Veterans Affairs Committee on June 17th, 2008

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brent St. Denis]

I'm going to call to order this meeting of Tuesday, June 17, 2008, of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. Our chair has been delayed a moment. I'm the vice-chair.

We're pleased to have as a witness, from halfway around the world, the Minister of Veterans' Affairs for New Zealand.

Sir, thank you so much for taking some time, with your staff, to help us understand what New Zealand is doing and has done for its veterans, as we attempt to do a better job here in Canada on behalf of our veterans of the great wars, including Korea, and for the new generation of veterans who are arriving on the scene as they leave the military every day.

Mr. Barker, with that, I would ask you to speak for whatever period of time you think is appropriate.

I will leave the chair and Mr. Anders will take over.

Thank you, sir.

[Rick Barker, Minister of Veterans' Affairs, House of Representatives of New Zealand]

Thank you, Chair and committee. It's a special feeling of privilege and pleasure to be talking with you here today. If you go around the world, as I'm sure you have done, to the Western Front and other places, you'll see memorials to our soldiers: Canadians, Australians, British, and New Zealanders all together. So we have not only a common historical link, but we have common bonds through the defence of our freedoms. As a consequence of that, we are wrestling with some of the same issues as we go forward into the future.

When you say you want to do your best and do better for the veterans you have who are still with you from the Second World War and Korea, that is exactly the same as our agreement here in New Zealand. When you are acknowledging that you as a country are creating veterans every day, and many of them are in uniform, and you're looking to provide a lifelong system of care for them, that is exactly the same as what we have here in New Zealand.

The New Zealand starting point, though, I think would be slightly different. Our war pension system is quite unique. There are no restrictions on the type or the number of disabilities that can be applied for. Veterans can make an application for any disability they believe to be attributable or aggravated by their service.

The decision-making in New Zealand in the war pension system works on the basis of the reverse onus of proof, which simply means that if service cannot be ruled out as a contributing factor, the pension is awarded. There are a number of conditions that people pick up as a consequence of the war that you can't identify; therefore, we cover them. Obviously if a person walks down the street today in civilian life and falls over and breaks their leg, they're treated as an ordinary civilian, but if they do have some consequences of service, we will award them a war pension.

The strength of the system—and I guess some would say its weakness—is that until about two or three years ago the New Zealand government did not recognize that our veterans in Vietnam had been in an area that was sprayed with Agent Orange, so there was no official acknowledgement that they were working in a toxic environment. Despite this, Veterans' Affairs awarded war settlement pensions to people who had been in Vietnam or Agent-Orange-related conditions. So on one hand we have one system saying this did not happen; yet on the other hand, because of the reverse onus of proof, people were awarded pensions and being taken care of. I think that in itself is one of the strengths of the system.

Once a war pension is awarded, it's not permanently fixed and it can be reviewed at any particular time. It could be that the condition the veteran has deteriorates. They can then go for a review, and if the pension is found to be inadequate, it can be increased. For veterans who are seriously disabled, there are applications for additional pensions to help support them. In New Zealand, a war disablement pension is a lifetime entitlement, and it's tax-free.

Once a veteran has been awarded a war disablement pension, they get fully funded health care for any disability that is accepted as being attributable or aggravated by service. The addition I would make to that is that in New Zealand we do have a public health system.

In general, nearly all the veterans care would be provided through the public health system. But there are areas where—for example, prescriptions and doctor's visits—the ordinary citizen is expected to make a partial payment. For a veteran in these situations, the state will pay the full cost of the doctor's visit, the medications, and so on. A backup is that for something that is attributable to war service, if a person cannot get their operation done within the public system within six months, we simply pay someone to do it for us through the private system.

While the philosophy of the system is suitable to us, we recognize that the current legislation needs to be overhauled and modernized, because the current war pension system focuses on disabilities. It focuses on loss of limbs and so on. It doesn't pick up what we're understanding better to be some of the consequences of warfare, such as PTSD. Although people do get treated for it, it's not specifically or generally dealt with as a condition that comes from events in a modern war theatre—for example, Agent Orange and other difficult-to-identify conditions.

So we want to modernize the legislation, and we want to see that the general things of a physical environment, which are not yet determined but which could impact on veterans in the future, are taken into account. The review is being undertaken by the New Zealand Law Commission, and I believe they have looked at the legislation and the framework in Canada. We're always up for stealing ideas. I guess we're no different from anybody else. When we find good ideas, we want to have them.

One of the other things we do, I think particularly well, here in New Zealand is to take care of our older veterans. The emphasis is on providing services to all the veterans to keep them in their homes as long as possible, and this is done by providing government-funded assistance to support the veterans in their own homes. The program is run through Veterans' Affairs by a case management system. The case manager works with a variety of providers to put the services in place. I don't know if you have it there in Canada, but there are a series of small owner-operated businesses run throughout New Zealand such as “Hire a Hubby”, short for “Hire a Husband”, and if you can't get something done, you can ring them up and they'll come around and fix the window, fix the door, or fix this or that, and you simply pay them for the service. There are other providers similar to that.

To give you a case in point, if we have a veteran who's struggling at home because the toilet is not working properly and other things aren't working properly, and they can't fix them, they may be forced through these small decaying problems in their house to go to a rest home. We will send someone around to fix those. We don't do this for our senior citizens, our superannuitants, but we do it for our veterans. And we work very closely, very often, with the veteran's spouse, who has been probably their best case manager and case worker and support person throughout their life.

I want to talk a little bit about the framework and care for our veterans. The primary reason for making these changes is that, like Canada, we're going to be facing quite a change in the overall profile of our veterans. We still have the last group of veterans in New Zealand with us, those from the Second World War. There was a surge with Korea. We have some from the Vietnam War, but after Vietnam, New Zealand had very few deployments. This changed in the 1990s, and New Zealand Defence Force personnel have been in a range of peacemaking and peacekeeping deployments around the globe. Currently, the breakout is that approximately 20% of our veterans are from the Second World War, and then the other large group are veterans who are still in uniform, who make up about 11% of the veterans population.

For New Zealand, the care of veterans is effectively in two places. The first is Veterans' Affairs, which was a relatively small organization or department that was between the Department of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Defence. Having it split was seen at the time as a good idea, because most of our social welfare and other payments are made through the Ministry of Social Development. Defence was there because the veterans obviously had long-time connections with Defence, and there were other arrangements that needed to be put in place.

We just reviewed Veterans' Affairs, and we had a clear choice between putting it with the Ministry of Social Development or going for Defence. In the end we have decided to put it with the Ministry of Defence, for a number of very key reasons. First is that for the foreseeable future, all future governments in a democracy will rely upon volunteers for their defence force. It's difficult to see a situation in the future in which we are going to be able to have mass conscription, as we saw in the First and Second World Wars. Therefore, if we are going to have young people volunteer, they will need to be convinced about the value of a career in defence, and a very critical part of that will be how the veterans are treated.

On the problem we had in looking at veterans and how we dealt with issues, I felt that the treatment we had provided to the veterans of the Vietnam War was very telling. The veterans from the Vietnam War came home. It was an unpopular war, and once they had left the gates of the military establishment and been demobilized and put into civilian uniforms, the military said that was the end of their responsibility. They then moved on and became the responsibility of the Ministry of Social Development for the payment of war pensions and war disablement pensions.

I felt that this shift created a problem for our veterans, because the case of the Vietnam veterans was that they were constantly arguing that they had been exposed to a toxic environment. They were critical of the case because they had simply been brought home to New Zealand by plane, changed out of their uniforms, put on a bus or a train, and sent home. There was no process of demobilization and no support for them after the Vietnam War. This created a long, lingering, and very bitter standoff between the Vietnam veterans and the New Zealand government.

I'm pleased to say that in the last few weeks we have had a welcome home ceremony for the Vietnam veterans. We put in place a package of supports for the Vietnam veterans in terms of a memorandum of understanding. The Chief of Defence Force Mateparae has offered the Vietnam veterans an unreserved apology for their treatment, and we have resolved that issue.

It seems to me that if you are going to make someone responsible for the veterans, you have a choice between the chief of defence force and the Ministry of Social Development. The veterans themselves who have been in uniform for a long time look to the military and always see themselves as members of the military. That's their natural home. So we have made Veterans' Affairs a unit within the defence establishment and conferred upon the chief of defence force a lifetime duty to care for our veterans.

Whatever happens to the person in service from the point when they are demobilized and leave the service for the rest of their life in the community will be linked to the defence force. This makes it very clear that over time we will have a different approach to the treatment of veterans than we have today. By strengthening the responsibility of the CDF force, we will have an improvement in the way these people, the serving personnel, immobilize from the military, because the CDF will realize that once they leave they will always be his responsibility. This will overcome quite a number of very serious problems I've seen, where the line between the military and the veteran is where things are disjointed. The information isn't collected properly or handed over properly. There are various problems in this area, and I think this will solve them. That's simply New Zealand's view of it.

I've talked about all of life, the problems we have to overcome, the transition from military to civilian life, and the promotion of well-being. In looking at a review of the War Pensions Act in the future, one of the key things I have asked the war commission to do is look at the issue of how we rehabilitate veterans in the community. One of the problems I see when I look at regimes other than our own is that very often we have under-emphasized the value of rehabilitation, and after leaving the military, veterans are unable to look after themselves and get work. They have become quite litigious in trying to get bigger war disablement pensions and crank themselves up the system. They do this because they are looking to get sufficient money to look after themselves.

I think we here in New Zealand have been weak in the area of rehabilitation, and this is one area where I want to see us strengthening ourselves. I've been very interested to read and hear of what you've been doing in Canada in the area of rehabilitation, and I would say that in my summation you are well ahead of the rest of us in this area. If what I have read and heard is correct, you are certainly ahead of us, you're certainly ahead of what I understand is the case in Britain, and certainly ahead of what I understand is the case in the United States and Australia. So we're looking at you to learn about rehabilitation and to improve on our own services to veterans.

To come back to the point I made earlier, in the future, our ability to recruit young men and women to the military will be on the basis of volunteers who join, and part of the decision-making will be greatly influenced by the way in which we treat veterans. If they see veterans in their communities not well looked after, this will greatly influence their decision and we will not get the quality of people we need for the military today. It's not a simple job any more; we need the very finest young men and women that we can recruit to be our soldiers for the future.

Any questions?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you very much. I would just like to thank my colleague, Mr. St. Denis, for starting the meeting.

Now what happens is we go to a first round of questions. Usually it's for seven minutes, but not always, and then after that we open it up to a second round of questions for committee members where they have five minutes apiece.

First I will go to Mr. Valley of the Liberal Party of Canada, the official opposition, for seven minutes.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you very much, Minister, and thank you for taking the time to join us today. We know there's quite a time difference, and it's good to be able to have a chance to speak with somebody who has your credentials. You've had a long history as a politician, a long history of serving different ministries, so it's a good opportunity for us to have a discussion with you. I also see that you were just recently over here. In May, you were at the summit that was held in Washington. So thank you for all that.

I'll go right to questions. One of the things we've noticed, especially as we've been interviewing individuals from around the world, is that in the world of veterans affairs things are changing, As you said, many of the countries we've talked to have changes just coming in, because it's clear that things are changing for our veterans. They're becoming much younger as they're leaving the forces; they're becoming much more sophisticated; they know how to use the tools that are there. We're hearing that from every country, and we've just heard that there are new policies coming in to your country.

One of the challenges we have, as we work at our studies, is that we're trying to get to the day where we have a seamless transition from being in the uniform to being in civilian life. As we've crossed Canada in our meetings at different bases, we've met with a number of individuals. And we know it probably goes well sometimes when you're physically well and your mental health is good, but in situations where there's mental stress and there's post-traumatic stress disorder, all these other challenges are making it very difficult for our veterans to move to civilian life.

You mentioned some of that in your discussions with us already, that there are gaps. We see that in Canada as one of the larger gaps. We also have the difficulty of trying to get enough health care professionals who can look after them, both in the service and in private life through contract workers.

I'm just wondering if you want to elaborate a little bit on that, as they try to move from one life to the next. Are you encountering some of those similar problems?

[Rick Barker]

I will just respond to you and say yes, I agree with your analysis that things are changing rapidly. Not only young people, but we're getting a lot more women in the military, and I think this is going to have another effect on us, which we can't quite yet identify.

The relationship between the military and those serving has changed over time. People are no longer content to entirely accept the “I say, you do” philosophy and that it is simply about service to your country. There's much more about the individual and care for the individual.

I agree with your issues about a seamless transition. That's one of the areas that we're very keen to overcome.

In terms of getting health care professionals, that is always a challenge. I'd like to say that, so far, we haven't really found a problem that we can't overcome with that, but the principal problem for us has been getting many of our veterans to accept that they have PTSD and to take care. That has been our real problem.

So one of the things we are really interested in doing here is issuing people a card with a chip in it when they leave the military so that every time they come into contact with the health service, we can pick up the data and can track them through the system and see what's happening over time. On the basis of this information, we will be able to have analysis of what's happening to each cohort as it goes through.

At the moment, we're flying blind. What we are lacking is information. We want to have this seamless connection between the military and what they're doing in civilian life, so that we have access to the records and can catch all that information and work with the veterans' cohorts through the services association to identify problems as they emerge and then be able to respond to them.

We do not have enough information, in my view.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you.

That's one of our major problems in a country as large as this one. I serve an area in northern Ontario, a vast, vast, remote area with very few people. We lose track of our veterans, and we're not allowed access to information, due to certain laws in our country, on where they are. We are constantly trying to reach them.

It will be interesting to watch how your card system develops. As a member of Parliament, I'd love to be able to contact my veterans in my riding. That's my job, providing that on-the-ground service that we do back in the ridings. But we have a huge problem trying to find out where they are. If they need us, they can come and find us, but we're not even there to be able to contact them.

I know you do have remote areas in New Zealand, so I assume it's similar there. Sometimes they simply disappear off the face of the map.

[Rick Barker]

That's true. We have exactly the same situation.

That's why we feel that by giving the veteran a card, a unique identifier, when they leave the military, we will be able to follow them for the first time through the system. And if we explain to them what we're trying to do, that we're trying to help veterans and their families, to help all of the veterans, I feel they'll have a commitment to it and they'll allow the system to collect the information. But we have never explained this to people; we have never asked them, because we haven't really been that interested. So I think it's time for us to be interested and to say we want to do the best for them. In doing that, we will demonstrate to the wider public that we are caring for our veterans and therefore we will be able to continue to recruit high-quality, high-calibre young men and women for the services.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

I like to hear that, and I especially like to hear the passion in your voice for that.

Lastly, I know this had been raised by some of my other colleagues, but we think that part of the way to opening the door to veterans, especially the ones who are struggling with issues, is through the family. Even if we were able to talk to the family, they would be able to get to us and help us. We know the sooner we contact them, the sooner we're going to be able to do something and mitigate some of the damage that's been done by some of the issues they've been through in the military.

We're going to have a huge focus on the families. All together, it's all about getting the information and getting them to actually seek the help when they need it. If they don't need it, fine. But if we can find some way to do it....

We'll be watching your situation closely. Thank you.

[Rick Barker]

I would just respond to you and say I think you're exactly right when you talk about the family.

Just across the road from me is an old guy who went to the Second World War. He was on patrol in North Africa, came home, and has been on patrol on my street. He had a fall or an accident, so I went over to see if he was okay. I talked to his wife Margaret. Now Margaret has actually been his caregiver since he came home in 1945; she has provided all of the support. She's been a registered nurse and has done everything for him. I think she is not atypical: “Margarets” will be everywhere; “Margarets” have looked after the veterans.

With the Vietnam veterans, when we invited them to a welcome home ceremony, we invited all of their families: the moms, the kids, and the grandkids. And the families made the thing, because they had carried the veterans.

Like you, I feel that instead of focusing just on the veterans, we have to focus on the family, and by drawing the families in, we'll draw in the support for them and we'll get a much better result for everybody.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you.

Now we're on to the Bloc Québécois, and Monsieur Perron, for seven minutes.

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

Mr. Minister, ladies, thank you for being with us. I will start by letting you know where I stand. To the extent I can, I try to focus on young people with post-traumatic stress disorder; I have choose to call it a psychological wound. I feel that it is just as much a wound as a bullet to the shoulder or the loss of a leg, except that the injury is to the mind.

Do you have percentages, or statistics, showing how many veterans suffer from psychological wounds?

[Rick Barker]

Not for the young group, no.

I agree that PTSD is an injury, just like a physical injury, and it needs to be treated. I would also say to you that the amount of PTSD suffered by our veterans is larger than we anticipate. We certainly don't have the information to qualify it, but I think it's a much wider problem than we know.

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

I assume that, like us, you have professionals, like psychologists and psychiatrists, who research and study the topic. Here, fortunately, we have Ste. Anne's Hospital in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, a veterans' hospital specializing in psychological wounds; it does wonderful work. But we still have a long way to go before we get to a perfect solution. In your remarks, however, you said that you tend to keep your veterans in their homes, in familiar surroundings, for as long as possible to give them the best chance at recovery. This is an approach that seems to be gaining ground in Canada, but I have reservations, fears perhaps, about how we are going to find the professionals to provide the necessary assistance. These people have to be trained. Are they going to receive adequate training in military psychology? These things worry me; I do not know if they worry you too. If so, do have you any insights you can share with us?

[Rick Barker]

The first thing is that we don't have a specialized hospital. We are a relatively small country, scattered over quite a long area. Centralizing resources into one point would cause us more difficulties than it would solve problems.

We look for specialist services in our particular area. There are people who are skilled in psychology and counselling scattered all over the country. We go through each of those who have the capability to provide that type of care and ask them to undertake contract work for us with our veterans.

If there's no one in the local area of the veteran, we will pay the veteran's travel to counselling. Usually it will be on a weekly or a fortnightly basis until they get to a position where they are quite stable and the treatment is complete. So the treatment is either available in the local community or we transport the person there.

I am quite a fan of keeping people at home. We used to have places where we would send people who had, for example, addictions to alcohol or drugs. We would send them to an institution. They would get cured in the institution, but when they left and went back to their home environment, there were other pressures on them. We found that the percentage of people who were staying cured was much less than among those who were being treated in their homes.

Nearly all of the alcohol and drug addiction services today treat people at home. They go to services in their local community. If you keep people at home, where their family is around and all the other support services are around them, the changes they make in their lives are in their home environment. So when the treatment is finished, they continue on in their home environment and there's no transition problem.

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

I am getting to the end because I just have two minutes left. I agree that we have to keep them at home as long as possible. But, on the other hand, they absolutely have to have family support. That may be difficult because, in most cases, wives, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters do not know the nature and the symptoms of the wound. So you almost have to educate the entire family or the entire circle of friends in order to provide adequate assistance. That is what concerns me.

You can comment or not, but those are my concerns, and I like to speak from the heart.

[Rick Barker]

The first thing I would say is that very often the person who has a psychological injury is the last person to become aware of it. The people who are aware of it first are the family members and very often the veterans who served with them, their friends. We have found cases of people who have had years with a psychological injury and, for example, the wife and the children have all grown up with it and just lived with it. But when the grandchild comes along, the grandchild says, “Well, grandad, why are you always shouting at me? Why are you always angry?” They'll talk to the grandchild differently than with our generation, and they'll say, “Well, maybe I need some help.”

We get quite a number of older veterans coming in for treatment for PTSD who have had it for decades. The family members are the ones who will help bring about the changes. They are key to identifying it. They're key to helping manage it. They're key to helping the treatment program. The specialists guide people, in many cases, and help people identify how to change their lives, but I do believe the family members are critical to it.

The last thing I'll say to you about this is that the real problem for us here, particularly with, for example, our Vietnam veterans, is getting the veterans themselves to accept that they have an issue. That's our biggest challenge--getting them to accept that they need treatment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you very much.

Now we go to the New Democratic Party.

Mr. Stoffer, you have five minutes.

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

Minister Barker, it's a pleasure to be able to talk to you and your staff today, and may I say that your country is absolutely beautiful. I think Christchurch is one of the finest cities I've been to, and my daughter is a huge fan of the All Blacks. So keep up the great work there in the rugby world.

Sir, I have several questions for you, and may I say it's very refreshing when a minister of the crown admits that they're not doing well enough in a particular department. It's extremely refreshing that you admitted that, and I know that you're going to continue to work to improve those systems.

I have several questions for you. I'll ask you four or five questions and then I'll give you time to answer.

What is your definition of a veteran in New Zealand? What is the Veterans' Affairs budget? Approximately how many veterans do you have? My final question for you is about Margaret, who is looking after that gentleman who you talked about. If that gentleman passes away, are there programs in place to assist Margaret in order for her to stay in her domicile for the rest of her natural life?

Go ahead, please, sir.

[Rick Barker]

Can I start with Margaret? I have to say that we don't do enough for Margaret, and that's one of the things I've asked the Law Commission to look at when we do the rewrite of the War Pensions Act. We're going to change the name of it to the Veterans Act to reflect what it really is. It's not about pensions. We want it to be about veterans and to focus on a much more holistic approach to veterans. Part of that is the family and the spouse. We do a little bit to help spouses, but in my opinion, it's not enough. They are the ones who carry the burden more than anybody else.

I'll ask Fiona to talk about the veterans numbers and the definition of a veteran.

I can say that the budget for Veterans' Affairs New Zealand is relatively small because of our system. All of the war pensions, the war disablement pensions, are put through the Ministry of Social Development budget, so we don't see that as money coming in here. Nearly all of the money we spend on veterans for health care comes out of the health budget, so we don't see any of that in Veterans' Affairs. Unlike the U.S., which has its own separate hospitals, all of our veterans health care is done through public health.

Regarding housing, I would say to you in all honesty there's not a veteran in New Zealand who doesn't have a house. If there were a veteran who didn't have a house, we would have a house for them tomorrow. All of our social housing is looked after through the Ministry of Housing New Zealand, so they'll get a house.

Many of the things veterans get are distributed right through the state system, so it's very difficult for me to qualify and say how much we spend on veterans, other than what we have in the Veterans' Affairs budget. But we'll give you those figures.

Now I'll ask Fiona to give you the definition of a veteran. This is Fiona Macrae. She's my number one adviser and guide on all these things.

Fiona.

[Fiona Macrae, Deputy Director, Veterans' Affairs, House of Representatives of New Zealand]

In New Zealand the definition of a veteran is somebody who has had service in a war or an emergency. Just having been in uniform doesn't make someone a veteran. So, for us, it's World War II, British Commonwealth Occupation Force Japan, Korea, Malaya, Vietnam, and then the smaller UN deployments. So where we deploy people, rather than just being—

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

May I interrupt for one second? If I'm a young person and I sign up for the New Zealand military, and I go into basic training and become seriously injured in that basic training and can no longer serve, would I be considered a veteran?

[Fiona Macrae]

No, you wouldn't. We have an excellent state-funded compensation system in New Zealand. If you have an accident in uniform and you are not in a deployed situation, you are covered by excellent compensation, which has an earnings-related compensation component as well as injury assistance.

[Rick Barker]

It also provides you with lifelong care. The one point I would like to make about that is that ACC provides accident compensation--it provides lump-sum payments and other things. But we have had some very heart-wrenching cases. For example, people have come to Parliament and said that whilst they have ACC, that's okay, but they were burned in a tank they took out on an exercise and are covered with all these burns. They feel that ACC hasn't adequately compensated them for this, because they were under orders and were doing things they might not otherwise have done. So the military now has, in addition to accident compensation, an insurance-based scheme to make payments in addition to whatever the state provides through ACC to compensate for that. If you were just in uniform, served in a training camp, and did all those things, and you haven't been settled with, you are covered as an ordinary citizen.

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

What is the number of veterans you have?

[Fiona Macrae]

We don't know for sure, because of our inability to collect data, but we estimate that it is about 30,000 to 40,000.