I think NAVA is recommending that officials within VAC work with aboriginal people, with aboriginal veterans, to prepare guidelines on how a culturally sensitive long-term care program could be put together. That would seem to me to be a very rudimentary approach to this, and a beginning stage.

Right now there's none of this dialogue taking place, so it's no wonder these programs don't exist. The department needs to be undertaking more dialogue with aboriginal veterans and with aboriginal people to develop things like this. There are all sorts of tools that could be developed: guidelines, training programs, and all sorts of things.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

In my opinion, recommendations 17 and 18 say the same thing as recommendation 16. I quote:

(18) Veterans Affairs gives high priority to aboriginal cultural programs for aboriginal veterans in long-term care facilities.

I understand the idea. My mother, who has always lived in the country, would not be able to go and live in the middle of a big city. That would kill her within two days, three at the most.

I would like to know what it means for you.

[Alistair MacPhee]

This is a very important point. We were talking earlier about the aboriginal veteran going into a long-term care facility. It's quite a shock for anyone to go into a long-term care facility, let alone someone who is aboriginal. You may have been an elder in the community, and now you're just a patient number in the long-term care facility. You have no connection with the cultural program.

So I believe Veterans Affairs should be involved in building supportive cultural programs, working with the aboriginal community to provide these. People could come in; traditional knowledge holders could come in; cultural groups could come in and visit the veterans, and this would lessen the shock.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Gaudet.

I'm going to take this opportunity, since it's now Conservative time for five minutes, to ask a few questions myself.

When I was down in the Pentagon, they had a lovely monument or memorial to the Choctaw talkers, who were able to beat the German or Japanese decryption machines during the Second World War because of their communications.

Then, as well, the other example I think of--and you may know him--is Ed Borchert. He ran the canteen at the Museum of the Regiments in Calgary. He's been involved with either Rangers or Pathfinders or something like that. It has a very high failure rate in the Canadian Forces. They go in as a pre-emptive group to set up landing strips and that type of thing. There's an 80% dropout rate. He's an impressive guy.

There's one thing I'd like to ask you about. It's not necessarily specific to health care or the review per se, but I'd like to get your thoughts on this. Hopefully the parliamentary secretary won't get too upset. The Gurkhas had a proud tradition of serving in the British Empire. They were known as a warrior people with regard to their approach to these types of things. I wonder whether or not there's ever been any talk or consideration of an aboriginal regiment inside the Canadian Forces.

[Claude Petit]

It came to my attention. Actually, there was a guy down at the hotel who said, “Why don't you guys start your own regiment?”

I brought it forward to a general, actually, when we were on a trip overseas. You couldn't start a regiment, to start off with, but my idea was that you could start it with something like we have with the Raven program. The other one that's done in Wainwright is the Bold Eagle program. There are kids coming out of there, young people. I was at the one in Victoria. It would be a good idea to start something like that, if they came into one group. Then eventually you could form a battalion-strength regiment--or not a battalion, but a regiment, because all the natives are dying off.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

You mentioned that the Bold Eagle program is associated with Wainwright, and there is this other Raven program?

[Claude Petit]

I sit on that committee. It's in Victoria, and it's a naval program. There are young people coming in right from Winnipeg. I also put forward for the air force to get the three different groups...so they can serve if they want to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

That's interesting. So you're quite sympathetic to that idea.

[Claude Petit]

I am, yes. It's based on what I do. That's why I got the Order of Canada. I work with young people to try to get them off the streets and straighten them up. We have a couple of guys who ended up going to university.

I'm chairman of the friendship centre in Saskatoon. I'm also trying to get a cadet group going. That's another part of the program that would move them into the Bold Eagle and Raven programs, and they could continue on.

Once they get there, it's the discipline that does it. It doesn't matter which way you look at it. It could be white, blue, black, or green; it doesn't matter. The young people nowadays need that. You can see the gangs around Edmonton and Calgary. Winnipeg especially is really bad, and even Saskatoon. I keep painting my garage door. It's really bad stuff.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I think it's a great idea, sir. I'm glad to hear that you're sympathetic. Who knows? Maybe at some point in the future I'll pursue that with you.

[Claude Petit]

Certainly, I'd like to.