Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 9th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Monsieur Gaudet.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

My question is simple. It's possible that there may be a vote on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. If that is the case, we are not likely to be out of here before 7 p.m.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I understand your concern. I'm going to assume, but it's always terrible to assume, that obviously the minister will be here for the vote as well. I will confirm with you at Wednesday's meeting what will actually take place if there's a vote, but I assume that it will be delayed, and then the ceremony will happen after that, because everybody will be invited.

Was there a question over here?

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Madam Guarnieri, did I think you had a question again and you didn't?

[Albina Guarnieri, Liberal, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

No. I'm obviously in your thoughts.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

So I didn't miss anybody? Okay.

I understand that you will be advised again, though, just to remind you about Thursday. And I see the nod there.

The next is a letter that we received from the Dominion Institute to come and see our committee regarding their memory project. I just want to get an agreement from the committee members that they would like to do that, and if so, then we'll get back to them and try to get some potential dates.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

The next meeting, of course, will be with the department officials to give you an overview of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and of course then questions can be broad-ranging, because it is basically a full briefing.

Other than the future schedule that I have missed, does everybody has a copy of this? It's distributed. Obviously this will be some good substance for your questions on Wednesday.

Yes, Madam Foote.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

I'm just wondering how soon will we get the minutes of this meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Tomorrow the blues will be available.

So the next thing that I'd like to discuss and put on the table would be future meetings.

Now, I should advise this present committee that in the last Parliament we did get almost 50% of a study completed, which we were doing as a comparison in G-8 countries versus Veterans Affairs here. Obviously I'm at the behest of the committee, but that might be something you'd want to pick up, considering substantial work was already done.

Mr. Stoffer.

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

Just for the benefit of the new members, the study actually would have been very good to compare, because we always hear our soldiers and airmen and sailors who are fighting shoulder to shoulder with other countries--in NATO conflicts and with the Americans in that--saying shouldn't benefits be sort of similar? If you look at Britain, for example, Britain now offers almost $1 million in the event of loss of life and the ultimate sacrifice. And if you're severely injured, you get a lump-sum payment plus a life-long pension; whereas our veterans charter here offers you a lump-sum payment and there is no pension after that. So these are some of the comparisons we wanted to see.

Also, we had the Australian high commissioner here, who indicated that Australia has 20 million people, and a client base of 440,000 individuals in their DVA. They have an administrative workforce of 2,300 people and they have a DVA budget of $10.5 billion Canadian. Ours is 33 million people, a $3.5-billion budget, 217,000 clients, and a workforce of 3,800. And it was a good comparison to see where we could streamline the processes, because you know Minister Thompson himself said they're looking at departmental reviews to speed up this process. And he said 29 days. That's in an exceptional circumstance. We have hearing loss cases that are up to five years, of people appealing back and forth, and I'm sure you have it on your files as well.

So I would highly recommend that this committee continue that review of the department to see where we can then advise the minister or the government how to streamline processes in order to get more bang for your buck for the veteran and their family.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

Are there any other comments regarding the G-8 comparison reseaach?

I'm advised, then, if we're going to take up where a former committee left off, we'll need to have a motion that the evidence and documentation received by the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs during this second session of the 39th Parliament in relation to its study of veterans services offered by members of the Commonwealth and the G-8 be taken into consideration by this committee in this session.

Do you so move, Mr. Stoffer?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I have a seconder for that.

(Motion agreed to)

It's carried. Thank you very much.

Mr. Kerr.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

I have a question. Obviously, the work has been done. I assume that before we get into it there will be a briefing on what did take place, what happened, and at what point it stopped and so on, before we start and go any further.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Without any further consultation, I think one of the first things we'd do is get the evidence to you directly from the blues of the four meetings that we had. There were at least four. Two were by teleconference, I believe, and two were live. We'll get those blues to you. Then we would go from there as far as getting everybody up to speed is concerned.

[A voice]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay. Thank you.

You see, I have so many resources here. Michel, of course, can do a briefing note in that regard as well.

There's one other thing that I should have mentioned, too, and I don't know, Mr. Stoffer, if you remember it. We were kind of doing it simultaneously. I think it was because Mr. Anders had an interest in burial places in the United States. He had talked about visiting them quite a bit. We did have a couple of members go to Beechwood Cemetery. We began a study regarding the Last Post Fund. Is that right?

[A voice]

It was related to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

It was related to the last post. I know there were some concerns that people wanted to have in a report in regard to graves that were not marked in Beechwood, so again, I'd leave that to the committee as something possible to move forward on. Of course, again, I'll take any kind of input on future schedules as well.

Mr. Stoffer.

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

You're absolutely right, Mr. Chair. The discussion was around not just the Last Post Fund, which does assist many veterans in getting a proper headstone in their final burial place, not just at Beechwood, but right across the country. The problem was that there just weren't enough funds in the Last Post Fund in order to do that. Of course, what happens to the older headstones that may have been damaged or have fallen down, or where the inscription was not done properly? What about the repair on that? It's fallen upon a lot of volunteer groups in small communities across the country: the Legion, the Army, Navy and Air Force Veterans, etc. That was one of the things.

Also, one of the discussions, sir, is that because Ste. Anne's Hospital does such a great job working on behalf of veterans, it being the only federal hospital in the country for veterans, I know that Rob and I had a discussion in regard to seeing Walter Reed Hospital in the United States and what they do with their returning veterans from, for example, Afghanistan, and doing a comparison, but that was further down the road.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I think the desire to visit Ste. Anne's was mentioned by another committee member as well. We did in the last Parliament, but the renovations were actually going on when we were there. Apparently they're completed now, which would make a lot of difference.

Would the committee desire a visit to Ste. Anne's?

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

It's just a one-day thing. There's no problem with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

That's correct. Last time, it took pretty well a full day to travel there and back.