Veterans Affairs Committee on June 5th, 2008

[An hon. member]

He's older.

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

Very good idea. Bonne idée, monsieur Perron, regarding Sainte-Anne's.

When we were talking—and we've learned a lot about the German system, Mr. Chairman—the lieutenant-colonel was mentioning his pension and the fact that he got 72%, and that if something happened to him his wife got 60%. I thought it would be appropriate for us to make sure we mention to him that he should have that reviewed at the highest order, because by my math that means a lieutenant colonel is only worth 12%, and I think it should be much more.

I just wanted to share that humour with you, Lieutenant-Colonel, and thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

It depends on the circumstance. I think you said it was 60% of 72% if—

[LCol Matthias Reibold]

That is after my retirement. During my time when I serve fully, she gets 60% of the income I have today if something happens to me now. She always gets the pension from the income I have now, and since I am now serving with 100%, she gets 60% of the 100% if something were to happen to me. If my wife then got also to the retirement age, and she hasn't remarried, she would get then only 60% from the so-called calculated 72%, because she has already also retired. But luckily the civilian retirement age in Germany is 67, and my wife is eight years younger than I, so it would be a funny time for her....

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Stoffer, do you have a quick wrap-up comment?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

I have two quick questions.

I think the next time we visit, Lieutenant-Colonel, we should do it at the Heidelberg Café in Heidelberg, Germany. It's a very beautiful place. You could always bring beer next time for after the meeting.

Okay, I have two questions.

In Canada, one thing that I think all of us are very proud of is the set-up of what we call the military family resource centres. There are 34 of them across the country. They're generally attached to bases and organizations that we have. When troops go overseas, the families have an area or an outlet to go to so they can bond together, work together, and share their experiences.

My first question is, do they have those types of facilities in Germany? If they do, does the government assist them in any financial way?

The second question I have is about your pension. In Canada for the military member whose wife dies before he's 60 years old, if he remarries before 60 years old, lives for 20 years and dies, then his second wife would get his pension. But if he remarries after 60 and then dies later on, his second wife is entitled to no pension at all. Do you have that concern in your country as well?

[LCol Matthias Reibold]

Sir, regarding your first question, yes, we have family resource centres. They are driven by the military, and what is very important is that they also have a double hat. One side is male and military, and the other side is female and civilian. This is a most important thing, because only a woman can help a woman solve certain problems that a man could not solve. That's why we have the double hat at every family resource centre. We have women who usually work in a kindergarten and they also work in those family resource centres to take care of the kids. At the division level, we have civil psychologists working in military units, and they also belong to those family resource centres just to help families and also for prevention measures.

I think our family resource centres are pretty well organized. They have money from the military. They have their own cars. For example, if a wife calls and needs a lift to the shopping centre, they will provide it for the wife. The family resource centre can also solve minor problems, such as if something in the household is damaged. They have the equipment, personnel, and money to deal with all those problems.

What was the second point?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

It's a restriction that we have in Canada that if you remarried after 60, your second spouse would be entitled to nothing at the time of your death. But if you remarried before 60, your second spouse would be entitled to a pension.

[LCol Matthias Reibold]

Thank you very much for getting me back on track.

We also have some of the same restrictions. It's pretty common in Germany to be married a couple of times--especially our former Chancellor, for example, who was married four times. When you are married the third or fourth time, sir, then your pension is reduced from marriage to marriage. It goes down. When you get remarried, the pension is reduced. But also--and this is a law in Germany--when you are married a couple of years to somebody, for example in your second marriage, you also have a right to get money from his pension. That cannot be accumulated; it has to be brought into the relation. For example, if you married, remarried, and remarried, you would not get more because of the number of marriages, but you would at least get an average of pensions from all three marriages.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

With that, sir, I would like to thank you very much for your presentation today. I think we learned a great deal about how your country is dealing with some of these things. It's given us some ideas for thought.

We do have somebody who wants to speak after the fact, maybe to committee business or something like that. If you don't mind, I'm just going to wrap things up, and then maybe we'll break for a minute or something and allow people to say their goodbyes to you, and then we'll allow committee members to speak on some other issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you very much, colleagues.

Mr. Shipley, did you have something you wanted to raise?

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

Mr. Chairman, a colleague--the guy who lost out to the page in the soccer club--brought up a good point the other day during the Australian...[Inaudible--Editor]...regarding some of the costs of our veterans department.

I don't know if I have to put forward a motion, but I'll just bring it to you. Would the committee see it as an advantage to have the researcher--and if he needed it, with the assistance of the Library of Parliament--come up with a report? I think it would be advantageous for us, if we're going to be considering the efficiencies of our veterans department, to take a look at the departmental budgets of the G8 countries. I'm not talking about a glossed-over view, because I think we also found that some will have hospitals included and some won't. I'm talking about a significant breakdown. If we're going to agree to do it, there's only one way to do it, and that's to really know how efficient and how effective our veterans affairs department is.

I would ask for comments. Do you see having a report come forward to be of value? I don't know how many more witnesses will come forward, but I would like to be able to have this before we break.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I'm certainly sympathetic to the idea of sitting. I'm glad Mr. Stoffer raised those issues, because it does give us some good food for thought. Time-wise, I don't know how it's going to work over the next little while.

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

It's not likely. We may only be here for a week and a half.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

It could be hard, given the fact that we're facing ten votes tonight, and who knows what's going to happen anyhow?

Monsieur Perron.

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

Bev, that is a great idea. Thank you again, Peter, for asking this brilliant and intelligent question last week. That was one of my concerns. I know that Michel will have nothing to do during the summer, so I must keep him busy.

[Some hon. members]

Ah, ah!

[Gilles-A Perron]

I would like to know how many hospitals they have, without necessarily having their detailed budgets. Perhaps we could do a comparative study on budgets, population, the number of military people and employees. We could even draw up a sort of diagram. That would be quite interesting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

I think it's a great point. Perhaps I can just offer something for consideration with regard to what Michel is going to do.

I know that...and people can ideologically debate the value of this, but I had a friend who used to invest in private prisons in the United States. What was fascinating was that on their prospectus they had the various private prison systems broken down versus the public prison systems. They compared them in terms of the cost per stay and per day and made comparisons relative to various hotel chains. It was fascinating to see how they could figure out where a maximum security prison was relative to the entire market for various accommodations. It's fascinating stuff, for whatever that's worth.

Mr. Stoffer.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Shipley, thank you for that.

I will let the committee know I got a call from DVA shortly after that. So either she transcribed the information very quickly, or they're listening in. They were a little defensive. I think they were concerned that maybe we were comparing apples to oranges.

Mr. Shipley's point is very valid. I know, Michel, you have the whole summer to work on it, but it would be very interesting to compare our allies, what their departments are, how efficient they are in terms of the number of people they have, what benefits they offer, what they don't offer, so we don't compare apples to oranges but apples to apples. I would definitely agree with that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Valley.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

I agree with almost everything that Bev and Peter said, except for that word “intelligent”.

I think we need this information, but we're going to have to give it time if we want accurate information. I have to be honest; we're not going to do a lot with it in the summer.

A comparison would be nice. I'm not sure if it should go to the full G8. Maybe we can think about that and talk about it at the next meeting. Maybe we pick the countries we've looked at: Britain, Australia, and something like that. We need to compare apples to apples, as Peter said. I think it would be fascinating to find out, but we're going to have to give him some time to get it done, because we want valuable information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Fair enough.

[An hon. member]

We're not in a rush. We won't be back until mid-November.