Veterans Affairs Committee on June 1st, 2009

[Keith Hillier]

First of all, the ombudsman does report directly to the minister. That is quite clear in the order in council.

Issues related to human resources and executives are actually the responsibility of the deputy minister.

So it's clear that the ombudsman can make any recommendations he wishes.

I think we're going through a little bit of a learning experience for both of us, on the side of the ombudsman and on the side of the department. This is the first time we've had an ombudsman. We don't have the many years of experience that our colleagues at DND have. I think, at the end of the day, things will be fine, because we do keep talking to one another, our staff keep working together, and issues are going into the ombudsman's office. As we sit here this afternoon, there's ongoing work between the office of the ombudsman and the staff of the department, and as we move forward, we'll iron out these concerns. But I think it's fair to say that it's part of the role of the ombudsman, in my view, to push the envelope, and I think it's good that there be a healthy, workable tension between the department and the office of the ombudsman so that at the end of the day Canada's veterans will get the best possible service we can give them.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Do you have anything to suggest to the committee as far as improving the relationship between the ombudsman and the public service goes? What are your recommendations?

[Keith Hillier]

The way I see it, it is a matter of communication. We have open discussions, but unfortunately—

I think there has been some open discussion about some differences, but really, the communication goes on, and there are many things we do agree on. Of course, as is the nature of things, it's when people disagree that tends to attract everybody's attention, not all the things we agree on and all the things that work well.

I can say to you that there are lots of things that are working well with the ombudsman.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

It is completely normal for you to have different points of view. First of all, you are somewhat involved in the oversight of Veterans Affairs, are you not? The ombudsman's role is to make new recommendations to improve services, meaning his role is to be critical. It is normal for both sides to have different positions sometimes. However, is that accepted and well received by the department? That is the important question, in my view.

Let us look at an example. In a company, there may be unions, bosses, workers' rights groups and all kinds of other parties. Sometimes, when the ombudsman does not necessarily follow the recommendations of the public service, that can be an irritant, and vice versa.

[Keith Hillier]

I don't think the employees of the department would classify the ombudsman as an irritant. I think they would see it as another person trying to help veterans.

You know, there is a reality, and I'll speak of my own branch. I have 2,100 employees and over 60 service locations in Canada and around the world. Some days, somebody will make a mistake, and that's unfortunate. If the ombudsman can bring that mistake to our attention, then in fact we can correct it right away.

So I think it's a very useful role, and as the ombudsman's office goes on over a period of time, bearing in mind that he has only been there a very short period of time—I think he has testified before this committee in terms of the numbers of files he has had and the number of files that he hasn't been able to get to because of any number of issues—I think the real value of the ombudsman will hold true as they get more experience and as they can identify what one might call some systemic issues. In my view, they really haven't seen enough files, based on the testimony here, to really talk about systemic issues. There will always be the one-offs and you say you wish somebody hadn't done that, but I'm talking in terms of systemic issues. I think there is an acceptance in the department.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much, Mr. André.

Now we'll go to Mr. Stoffer for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Hillier, thank you very much for coming.

Just to go back a bit, when the veterans ombudsman was first being discussed, I recall very clearly that DVA was not a fan of the position. They had to come to the table rather reluctantly, but then they bought into it.

One of the problems we have with the veterans ombudsman position, of course, is the recommendation in the report we did in February 2007, in which the honourable chairperson and I participated. We wrote some specific information based on the testimony of the Royal Canadian Legion, Cliff Chadderton, and other groups. Recommendation 10 was that “The Governor in Council appoint the veterans ombudsman after a review by the Standing Committee”. That review took place after that appointment was made. That's problem number one.

Problem number two is that we asked that the veterans ombudsman report to Parliament--not to the minister, but to Parliament. That was changed through order in council.

To go to recommendation 16, that the veterans ombudsman present a full report to this committee after one year of operation, it's now a year and a half, and we haven't received that report.

And of course recommendation 17 is that “The veterans ombudsman retain sole authority to select, direct, and discharge staff, subject to review”.

Some of those things haven't happened yet. And of course when this committee does a unanimous report, and those recommendations are thought out and battled out--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Stoffer, I just want to say that with all the questions you've asked Mr. Hillier, I understand if you want to get those statements on the record, but I hope you're not going to ask Mr. Hillier to answer them.

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

No, I just wanted to give him a heads-up as to what I perceive to be a concern.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay, good. Carry on.

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

One of the concerns, of course, is the staffing situation within the ombudsman's department. My concern is that when we started this discussion of the veterans ombudsman regarding staffing, the assumption was that the veterans ombudsman and his appropriate people would be hiring whoever they wished.

Correct me if I'm wrong, sir, but is DVA actively supporting and looking at people to work in the department? Is that correct? Is DVA assisting the ombudsman in the hiring process?

[Keith Hillier]

Yes. We provide the advice, we provide the technical, and we provide the infrastructure.

If I could, I'd just like to explain the reason for that. If you look at various ombudsmen's offices, wherever they may be, they generally tend to be a small number of people. They're not huge organizations. And in today's world of somewhat complex staffing rules and high-tech computer-based infrastructure, these small organizations really cannot afford to have their own infrastructure. That's why the department provides it, in terms of efficiency. It is so the resources the ombudsman has--whether it is the Veterans Affairs ombudsman or any other ombudsman--can really be invested in doing the types of things they're intended to do.

If I may, while I will not respond to some of the questions you put on the table, I will take exception to one of the statements you made, which is that the department was not in favour of this.

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

It wasn't initially.

[Keith Hillier]

From my standpoint, when the government was elected and Mr. Thompson became the minister, I was asked to be the executive responsible for actually putting this forward. There have been people in the past who have said in the media that I was not in support of an ombudsman and VAC had put an executive in charge to find a way not to do this.

I would just like to go on the record to say that I've been fully supportive of the ombudsman, and my colleagues have been. I can't speculate on what may have happened years ago or on past history, but I can tell you that certainly in recent times, and with the mandate I have and my responsibilities before coming to this job, we moved forward to develop the ombudsman's office. I know that I testified twice before this committee as the project manager for that. I just wanted to put that on the record, if I could.

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

Thank you, sir.

Is it fair to say that the department of the veterans ombudsman is fairly swamped with casework? Is that fair to say?

[Keith Hillier]

From what I have seen in the testimony, he does have a lot of cases. I don't know the complexity of the cases. Not all cases are equal. Some cases can be resolved in 30 seconds with a phone call. Others may take longer. But he does have a significant number of cases. I believe that when he was here last week, he testified to having cases in the thousands.

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

I say this as an observation, not necessarily as a question. I know my committee went to Charlottetown, and you're right: the people on the front lines in Kirkland Lake and B.C. and right across the country do an outstanding job within the framework of the legislation they are able to work with.

It's quite obvious that in a year and a half, the veterans ombudsman department has been smothered by thousands of concerns. We all get those calls as well, and I'm sure all of us have recommended various cases to the ombudsman. There has to be a problem then within the DVA for the veterans ombudsman to have been created, and for literally thousands of people to have gone to him or to that department with either a 30-second complaint or a much more involved one, on either Agent Orange or something of that nature. Has the department looked at that and asked whether, if this person's getting this many concerns from the department, there is something the department can be doing to streamline that process to alleviate the pressure?

[Keith Hillier]

I'll respond in two ways.

First of all, you have to bear in mind that we do about 56,000 transactions a day. If the ombudsman has gotten 5,000 complaints--actually one complaint is too many, and we would like to be perfect--the reality is that when you're doing 56,000 transactions a day, there are going to be some cases where the people may disagree with the position we've taken, because unfortunately sometimes we can't give a veteran everything they may feel they should have. We have to understand that.

The other part is I can tell you that I personally look at the types of referrals we get from the ombudsman. I can tell you that I think veterans are being well served. Obviously I come out from a particular bent. But the types of complaints he's getting in some cases have to do with timeliness. Sometimes they're about people needing a little bit more information, if for instance you had said to somebody that they really needed to send in a receipt for health-related travel. I'm sure some of the complaints he's getting have to do with pension applications. I'm sure some of the files he has to deal with have to do with pension issues, but he can't intervene in a pension application until it's gone through all the stages of the pension process, including the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, unless there's some tremendous urgency, such as if, sadly, the veteran is close to death, and it would be wise to make an intervention as opposed to following the process through the system.

The reality is that everything is relative. Five thousand is too many, but if you're doing 56,000 transactions a day, and over a period of a year and a half you've accumulated 5,000 complaints.... And that's not to say that every complaint is valid. In fact, some of the complaints, I would suggest, are probably made by people who just want more information. That's why we've set up a process within the ombudsman's office, so that when the ombudsman gets a call on something routine, like not getting their cheque last month or not being sure if their change of address was received, we have a facility for what we call hot transfer. Instead of the ombudsman's office opening up a complaint or setting up a file, we have a hot transfer capability to someone in the department who can actually look into the situation and hopefully resolve it for the client.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Hiller. Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

I think what you said, Mr. Hillier, is probably a good thing to keep in mind. The nature of inquiries into the ombudsman's office is probably quite broad, in the sense that one may be an inquiry, one may be a complaint on a specific case, one may be a complaint from a past judgment, and one may be a concern about a broader policy range. There's probably quite a cavalcade in the nature of them, and they'd all be responded to differently, some with an intervention directly from the department, others with some kind of long-term report from the ombudsman himself.

We're now going over to the Conservative Party. Mr. Kerr, you have seven minutes.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Mr. Hillier. It's good to see you again.

I would just like to comment on a point that my colleague Peter Stoffer is making. I think the chair was referring to it. Having talked to the ombudsman, I don't think he would have characterized all those interventions at all as complaints. As a matter of fact, he said that a number of them were inquiries or simple requests for more information. That was quite separate from complaints that would be looked at as disagreeing with or being against a decision or anything like that.

I think a great number of the interventions are along the lines of finding out more information. I just wanted to get that on the record here. I know we always tie the bill of rights in with the ombudsman. If there were no bill of rights, there wouldn't have been an ombudsman, I guess. Can you give us a little background as to the relationship, if you wouldn't mind? By that I mean that when you look at the mandate of the ombudsman, it obviously must tie in with the mandate of the bill of rights. I don't think we've actually addressed that relationship.

[Keith Hillier]

The two initiatives were developed somewhat in parallel, as you will recall from my previous testimony before this committee. One of the roles of the ombudsman is to ensure that the department is upholding the Veterans Bill of Rights. That's really to make sure veterans are treated in a fair and equitable manner, they get the services they need on a timely basis, and the department is providing them with benefits and services in accordance with the law and its various provisions around access to information, and so on.

Part of the role of the ombudsman is to ensure that we're actually doing what the bill of rights has committed us to do and what we say we're going to do. The vehicle for him to do that is manifold. One way is to look at the various calls and complaints he gets and his interaction with veterans organizations on the broadest basis--some of the larger ones that play a significant role in Canada for veterans at large. That's part of his outreach. There's also looking for what I would call systemic problems.

In his annual report--which is certainly his to write--if he finds evidence that the department is not living up to the bill of rights, I expect that would be in his annual report that is tabled for parliamentarians. With due interest, this committee would probably ask some of us to come to discuss why the department was not upholding the bill of rights, which would be a fair question.

In reality, as we went through this, the ombudsman and the bill of rights were developed in tandem. They were both welcomed in the veteran community. These are items that the veterans organizations had requested for some time. So we went forward to have a bill of rights and an ombudsman.

I know we're talking about some challenges and issues, but at the end of the day that's probably not bad. We could still be at committee talking about whether or not there should be a veterans ombudsman, or why there wasn't one. The good news is that we do have a veterans ombudsman, we do have a bill of rights. We've had a few teething pains that we'll get over, but at the end of the day the veterans have an ombudsman and a bill of rights.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Thank you for that. I don't think any of us are surprised that occasionally there will be some differences of opinion between an ombudsman--since he is serving the client, the veteran--and a department that is providing the service. That seems to be a normal thing.

I get the sense from the ombudsman that part of the frustration may be due to starting up and perhaps not having the staff, and so on. It can be overwhelming. The day the ombudsman starts, considering how long the department and the program have been around, I'm sure there are a terrific number of files he could look at, going back many years. There's a terrific amount of ground to look into in the starting stages. Do you expect that will level out?

[Keith Hillier]

I hope so, particularly since I'm the assistant deputy minister responsible for service to veterans. In a perfect world we may not need an ombudsman for individual complaints at some time, but at the end of the day we probably will.

If you look at the Australian experience--and they have had an ombudsman for quite some time--they saw an initial surge. We expected that once the ombudsman was appointed there might be some pent-up demand. Some of the issues that are being brought forward to the ombudsman's attention are not necessarily what I would call issues that people have today. They may be issues from five or six years ago. So I think there is some of that.

I expect it will level off in time. Starting up an organization from scratch is not easy. That is why we loaned some people to the office of the ombudsman to help him get started. For somebody who is new to the process, hasn't been around the public service, and isn't familiar with staffing in the public service, the process can be a little daunting.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

How much time do I have left?