Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 20th, 2009

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Okay.

And the rates of payment for disability pensions provided under the Pension Act, vary by the number of children the vet has, but the lump sum award does not. Could you explain why that wouldn't be adjusted to reflect the number of children in the family?

[Darragh Mogan]

The thinking at the time—and this is a living charter, so thinking can change—was family coverage came through the Public Service Health Care Plan, through being able to use the veteran's benefits if the veteran was unable to use them as a result of service. Just like the court awards and workers' compensation lump sum awards, there's not a recognition of the individual's social status, rather the pain and suffering the individual goes through. Recognize there's a counter-argument on that, and we do recognize that, but as part of the living charter at least there are discussions, and we're aware of that.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

One of the points from the new Veterans Charter advisory group that came out in the October 1 report was the idea of early intervention, an area for improvement. Early intervention can mean many things to many different people. That's a very broad statement, but in its intent it's very specific. I wonder if you could elaborate on where you see that going, how that can be improved.

[Brian Ferguson]

We really see that as essential, and one of the big learnings that we've had is that we could do better at early intervention. So we're working very closely with the Department of National Defence to do what we can within our existing authorities to achieve early intervention, and also to look at whether we need to make any further proposals to amend our ability to get in there earlier.

In terms of what we're doing now, we've created 19 integrated personnel support centres where we have staff working with DND to actually get together around the cases that are evolving, particularly for the most seriously injured. So our two case managers are actually in conversation with each other. While the member is in service, DND has a lot of programming that they can bring to bear. They have psycho-social programming, and they have medical programming as well.

So the short answer, I guess, is that we're working very hard to see what we can possibly do to improve that early intervention, and we're assessing whether or not we need to make any further changes.

It's an excellent question.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

In following on that report as well, it talks about financial security, and we've heard many comments so far this morning from various members from various political parties. But in line with that, I think we know across Canada that the level of fiscal and financial literacy among Canadians is quite poor. Our young men and women who serve are quite young when they enter, and consequently their level of financial literacy, unless there's been some intervention along the way, is also quite low. The question is, in this comment about financial security, is there a component there that will aid our veterans, our young men and women and our older men and women, about how to manage the money that they have received from Veterans Affairs?

[Brian Ferguson]

There is. There's a component of the charter that offers financial advice to the veterans, at their choice, where we encourage them to use the free financial service that is available from the department to actually assist them, particularly if it's a fairly significant lump sum, because a significant lump sum gives many of these individuals a unique opportunity to buy a home or to make a significant serious investment. We're also very concerned about the potential for wasting that particular resource, and that's why we introduced that particular component.

There's a balancing act, obviously. If someone is mature enough to serve Canada in a military context, there's a line that you don't want to cross in terms of telling them how to live their personal lives. There's also the issue around the old Pension Act, where we had similar circumstances arise from time to time as well. So it sort of transcends the kind of payment that you're making. It's an issue, and we've made an attempt in the charter to try to come to grips with it.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

That's good to hear.

[A voice]

Good question.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Lobb.

Now on to Monsieur Gaudet.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you Mr. Chair.

Two of the cases presented in the update of the New Veterans Charter are Joseph and Shawn. Joseph is 52 years old, and if I read correctly, it says that his son attended school in the summer of 2009. Shawn is 49 years old. The document seems to say that he started working in February 2008.

Why did it take eight, nine, eleven years to see results in their case?

[Brian Ferguson]

I'll have to look into this in further detail, but if I understand your question, you're saying that he was released in 1997 and he didn't start his pharmacy program until 2009.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

No. It says that his son started pharmacy school in 2009. I hope that he is not the one who became a pharmacist in 2009, because he was 52 at the time. Eleven years later, he would have been 63. I do not think people go into that line of work at that age.

What I mean to say is that it took 9 and 11 years to help them. That is what I do not understand. You say that the new charter helps veterans, but I wonder. It seems to me that it takes a long time. I'm not blaming the charter. It may depend on National Defence at the time they were discharged. I put the question to you.

[Darragh Mogan]

For my part, we're kind of stumped on that one. We're not finding the same example in the material we have that you have in the material in front of you.

Maybe to generalize here, what can happen.... There may be an error in the French-language version.

In one case, there may be a fair delay between the time an individual leaves the military and the time he or she gets a benefit, because the individual didn't come to our attention or was in psycho-social rehabilitation for quite a period of time and wasn't ready to take on a vocational role. That's a possibility as well.

[Brian Ferguson]

This case is an individual who was released in 1999 with muscular skeletal injuries and PTSD. That would be what would delay, in a case like this, the coming into stream of a new job. What we offered was continued counselling and medical treatment for the PTSD, and we didn't put a timeline in the document as to how long that could take. Once that was done, the individual was referred to a vocational rehabilitation specialist, who developed a vocational rehab plan and interdisciplinary consultation, which included his psychologist.

If I may, we don't have any timelines in a vocational rehab plan either. It could be that both elements took considerable time. While he was covered for this, he was covered for his training expenses, including his tuition, and he got an earnings loss benefit. The social safety net was there. Now he's started work in his chosen career, which we consider to have been a good outcome, even though it took a long time.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Ferguson--and I'll credit you some time, Mr. Gaudet--are we talking about page 17en français?

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

It is the same case in English on page 17.

[Brian Ferguson]

Excuse me, I didn't realize that.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Do you want to respond to that?

Monsieur Gaudet, I'll give you some extra time.

[Brian Ferguson]

I would think that similar issues maybe existed with Joseph as well.

[Darragh Mogan]

I think one needs to remember that when there's a post-traumatic stress disorder or an operational stress injury involved, if you want to set people up for failure, as the rehab specialist will tell you, put them in vocational rehab before they're ready. They'll be worse off than if you hadn't done anything at all. So there's a great deal of sensitivity, perhaps even too much, and that can account for the delay. But if a person isn't ready to be in a vocational rehab program, another failure is probably not what you want to encourage or encounter.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I agree with you. A woman in my constituency has been to the Veterans Board 8 or 13 times. She appeared before the board last Wednesday. She said that if she did not win her case, she would come back 25 times if that was what it took. There has to be a way of putting an end to that.

What does the charter do to help veterans win their case and bring the matter to a close? It's all well and good to appear before the board, but someone has to pay for it.

[Darragh Mogan]

I can't really comment, as you know, on the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. I understand that there can be frustrations with the pension system. That's one of the reasons you don't have to have a pension or an award in your hand to get access to the new Veterans Charter. If an individual has a rehab need, on the day we know about it he doesn't have to have his pension or disability award card in his hand before we can help him.

We certainly want and are permitted to make the pension process a lot easier for individuals. But it is a quasi-judicial system. It is based on precedent. It is based on the rule of law. Once you get into that sort of situation, things sometimes take a little time. It can get very frustrating. We didn't want to be in a position, and we're not now, of having a new Veterans Charter fall, as it were, victim to a quasi-judicial system. It is a system that lets us respond as early as the individual need is identified, as long as it's related to military service.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Mogan. Thank you, Mr. Gaudet.

Can someone find out if the bells are ringing for a vote right now?

It's now over to Mr. McColeman for five minutes.