Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 26th, 2009

[Louise Richard]

It's stated there, but no, I'm a freelance advocate for disabled veterans and families. I happen to be a disabled Gulf War veteran. I co-founded the original Gulf War association. It would be interesting to follow up on that aspect, but no, I represent all veterans. I stood up in the early 1990s when I realized...

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

And that's indeed a long history of representing veterans.

[Louise Richard]

Yes.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I thank you for that.

Captain Gray.

[Capt(N) Perry Gray]

Like Louise, I represent the veterans who are not represented by formal organizations, and I'd like to remind everybody on the committee that the majority of veterans do not belong to any formal group.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I think that's why I'm questioning you on this. One of the problems we have, of course, is that a lot of our young veterans are 19 and 20 years old. They come in from Afghanistan and other postings and they sometimes have a hard time relating to organizations. I'm just wondering about relative numbers and the kinds of groups that you would be working with.

[Capt(N) Perry Gray]

For example, VeteranVoice.info, which is a website, has over 100,000 subscribers. Even that is only a fraction of the total veterans community, which numbers in excess of 800,000, and family members.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Would you have any ideas on the demographics of the veterans that you're helping? It seems to me that a website is something the newer veterans would be more inclined to go to in the beginning. Would you have any idea of the demographics that you're representing?

[Capt(N) Perry Gray]

Not on hand, because that number of 100,000 is veterans and non-veterans. As I said, the number the committee should be considering is the number of veterans in Canada, which, as I said, is 800,000-plus.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Certainly. My questions were for my own thoughts in trying to figure out where some of these newer veterans are going.

Perhaps I could go to Mr. Fraser for a second. I represent two military bases in my riding, 4 Wing Cold Lake and Edmonton Garrison.

With Cold Lake being such a beautiful community, we get a lot of veterans who retire in that area. I often find that one of the concerns is post-traumatic stress disorder. A lot of guys voluntarily leave the forces and then a year or two later, or five years later, like a gentleman I'm dealing with now, they are diagnosed with PTSD. Of course, he doesn't have access to anything, as he would have had if he had been diagnosed immediately, while he was still in the forces. So he goes to the insurance companies to help deal with this and I find it tremendously frustrating dealing with these organizations.

Would you have any history on that? Do you have any thoughts on any recommendations we can put in here for that?

[Hugh Marlowe Fraser]

Certainly, I do. Being a Gulf War veteran myself, I deal with post-traumatic stress disorder all the time. It's a growing issue. What I would suggest is that there is a mechanism in place now to help other veterans as an advocate. They can go back to the organization, that being the Canadian military. There is an application process. If he needs advocacy or whatever, he can certainly contact me and we can walk him through the process. He can go back and apply for a medical discharge if that diagnosis can be proven to be before his release or the cause of his release. Then he gets a medical release and there are a lot of benefits that come with that. He gets into the rehab program.

But even now, if he has a diagnosis and it's relative to his service, he has benefits and services. Once again, he probably doesn't know it, right?

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

That gets to my next question. We talk here about veterans who are voluntarily released from the forces and who discover they have a medical condition later. But it seems to me that one of the things we really lack is the ability for... It's like the other day when we were talking the other day about security issues in the airport. Well, who actually knows what their actual rights are when you're going through a security screening, right? A lot of these veterans, especially the ones who have been out of the service for nine or ten years and haven't kept up with the changes, don't realize what their rights are and what their abilities are.

I think it's something that we have to make sure we consider very seriously, especially considering the numbers of young men and women who we have coming back from Afghanistan and other points of service. At 20 years old, they are type A personalities, and they're going to get out there, get a job, and get going. It makes it very difficult. I'll talk to you afterwards about that.

[Hugh Marlowe Fraser]

Yes, certainly.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I also have a question in regard to—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Storseth--

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I sometimes find that the chair doesn't like our side of this committee, but that's all right. I'll talk to you afterwards.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much. As you know, colleagues sometimes are the toughest to deal with.

There's one more spot here and then we'll go over to the Liberals. I believe it's Mr. Mayes and then we'll have Mr. Andrews after that.

Mr. Mayes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of our witnesses who are here today.

I'd just like to ask Mr. Marlowe Fraser a few questions.

On the one-time lump sum, it's obvious that the reason that was put in place was to kind of help with that transition. There was a compromise, maybe, on the 75% of the income that was.... Basically, you're getting some of that benefit upfront; let's put it that way. That was the approach and I'm hearing that it's not the best approach.

If that were taken away and there were 100% earnings so that, as you said before, you could continue with your normal pay and you could get by, do you think there would be some push-back afterwards if we did that? Would there be people saying they'd like to have a lump sum so that they could have some adjustment? Did you discuss that and its implications?

[Hugh Marlowe Fraser]

Certainly, and you just have to do a little bit of math to find out quite quickly... The maximum right now is $254,000, I think, for 100% disabled. There are mostly 20%, 40%, and 60% cases. There are severe cases, of course, but even at that, if you do the math compared to what somebody at a 30% level is receiving on a monthly basis, taxable, let's say at 38 years old, it's quickly well exceeded. The monthly annuity is way more economically beneficial to the individual than the lump sum. That's beyond question in more than most cases.

On the issue of supporting through the transition, the 100% will definitely do it. If they wanted to keep the lump sum around and then a small annuity, I think there's flexibility there. It needs to be discussed. We have recommendations in the report that will meet the short-term goals of trying to make it better, but I think it needs more discussion, as Louise and the others here have suggested, and at the finance committee. We'll be happy to bring it to discussion at any point, but it definitely needs to be discussed more.

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

I appreciate your work on trying to make the charter better. It's interesting. I was here when they first started the charter, then I went away, and now I'm back again. Everybody was excited when we first started putting the charter together. There were witnesses who were very complimentary of our government and of moving forward on the charter.

There were things that were put into the charter... There was an understanding that there would be an ombudsman to help those veterans, as Captain Gray mentioned. There are veterans who don't know what their entitlements are. So that was the reason for the ombudsman: it was to be able to have somebody as a resource person for veterans. I just think that the charter has been of great value to veterans. That's not to say that it doesn't need to be improved.

I think we've acknowledged that the biggest challenge, though, is with those who have disabilities and with some of the challenges they have. In the first project, we increased the budget for veterans benefits with $350 million from the government and increased the scope of benefits that veterans can appreciate.... One of the advantages of those benefits is that they're not taxable. In your review of those benefits, have they been successful? Has the scope of those benefits been large enough that they really meet the needs of veterans?

[Hugh Marlowe Fraser]

No.

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

Oh. Okay.

[Hugh Marlowe Fraser]

That's a short answer.

No, there's a lot more debate that needs to go on around that issue. It has improved. We met with the minister. We weren't too happy about the last budget in 2008, where they just came in with this introduction of how they're extending VIP and you had to actually go to the federal tax revenue services and qualify for the disability amount before you could go back and get $300 in lawn care. In VAC, it was ridiculous. Nothing was said about the increases that we put forward.

A lot has been done, but you know, with neglect for 60 years, it doesn't take a chunk of change to make it go away. It needs constant nurturing.

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

I just want to say that in going around and talking to my constituents who are vets, they have been very appreciative of the increase and have said that it's better. It's not the best, but it's better. So I think we're going in the right direction and I think that's why this whole process is happening here now: it's to continue to make it better, but we have to recognize that there are some challenges as far as identifying is concerned.

I just want to make a statement. I've always felt that in government it isn't so much that we treat everybody equally, because the situations are different. It's that we treat everybody fairly. That's what we must try to attain here. You can't just broad-brush and say that these benefits are going to be the same right across the country. I think that there are individual situations and that there needs to be some discernment, but the discernment must end up to be fair. I think that's important.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Mayes.

Madam Richard.