Thank you, Darragh.
Good afternoon, Chairman and members of the committee.
I'd like to discuss at a fairly high level some of the key features of the programs comprising the new veterans charter. As I know you're aware, the charter and the new programs were first introduced in April of 2006, so we have just two years of experience with the programs at this point.
One of the key design features was to base the structure of the programs on modern principles of disability management, so it was very important to reflect in those programs things like early intervention, achieving the maximum functioning of individuals, and having very integrated case management. All of these things together help transition individuals back to civilian life.
The approach, as you know, is a dual award approach. Simply put, it separates the economic and non-economic compensation; in other words, we have separate programs for earnings loss and separate programs for compensation for pain and suffering as a result of an injury. It's a needs-based approach to programming. What this means is that we have greater flexibility to respond within our authorities to the specific needs of individuals. It also means that those with greater levels of need get greater levels of support, and that's very important, we feel.
The approach also provides more authority and more programming for us to help families. It's very clear that families are directly impacted as a result of military service, so we try to assist in that way as well.
Moving to slide 15, the new veterans charter, in terms of eligibility, applies to Canadian Forces veterans who served after 1947, with the exception of those who served in the Korean War.
I'll just go through each of the program areas very quickly—there are five.
The first is the disability award. This, roughly, is the program that replaces the old disability pension under the Pension Act. As you know, it's a program that pays a lump sum payment in relation to the percentage or degree of disability the individual has. At the 100% level, the current payment is a little over $260,000, and that amount is indexed annually.
The next program area, and probably the cornerstone of our suite of wellness programs, as we like to refer to them, is the rehabilitation program. The intent of this program is to restore to the fullest extent possible the functioning and capability of an individual, recognizing that we cannot assist them in all cases to get fully back to where they were. Certainly, we want to assist them as far as we can, not just in terms of vocational ability but also in terms of social functioning and integration within their families and communities, and so on. The program does it by focusing on barriers and providing elements that assist in removing those barriers, which is really the key to success. It's a comprehensive program that provides medical, psycho-social, and vocational rehabilitation.
I'll turn next to slide 16 and the financial benefits program, which contains a number of different elements. This is the second part of what I referred to as the dual award approach. The first and perhaps most important element of this program is to compensate an individual when there has been a direct impact on their ability to earn a salary from employment. So we have an earnings loss program, which provides 75% of an individual's pre-release salary for as long as they are in the rehab program, or until age 65 if they're seriously and permanently disabled.
We also provide a supplementary retirement program, which provides 2% of all of the earnings loss they received up to the age of 65. That is paid as a lump sum at age 65.
Finally, we've also developed what's referred to as Canadian Forces income support, a program that provides a financial safety net, if you will, for those individuals who are capable of re-entering the workforce, but don't, for whatever reason. It provides a bridge for them to allow them some additional time to make that reintegration.
We also recognize within the financial benefits program that if somebody has sustained an injury and has a disability, particularly if it's a serious one, it can impact their potential career path or its enhancement for the rest of their life. So we provide something referred to as a permanent impairment allowance, paying a monthly amount for life to compensate for that—at least in part.
We also provide, under the new veterans charter, access to group health benefits. It's a gap-filling approach for those individuals who are not eligible to purchase coverage under the public service health care plan upon their release. They now have that open to them when the need is there.
Finally, we have a job placement program, which is all-important for those who can rehabilitate and do have the potential of re-entering the workforce. Getting a leg-up and some assistance in finding employment is very important.
Slide 19, the final slide I'll speak to, speaks to family support. I noted at the front end that this is an important area of our programming. The new veterans charter now gives us some ability to respond.
We do it by involving spouses, when we can, in rehabilitation planning. We provide rehab counselling that includes the family. We can provide case management services to family members. As I said, sometimes impacts come directly to the family member, and they may have some issues for which they would benefit directly. We can provide spousal access to the rehab program for themselves, when the veteran is sufficiently seriously disabled that they can't benefit. In other words, the family should benefit if the veteran can't; that was the logic. We provide child care assistance. If that is needed to facilitate participation in rehab, that's available. Of course, we have a range of survivor benefits, including, perhaps most importantly, the death benefit, which pays the same amount of $260,000 in the case of service-related death, together with the earnings-lost benefit that would have been paid to the veteran had they been injured but survived. There's a fairly comprehensive suite of benefits for family members.
With that I'll turn it back to you, Darragh.