Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 19th, 2009

[Col Donald S. Ethell]

The RCMP didn't sign on to the new Veterans Charter. Some of us think that this is a shame, as do a lot of the RCMP members. That's internal politics, and it's been pointed out to them. For example, we have the mental health advisory committee meeting coming up on December 1 or December 2. We usually have one or two, but this time we have five coming, because of their concern about mental health. We hope this will assist in the process of trying to convince the RCMP to come on board with the new Veterans Charter. When you're wearing a uniform, whether it's in Haiti, Sudan, or Afghanistan, it doesn't make much difference what your shoulder pad says.

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

Right.

I can't thank you enough for that. And I want to thank you very much for something else. We did a press conference a few months ago on the future of these hospital beds for modern-day veterans.

Right now, Donald, there won't be a bed for you when you need it. There'll be a bed provincially, but not federally.

Whether you served in World War II or Korea or World War I or modern-day, as we say, I honestly believe there should be beds available for our modern-day veterans when they require them. If it's handled by the federal government, working in conjunction with the provincial, that's fine too.

That said, thank you for raising the taxable earnings loss. I think it's a shame we tax that. It's something to work at.

Michel has to write a report for our committee on the new veterans charter. We should just take yours and put our name on it. I think that would be great.

My last thing for you is from page 46; I want to read from it and put those words on the record. I think it's absolutely poignant what you said here.

I was here in the House of Commons when the House passed.... We had our regular payments, our paycheques, and we had our taxable benefits. In three hours, we in this House gave ourselves a 20% raise. We moved a complicated bill through the House and through the Senate. The following day, the Usher of the Black Rod made it into law. So if we can move that quickly, I think we can move, after four years, much faster.

Again, thank you so much for putting this down:

We urge Veterans Affairs Canada to act now: to respond quickly to our recommendations. And we commit to continuing to work with Veterans Affairs to put the Living Charter into action.

I know that from the minister on down, every single person at DVA, including the government and opposition, knows that you have unlimited liability. But at the end of the day, we have the ultimate responsibility for your needs, all the way to and including the headstone.

I'm frustrated, like everyone else, by the slowness of this. I don't have PTSD. I don't have a service career. I don't have a disability where I'm 43 and at home, and my wife, who I love so much, is under stress and thinking of leaving me because I'm no longer the man I used to be. This is what happens.

I can't thank you enough for the work you've done. Try to encourage DVA to move much faster than they are now. Whether it's legislative changes or whatever it is, as they say at the Olympics, “get 'er done”.

Thank you very much.

[Prof. Muriel Westmorland]

Thank you.

[Col Donald S. Ethell]

I appreciate your remarks regarding the long-term-care beds. General Sharpe has his room picked out at the Perley-Rideau, and I have mine picked out at the Colonel Belcher. Hopefully things will move forward before we need them.

[BGen Gordon Sharpe]

Except he uses his every afternoon from two to four.

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

The other issue is the ability for members of the service, when they get out, to continue using the staff hospital. That service gets cut off. It's something we need to look at.

But that's outside the Veterans Charter.

[Col Donald S. Ethell]

If I may, Mr. Chairman, on a serious note, when we were bouncing around the bases, a couple of us went to 18 different bases. It was heartbreaking for a couple of us old vets to listen to the stories from the soldiers. That's when we asked the professor and a couple of other female members of our staff, and Deborah Harrison from UNB, to visit the bases in Ontario to bring the families on board and so forth.

It really was heartbreaking. I can think of one case in Comox--Joe knows this better than I--where a lady had a full-time professional job and her husband had OSI, really heavy-duty OSI. He was out looking at trees all the time. They had a couple of kids.

The base really didn't want to have anything to do with it. It was “Go and see the doctor. It's a chain of command responsibility.” She lost her livelihood. They lost their house. They were in debt and so forth. When she asked the military and VAC, “What can you do for me?”, the answer was, “Not very much.”

That's the kind of thing that sticks in the backs of our minds when we're going through these deliberations. There will always be other horror stories out there, suicides and so forth. You can only do so much.

I talked to this kid in Calgary who was as happy as a bug in a rug. He was married, had a couple of young kids. He came to our ceremonies, and six days later he blew himself away. Can you counter that? No, not at all.

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

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

We'll move now to the Bloc Québécois.

Monsieur Roy, five minutes.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Sweet. It is a pleasure to see you again, especially since I have been on the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs before.

I have a question for Mr. Sharpe. In your presentation, you mentioned that the compensation paid out to veterans is equivalent to approximately 50% of what is usually paid out to members of civil society.

I want to know whether you did a study or whether you have comparison tables you could give us on that.

For example, in terms of the Quebec worker's compensation board, the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail du Québec, what is the difference between what is paid out to veterans and civilians? What is the difference in relation to other government agencies that provide benefits?

Is there a study that compares the amount paid to veterans versus civilians?

[BGen Gordon Sharpe]

To be quite honest with you, I'm not entirely sure if there is a published study. Patrick may have a better sense of that.

The statistics we used actually came through Brian Forbes, who is a lawyer working with War Amps. What he was doing was comparing the average settlement to the average payment out for similar injuries in the Canadian Forces. That's where the 50% figure came from. It was an amalgam of court settlements and out-of-court settlements and so on for very similar injuries. So that's where that figure came from.

The other figure that concerns us though is when you take the pension that is paid at 75% of your base income at the time the injury was sustained and then tax that, you drive it down another 20% or 25%. So you're getting down again to about the 50% figure of the income that you have been used to as a family and it's then frozen for the time that you're on that.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

For example, the benefits paid out by the Commission de santé et de sécurité du travail are not taxable. But you are saying that the compensation paid out is taxed. That is a pretty important thing to mention.

Mr. Loisel, I have another question for you. I worked in rehabilitation for a while, seven years, in health services. What you are saying is extremely important. Unfortunately, I had to leave to go to the House.

What is lacking in rehabilitation is supportive care and attention. You cannot leave an individual alone. They need someone there helping them. We need an individualized service plan for every veteran. When you say that there is no link between the military and Veterans Affairs, you are right. I have seen many cases like that. The problem is that there is a complete and total severing of ties when the person leaves the armed forces for civilian life and becomes a veteran. That is the problem: there is no more supportive care. At the same time, I think I saw that access to services is essential. When someone does not get any supportive care and has to deal with bureaucratic red tape, which I know well, they have a serious problem.

Every veteran who is struggling needs an individualized service plan, as well as someone to provide supportive care, be it a person from the department or someone else. They need a representative. Right now, that is not happening. A veteran may have to deal with 10 or 12 different people. It is never the same person, so there is always a problem in terms of knowing their case.

I think that is where the problem lies, but I don't see that in your recommendations.

[Dr. Patrick Loisel]

You are absolutely right. I think that supportive care and attention and individualized services to aid with reintegration are essential. We identified the problem of transitioning from active duty to life as a veteran. I think improvements are underway in that regard, and they are being well received.

What is currently missing—and I should say that this is not just a problem for veterans, but also, unfortunately, everyone, because these are new concepts that are not well provided for in the legislation or in society—is supportive care that targets work rehabilitation, up to the stage of returning to the workplace. Even health professionals have a lot of trouble providing that kind of care, meaning, getting away from the health setting and going into the workplace.

In the case of veterans administration, in particular, one thing is simple: the strength of the veterans administration versus contact with employers. Veterans have options that may not be available in other systems or fields. The need to improve rehabilitation is very real. Numerous studies are piling up that show just that. Work rehabilitation cannot happen without ties to the workplace. The workplace aspect of rehabilitation is the most important part. I showed that, as have a number of my colleagues. A study is coming out soon in the British Medical Journal, one of the most prestigious publications of its kind in the world, and it confirms that ties with the workplace are crucial.

We need to use this transition to the new charter as an opportunity to really introduce this new knowledge into the system of veteran reintegration.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

It appears that the Conservative Party and Liberal Party are resting, so if you have another question, you can pursue it.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

One last thing. I am not sure whether you know the Office des personnes handicapées du Québec. It was created to provide individual supportive care. We are talking about workplace reintegration. I think they are doing it successfully and that such a model should be used for veterans who are struggling. That was just a comment.

[Dr. Patrick Loisel]

Absolutely, but I think the CSST could also benefit from that comment.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you.

[Prof. Muriel Westmorland]

Can I add a quick point to this issue of accompaniment?

There's also a major problem with the kinds of rehabilitation services across Canada. Unlike Australia, we don't have a federal rehabilitation system that has a quality control mechanism. It's all provincial. As somebody who's worked and returned to work in rehabilitation for years--for all my clinical practice I've worked in the U.K., Australia, and here--I can tell you that there is a huge variability.

We've had a lot of companies that have come up with glossy brochures and glossy information that says they are the best vocational rehabilitation companies since sliced bread. It's very dangerous. They use statistics, but they don't really know what correlations and standard deviations mean, and the statistics are used to try to give the impression that this is the best program. Lawyers love that kind of stuff, so they take it and they figure it must be good. That's not true, because as Patrick's evidence will definitely demonstrate, it's complex. It's a complex area. It is not as simple as saying, “Okay, you have a fractured leg; we'll get that better, and I'm sure we can accommodate you in the workplace.” It's much more complex.

The other problem is resources across Canada. We don't have continuity, we don't have consistency, and we have huge differences among provinces in terms of what rehabilitation is. As an academic rehabilitation professor--retired, admittedly--I've been very involved with what's happening across Canada. There's been a huge shift in coming to terms with rehabilitation that is actually rehabilitation research. We haven't had enough of that. Things have improved, as Dr. Loisel has already mentioned, and that's a great improvement, but it is a huge issue when we come to rehabilitation. It's that variability right across the board. Am I right?

[Dr. Patrick Loisel]

Absolutely. That consistency is missing. Right now, there is a lack of understanding around what needs to happen with workplace reintegration.

This may be the time for the Department of Veterans Affairs to show leadership and create pilot programs, which could be assessed, designed to help veterans transition to and learn about civilian life, and return to work.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much.

I have a couple of questions myself before we go to some business.

You mentioned that programs are based on the insurance principle. Give me an idea about how many Veterans Affairs Canada programs are based on the insurance principle.

[Prof. Muriel Westmorland]

In terms of the programs, I think we're talking more about the economic issues than anything else. We're not talking about other programs per se.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

So it's strictly the economic benefits. Is that the full scope of them?

[BGen Gordon Sharpe]

That's pretty much correct. The insurance principle underlies them, but there's also the alignment with SISIP, the service income security insurance plan, which is an insurance-backed and insurance-based system. I think it's Manulife. Veterans Affairs aligns their programs with the constraint and restraints that are inherent in the SISIP program, which is an insurance program. I would hesitate to say it's all of the economic benefits, because I'm not 100% positive of that, but virtually all of the income-type programs are insurance-based, although they are moving intentionally to a needs-based approach on these things. However, the constraints that are based on an insurance principle remain: 2% a year, taxable, and that sort of thing.

[Prof. Muriel Westmorland]

I should add something, though, to clarify. Because SISIP runs the vocational rehabilitation programs within the forces, that is seen as a constraint, because they have one approach, and then VAC needs to have the continuity. That's been a big issue in terms of the lack of integration and consistency between the two. That actually is another point about the constraint.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you.

Could I just have somebody verify whether these are 15-minute or 30-minute bells?