Veterans Affairs Committee on March 11th, 2009

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

Do you follow up with every veteran when they come back from war to make sure they are aware of the programs?

[Leigh Ann Skeens]

Yes, we do.

In conjunction with the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs offers transition assistance program briefings. All service members who are getting ready to retire or to be discharged from service are afforded an opportunity to go to those briefings. It's one to three days of information on what benefits are going to be available to them. The VA is offered a large chunk of that time to talk about the benefits I've talked to you about so far and what you're going to be hearing from the health and national cemetery administrations as well. So they are covered.

In addition, we do follow-up mailings. For our different programs, for example, the education people do routine mailings to service members who have been out of service for six months, a year--I think 18 months is the last one we send--to remind them they could be eligible for education benefits and to encourage them to take advantage of that. Some of our other programs do a similar mailing and outreach as well.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much.

I think time is winding down for this presentation. I'll try to see if I can get one more afterwards, but Mr. Lobb right now, for one question, please.

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

In the briefing notes we're looking at, for example, 10% disability. If there were three cases for one individual, where they were maybe disabled at 10% in both arms and 10% in a leg, I know you currently don't add those together. Is there any chance down the line you may consider that so that it would be 30% in total?

[Leigh Ann Skeens]

I'm not sure if you're familiar with how we do this. We have a formula to compute those. If a veteran is 20% for a condition, 10% for a condition, and 30% for another condition, there's a formula we have that allows us to.... They don't add together strictly as 20, 10, and 30, but we do add them together for a combined evaluation.

A veteran who has two 10% disabilities will sometimes come out to be 20; a veteran who has three 10% disabilities may also be 20%. It's a little confusing, but it's the whole body theory and the percentage of earning capacity that's lost.

Does that answer your question? We do have combined evaluations for our veterans. You can have multiple issues and be service connected for multiple issues and get higher benefits for those. Does that make sense?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much again, Madam Skeens, for taking the time for the presentation and for answering the questions. That will finish up our time here. We have about four minutes, and I'm going to try to get some business done between now and the next call.

Again, on behalf of the committee, thank you very much.

[Leigh Ann Skeens]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Madam Sgro, you had something you wanted to discuss. We'll try to deal with as much as we can here between calls.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I'm getting a lot of letters, and I suspect so are the other members of the committee, regarding the issue of the change in the pension when an individual becomes 65. There's a drop in one pension when they start getting the CPP. It's an issue that Peter Stoffer has raised a lot.

This is where I find the challenge. If I figure I'm getting letters from veterans complaining about this issue, others must. In order to be able to give them an appropriate answer, the answer I have is tied into agreements made many years ago, and we may not be in a position to go back in the future to make changes that would affect--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Sorry, there's no way right now that the translation can work because the phone call is going right through the line. So we'll have to suspend that call for a minute while we're dealing with this.

Go ahead, Madam Sgro.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

The question is, could we take one of our meetings and focus on that issue a bit? Most of us I think are new here. We really understand that issue well as we move forward. Maybe in the future we want to come up with an idea that we can move forward and change for future veterans who are contributing, if this is where I think it's going. It's just that I'm getting an awful lot of letters, and rather than give them the non-descript “Thank you for your letter” answer, I think it would be worthwhile for all of us to really understand what's going on.

I don't know where Mr. Stoffer's bill is, but it's going to come up as well, and I think it would help us all to understand the issue better. It is just a suggestion, if we could maybe have one of our meetings after the break just to get us to fully understand what that issue is all about.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Mr. Kerr, then Mr. André.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Chair, I think it's a valid question. I also think it's very indepth. It involves DND as well as ourselves. We talked about raising something, perhaps even progressing into a study or a review, because there is a lot of misunderstanding as well as a lot of interest in the issue. I would suggest it might be appropriate to have officials from both departments come before a meeting. I think we'd allow time in that meeting to hear the whole thing, because I'm still trying to understand, with all the briefings I'm getting.

I agree with you totally. It should be brought up here, but I think we may start with an overview briefing and then decide whether we want to have some sort of study or review done beyond that. I think we should start with those who have a background on it first, if you don't mind.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Great idea.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Kerr.

Monsieur André.

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

I would tend to agree with the comments made. Perhaps we could have a meeting or a briefing to bring us up to speed on this project. We come here and we meet people. I'm having a problem following and understanding where the government wants to go with this.

I understand that Mr. Rossignol has done a comparative study of the services provided by both countries, but for what purpose? Should the subcommittee also meet to set an agenda? I haven't seen an agenda. I don't know if you are merely continuing with the agenda that was set before the elections, but I think we need to pause at some point and review all of this. I agree with the suggestions made to that effect.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Monsieur André, I'm certainly open to the will of the committee as far as the subcommittee goes. I have to say to you that the tradition on this committee so far has been to deal with our business in the aggregate committee. If the committee votes and wants to change that, as I said, I've always been at the service of the committee.

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

I didn't know that. I didn't know how you operated. These are some basic things that we are not aware of. Do you understand? This is part of...

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

We did have quite an extensive business meeting five or six meetings ago. We set the agenda for what we had. We're going to need to have another business meeting shortly to fill our future schedule. And of course one of these items may very well be the topic that we're dealing with right now.

I have to say I'm going to use the privilege of the chair to take this under advisement, because it does span another department and I want to make sure, as your new committee chair, that we fit into the framework of the mandate of this committee. Mr. Stoffer's bill will not come before this committee because in fact it's a DND issue.

Mr. Stoffer, go ahead.

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

For Judy and for anyone else, I'd be more than happy to provide you with my briefing notes on it.

Just to give you a very quick synopsis, there is nothing illegal that the government did in the past. There is nothing wrong. There's an interpretation of how that was done. Quite briefly, what happens is that at age 65 every federal and provincial public servant in this country...when they receive CPP, that amount gets deducted from their superannuation. That affects everyone except senators, judges, and members of Parliament. It's funny how we left ourselves out on that.

The other one of concern, of course, is the RCMP officer with 32 years' experience who has a stroke at work and can no longer work. He or she applies for Canada Pension Plan disability, they receive it, and the amount they receive for the Canada Pension Plan disability is automatically clawed back from their superannuation. It happened to an RCMP friend of mine who is 56 years old. He said, “Why did I apply for Canada Pension Plan disability?” So there is that concern.

But it is a DND, Treasury Board, and Finance concern. I'd also have to have a royal recommendation, which I'm fully aware of.

So I will be more than happy to provide my notes to you and provide a briefing from the group that has come to me over the years on this issue. I'd be happy to share what I have with you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Is it okay if we move in camera for a second, folks?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[Public proceedings resume]

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Hello, Ann Patterson.