Veterans Affairs Committee on May 27th, 2008

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, I would like to thank you. Last summer, at the 60 ^thanniversary of the Dieppe Raid, you asked for all parties to be stand with you at each of the ceremonies. I thank you for that.

Now let us move to the serious business. Yesterday, the new ombudsman, Mr. Pat Stogran, held a news conference and I brought back some documents that seem to contradict each other. First, we read:

The Veterans Ombudsman shall...review systemic issues related to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board (VRAB);

Three lines later, we read:

But the Veterans Ombudsman shall not review...any decision of the VRAB, or any decision of Veterans Affairs for which there is a right of appeal to the VRAB;

I am not sure that veterans will understand that document. In one place, it says that they have certain rights, and in another, it says that they do not. This is in the same booklet.

What do you think about that? I will show you.

[An Hon. Member]

In French?

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

They have it in English on the other side.

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, and I think a lot of people are probably breathing a sigh of relief that I'm not a lawyer, but I do know that Victor Marchand, who I introduced as the chairman of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board.... That's a quasi-judicial body. It has to be at arm's length. This is a man I never talk to.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Lucky him.

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Right, lucky him.

I was going to compliment you on the shirt you wore today in question period, Charlie, but now I'm not going to.

It's a quasi-judicial body. I think we have some lawyers at the table here. It's basically hands off; we can't interfere. It's quasi-judicial. It would be like criticizing a judge for a sentence that has been handed down, if you will, in the real world of the judiciary.

This is one group I don't talk to and that I'm not allowed to talk to. In fact, when I meet some of these people at the airport, they probably think I'm rude. I just say hello and keep going. There is always the risk that I'd be attempting to interfere in a decision they have handed down.

So the ombudsman will not be able to interfere in those decisions when they've gone through a procedure, which, at the end of the day, on pensionable issues, they have a right to appeal. We're depending on the men and women on that body to make those judgments based on the legislation. We can't interfere in those decisions.

One of the things we have done since taking office, I believe, is strengthen the board. There's a qualifying test that has to be done for individuals to be on that board. Victor was appointed by the previous government. In the time we have been there and that he has been there, and I don't have any hesitation in saying this, he has done a good job in reducing that backlog. And I think he has a very credible board that's doing good work.

That's really why the ombudsman can't interfere in those types of decisions. Now, at the end of the day, they can also appeal to the Federal Court if they're not happy with the decision. We had one of those cases this year that dated way back to 1966 or 1968, and it was finally resolved by Veterans Affairs.

We have a process that works pretty well, but the ombudsman won't be able to interfere with those judicial decisions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I apologize, but we're over five minutes, so Mr. Gaudet will have to continue on at another opportunity.

It is over to the Conservative Party of Canada. Mr. Shipley, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister, for appearing.

Quickly, in terms of the ombudsman, in the estimates it has sort of been flatlined at $5.8 million per year. The office is opened and going. I'm just wondering if the $5.8 million up to 2010-11 is just until you get a better feel for what those costs might actually be. Or do you feel that the office up and going is at its potential with the $5.8 million, without any changes?

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

This is a question I didn't expect, to be honest with you, in terms of focusing on the future in terms of.... I think what we have done on this, Mr. Shipley, is that we set aside enough money to get him up and running with a good complement of staff. I think he has a staff of about 45. To those of us who run businesses, it seems like an awful lot of staff for an ombudsman. But of course we have a lot of clients, don't we? I went through the number of clients we have in my opening remarks.

I think he has adequate resources and human resources to do the job. I think we budgeted fairly accurately what he'll need. But at the end of the day, I guess that will have to be assessed as we go forward in terms of whether it's enough. I think we've pretty well agreed that it is enough.

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

Thank you.

This next question might be for Mr. Marchand. He's had a quiet time today. Thank you for coming here, also.

When I look at the supplementary estimates, there has been an increase of $2 million, I believe. It sounds like your claims may have increased. I'm just not sure what that increase was over the last year, but you're talking about a reallocation of $2 million and an operational shortfall. I know that you've had to build in a number of members. On your website, you talk about your members “who represent a diverse experience and background from the public at large”. With that on your website, can you talk to me about the correlation between that statement on your website and the $2 million that is actually needed to go back into your budget?

[Victor Marchand, Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board]

Thank you.

The increase in funds addresses specific needs in the areas of transportation and training. Over the years the board has not had any substantial increase in its budgets, and over the years we've been utilizing most of the salaries that were available, because we were running with a low complement of board members. So we were able, over the years, to function that way.

We now have a full complement of 29 permanent board members. I think it's the first time in the history of the board that we do have that full complement.

So there have been increases across the board, literally, in operating, transportation, and whatever expenses, and we required an increase at this time. We were afforded one through portfolio reallocation.

With regard to the selection criteria or the system of selection criteria, no, there is no correlation between that and the increase in budgets, although the selection process in itself requires a substantial amount of money. It requires somewhere in the area of $100,000 just to run that selection process every year.

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

I have just one more question for the minister.

I just want to recap a little bit. We had the opportunity to go to some of the military bases, and obviously part of what the committee wanted to do was to talk about the transition from the military to veterans. This goes back to some of the comments from some of my colleagues. Particularly in Petawawa and Valcartier, there were clearly both men and women presenting to us when we talked about the transition of how to deal with people with stress injuries of all kinds. I think we found that to be pretty important, because of the number of women who are in it now.

In terms of the transitional funding, when you talked of the doubling of the number of operational stress injuries, obviously that is looking out, in my mind, to the future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Shipley, please wrap up.

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

Could you just make a comment about transitional funding for the operation of those?

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I'm glad you talked about the transitional issues, Mr. Shipley, because we have really focused on them in working very closely with DND. These transitional issues are less seamless than they used to be, in terms of a client coming over to us when they leave the military.

I basically want to thank DND; they are really standing behind their men and women in uniform. They are never giving up on their soldiers, and many of them now are being retained and retrained within the military. Rick Hillier has gone out of his way to make it known to his own soldiers that they are valued, that though they may be wounded or injured, the military wants to keep them to contribute to Canada and the well-being of the Canadian Forces. So DND deserves a lot of credit for what it's doing, but when these soldiers do become our clients, it is less seamless than it used to be. We continue to work on it and work very closely with DND to make that transition even easier for our men and women in uniform.

That's the short answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you.

Now we're back to the Liberal Party of Canada for five minutes, with Mr. St. Denis.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Minister, for being here with your officials.

Along the lines of Bev's questioning on the effort to make this as easy as possible for our soldiers who become veterans, as we've all come to recognize, a veteran is a veteran is a veteran, whether they're a veteran from the Second World War or Korea, and that is an important group of traditional veterans. We're making new veterans every day when a service man or woman leaves the military because of retirement or illness.

So is there a task force? Is there a proactive effort being made by DND and Veterans Affairs to improve the linkages between the two departments at every stage of the process? I appreciate that you have to have silos and envelopes for budgetary reasons. There have to be parameters for and definitions of what one department does in the other, but we can always do better.

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you.

In my opening remarks I mentioned some of the work you have done. It looks like a new day to commemorate veterans.

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

For some anyway.

Thank you for making the reference. I'll be using it tomorrow at the Senate committee. They should approve the bill as well.

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Those are good things to put in the householder, when someone from another party or the government recognizes some work that has been done by a member in opposition. But it's good work, and I appreciate it, as all members do here. We've had a good relationship over the years.

We do have a steering committee made up of DND and VAC officials. I don't know how many, and I don't know if the deputy does or not, but we have a team engaged with DND, and it's chaired by Brian Ferguson, the assistant deputy minister, who has worked on that committee over the years.

We've made a lot of gains, simply because I think over the years that transition was pretty rough where they get caught in the.... In the military I think they have a zone called no-man's land. When you're in a combat situation, you never want to get stranded there. I think a lot of our veterans had that feeling. They left the military and then no one picked up or was there to make the transition as easy as possible.

So we're doing that, and we're interviewing these young men and women earlier as well. We have a transition interview with individuals to make it less cumbersome for them and for us, so the transition is smoother.

I think we've made huge gains. I'll also reference that, as I did with Mr. Shipley, the tremendous effort DND is making working with us. I think the relationship is much better than it's ever been. We also recognize the value of those men and women in uniform. We want to retrain them to keep them in the military as long as possible. That has a huge impact on the psychological well-being of our men and women in uniform. We're talking about those who've been injured, who get the feeling the military wants to discard them, and that's not the case today. So it's made a huge difference to those men and women in uniform.

Recruitment has never been higher in the Canadian military. I think a lot of that is the result of what DND and VAC are doing for them. They feel that when they serve, they serve their country 100%. They do everything we ask of them, and when something goes wrong for them, they want to know instinctively that the Government of Canada will be there for them. So I think DND is doing an exceptional job of that, and it's recognized in the recruitment, the number of young men and women who are stepping up to enter the military.

I also think it's reflected in the programs we have for our veterans as a result of the new charter. It goes back to Mr. Angus's question on what we're doing and looking at for the new veterans in the future. At the end of the day, I think there's been a complete mindshift in terms of recognizing those needs and responding to them.

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

Thank you. If there's time later, maybe—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. St. Denis, that's five minutes and 26 seconds.

Now we're over to the Conservative Party of Canada, and Mr. Sweet, for five minutes.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much, Minister and Deputy Minister and Chairman of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, for being here.

I was analyzing some of the numbers. I notice that from 2005-2006 to 2006-2007, there's a $146 million increase—that's from actuals. Then, from main estimates there's a large spike of about $350 million, and then $21 million. That's a substantial sum.

I'm looking at page 2 of the analysts' report on those figures.

Mr. Marchand was in about six months ago saying they had made substantial progress in reducing the backlog. I think it had been almost completely caught up. I want to make sure there's enough in that total budget to ensure that we can avoid those backlogs again and that the veterans will be served in real time on an ongoing basis.

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

My belief is that we have budgeted enough for it. The numbers speak for themselves. I'm satisfied that we've set aside enough for that.

I can go on, Mr. Sweet, a little bit more. It was brought to my attention that I said something I have to clarify here. One of my wordsmiths just came to me and said, “Minister, you said the transition...”—we were talking about transition—“was 'less seamless'.” But, he said, “You might want to clarify that to the committee.”

I should have been saying “more seamless”. When you're talking about more or less than seamless, it gets rather—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!