Veterans Affairs Committee on June 17th, 2008

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

Thank you very much.

[Rick Barker]

Some of our veterans have headed off overseas. Some are in Australia. Some are in the States. Some are in Canada. Some are in Britain. We don't know where they've all gone. They're enjoying the freedoms they fought for, and they have exercised them and have gone. One of the things we have to do is keep better track of them.

With our veterans conference, one of the things I've asked the officials to look at is how we can better help veterans who migrate from each of their countries to the other. We should offer services and support, for example, for Canadians or Americans who come and reside here in New Zealand, on a reciprocal basis, and try to look after our veterans. I think if we do that, we'll provide better care for our veterans across the board. I'm not saying....

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

The next time we speak, I hope you bring some lamb chops with you.

[Rick Barker]

I will. And I want to say to you, sir, that you have a remarkably intelligent and very wise daughter.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Now we're over to the Conservative Party, which is the government, and we'll have Ms. Hinton for seven minutes.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Good morning to you, Minister Barker. It's late in the afternoon for us.

I must tell you, before I begin, that I'm quite impressed with the workload you carry. I've looked at your CV, and you're not only the Minister of Veterans' Affairs, you're the Minister of Courts, the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Minister of Civil Defence, and the Associate Minister of Justice. I'm the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and I am very grateful that he does not carry all these other portfolios. I can't imagine what that would be like.

With regard to some of the things that were said earlier, Agent Orange is an issue that we resolved fairly early in the mandate of this government--probably not to everyone's satisfaction, but it was something that had not been resolved for many years, so we took care of that.

There was another comment made that I would like to clarify for you, so you don't leave with the wrong impression. Our government knows where our veterans are, but because of privacy issues, we don't disclose a list of veterans to individual MPs. As individual MPs, we have the ability to send to all our constituents any kind of information we want, and that includes veterans. It might not be satisfactory to all, but it's better than not knowing where they are, for sure.

We have a program in Canada we call the VIP program, the veterans independence program. You alluded to wanting to go down that same route. You sound like you have some of those parts in place already, if not all of them. We've managed to add another 24,000 “Margarets”, if you will, in the last two years. We're very proud of that.

We'll have to talk about this off the air sometime, but I'm very interested in your Hire A Hubby program. That sounds very intriguing.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I'm also very interested in what you mentioned earlier. I think if I heard you correctly, it's not in place yet, but it's coming, and that is a card with a chip when people leave the military. One of the things we've discussed is that we don't want to lose anyone in the transition from active military to the veterans portfolio. That would be interesting, if you could answer that.

I'm doing all this talking, because he's going to cut me off, so if I ask you the questions, I'm okay.

One of your core values, as stated on your website, is to ensure consistency and accuracy. How do you ensure that services provided by the department are delivered in a consistent and accurate manner? That would be my first question.

[Rick Barker]

I'll put the question regarding the consistency and accuracy over to Fiona. She can talk a bit about that.

Obviously it's going to be impossible to get the same person to do the same job at the same standard everywhere across the country. We're at the mercy of individual providers. They're human beings; there are all sorts of variations in there. We set the standards we want and expect, and we monitor to make sure, as best we can, that we get those standards. But I have to say that there will always be variations.

[Fiona Macrae]

We contract the services. Through the contract service we set the standards we want against the cost, and then we monitor those contracts as necessary. There are variances.

We find that the best monitors are the veterans themselves, who follow it up. If it's not done to the standard they think it should be done, they will tell us. Sometimes they think it should be done to a better standard than the contract, and they've written to tell us that as well. We use that as part of the process, so we empower them. We're helping them but not taking their independence from them. We're empowering them to monitor the situation.

But we basically do it through a contract service.

[Rick Barker]

In Veterans' Affairs, the key thing is that a person has a case manager, one individual who will manage the overall handling of their case. There's one point of contact they can go to and say, “Well, this isn't working for me”, or, if something new comes out, “How can you help me with this?”

I name a person they can contact, and that has improved our ability to provide services to veterans immensely. The wife or the partner knows who the case manager is and they can ring them up. So having a case manager has made a big difference for us.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

That's very interesting.

The other comment you made was that the department doesn't deliver the service. In Canada, our department does deliver the service. We don't contract out per se, the way I'm assuming you're talking about, so that's an interesting thing.

I was also very interested to hear you say that just having been in uniform doesn't make you a veteran. We've had a number of presentations where exactly the opposite point of view has been expressed, that if you served your country, whether you were deployed or you weren't, you're a veteran. So it's rather interesting to hear you say that.

In terms of needing treatment, are you saying that contact person in your country is the one who makes those decisions as to whether a veteran requires treatment, or is there another process in place?

[Fiona Macrae]

We use the veteran's general practitioner, in the main. The general practitioner identifies that the person needs medical treatment or assistance and can refer them to a specialist and work with the case manager to get the appropriate treatment.

Because the general practitioner has often dealt with that person for a long period of time and knows the family and health needs of the veteran in total, they make a good contact point to make those calls. We're not adding another person and stressing people out by having to retell their whole life story.

[Rick Barker]

Could I come back to the point about the definition of veteran and the issue that just being in uniform and being prepared to serve makes you a veteran?

In New Zealand, if you are in uniform and you're in service, you are treated similar to a civilian. If an accident happens to you, you'll go through the same system as a normal accident.... You'll have to show there was an event and a consequence of that event. You'll have to prove your case.

For a veteran who's done military service offshore.... We don't have much fighting in New Zealand; we haven't for 150 years, thank goodness. But for someone who's offshore, the theory is that you can be in a war zone and there's chaos. Things will happen to you for which there will be no medical record. The records might get lost. There could be a whole range of events that happen to you and the trail of proof is almost impossible. Therefore, we have the reverse onus of proof. We're saying that if you are in a conflict zone, we will give you a different standard or process to make these judgments by.

But if you're home in New Zealand and you have an accident, there's a doctor nearby, there are other people around--fire, crash--and all the reports can record it. And you're treated accordingly.

We give you a much lower threshold if you're in service, and that's what makes you a veteran.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

He's flashing me the card.

I'm going to ask a real quick question. What services or benefits are most utilized by veterans living in New Zealand?

[Rick Barker]

Fiona.

[Fiona Macrae]

Mostly home help. The biggest group of veterans we have served in World War II and the biggest service they use is home help. Lawns, housework, and things like that are the biggest services used.

[Rick Barker]

Perhaps I could just finish up on that and not cut into your time. I am from the Conservative Party. I've met Greg Thompson on several occasions. Just send him my personal warm regards, please, when you see him next.

The last thing I'll say to you is about the things I do as a portfolio minister. You need to appreciate that New Zealand is quite small, so you have to share the jobs around a bit to make things happen. So in this job are likely to be the sort of people...an intellectual butterfly. You can't last just sitting around for a long time because too much moves past you. You have to keep moving.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you very much.

We're now on to our second round of questions, which are all just five minutes as opposed to seven. So now to the Liberal Party of Canada, the official opposition, and Mr. St. Denis, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you, Mr. Minister, for taking some time with us. I very much like this notion of reverse onus and where you distinguish those military personnel who have been in operations offshore and you lower the bar.

I'd like to talk a bit, though, about what we have in Canada. We have, as you may know, a large network of veterans legions. Do you have a network of legions or like organizations? They were started up after the First World War and grew again after the Second World War. Do you have a legion network?

[Rick Barker]

Yes, we do. The principal organization is the the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services' Association. It covers the army, navy, and the air force. Within that you will find there are other groups. There will be groups organized around our deployment in Malaya, a group organized around Korea, a group organized around Vietnam, and so on. There will be different groups within that, but the group they all look to is the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services' Association.

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

Is that a non-profit, volunteer, charitable organization, or is there government funding support? What is the relationship, if any, administratively and financially, between the government and that return service organization?

[Rick Barker]

The RSA in New Zealand is an independent organization run and controlled completely by veterans. We are about to make a contribution to services they provide for us in the future, but we haven't to date. They're completely independent. On every move in Veterans' Affairs, I consult with the president of the RSA before I do anything. Before we made an announcement about the review of the War Pensions Act, I had long discussions with them, and we had a very clear understanding of what was going to happen. We had long discussions about the reorganization of Veterans' Affairs New Zealand, and we had agreement on that before anything happened. In the near future I'm going to have a meeting with the chief of defence--the RSA and I--just to discuss how things are going, what we need to do in the future. I consult very closely with them. No moves are made without talking to them about them.

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

That's helpful to know. There would be a consensus, I'm sure, around this table that your RSA and our Royal Canadian Legions provide a huge volunteer resource. They are in many of our communities, in many rural communities. I think one of the things we'd like to do is find better ways, with their being willing, of course, to work with them and provide resources so they can help us with the next generation of veterans.

There is a concern, in our case, in Canada, that a lot of legions are becoming less viable financially because the old generation of veterans are passing on and the process of passing a torch out in the veterans community from the last generation to the next one requires support.

Do you know now what it is you hope to be doing with them? You talk about funding them to do something. Is there a specific program set up that you plan to work on with the RSA?