Veterans Affairs Committee on April 27th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen; bonjour à tous.

We're already behind, so I want to try to get things started. I know members are getting some lunch; go ahead and proceed with that. We're down to 45 minutes per witness because of the vote that's happened.

We'll allow Mr. Henwood to go ahead right now. He's chair of the special needs advisory group.

Mr. Henwood, I didn't have a chance to speak with you beforehand. You have some opening remarks. Are they less than 10 minutes?

[Bruce Henwood, Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Special Needs]

They're about 10 minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay. After that we'll go to a standard round of questioning. After the first round of questioning, we'll ascertain how much time we have left. We'll try to save 45 minutes for our second group of witnesses from the 22nd Regiment.

Mr. Henwood, without any further delay, please proceed.

[Bruce Henwood]

Mr. Chair and members of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, as the chair of Veterans Affairs Canada's special needs advisory group, it is a pleasure to appear here today, even though our time is a bit compressed, to discuss issues related to the new Veterans Charter and, more specifically, how the charter relates to special needs veterans.

Special needs veterans are those veterans with significant injuries or disabilities and who have the greatest medical rehabilitation, re-establishment, financial, and family needs. These veterans are the ones who have been assessed by Veterans Affairs Canada to be pensioned at 78% or higher. The focus of my presentation today is not on the entire veteran population. We just don't have time or space to do that, so I'm just drilling into the special needs veterans themselves.

Many of the issues you'll hear today I am sure you've heard before from the Legion, from Veterans Affairs officials, from other chairs of VAC's advisory groups, and from individual representations. So in many ways, the points I raise are a repeat of what you may have heard, except for one significant point; I, myself, am a special needs veteran, so I can speak first-hand about the challenges facing those veterans who are at a significant disadvantage in comparison to their peers.

I do some consulting work for Veterans Affairs, so I'm sure I'm going to be ripped apart by these guys later on, but I have an innate ability to figure out how things are going to go, and I can see how the new Veterans Charter can, and will, fail the special needs veteran. I say that even with the utmost respect for those who designed the charter and all the work they put into it, but there have been some unintended consequences that bear particularly on the special needs veterans. It's not on the whole population, but on the ones who need it the most.

I should preface my comments by saying I'm not an expert on the new Veterans Charter or its predecessor, the Pension Act. I've been privileged to have worked with Veterans Affairs for the last five years, looking solely at the new Veterans Charter from a special needs perspective as the chair of their special needs advisory group and identifying to the department the shortcomings and gaps in the charter.

While there are many areas we could discuss, I'm only going to be able to talk about one, and it's financial. There are other equally important issues, but unfortunately, we probably will not have time to drill into that. So here we go.

Here I'm going to piss off Veterans Affairs by saying Veterans Affairs is all about money. That's it. That's what they do, and don't let them fool you. Is anyone here from Veterans Affairs? Okay, good. I hope they hear it, because they'll probably fire me, and that's okay.

All they do is provide money to pay for programs, benefits, and services. They are the distributor of cash. So what about the money? The special needs advisory group, or its beautiful acronym, SNAG, has been beaten down by Veterans Affairs for the last five years, to the point where we rarely discuss financial issues. But it remains the single largest component of the new Veterans Charter that the younger cohort of veterans despise. I use that word “despise”--or loathe, hate, fear. VAC, in my opinion, has not demonstrated unequivocally that the new Veterans Charter is as good as, if not better than, its predecessor, the Pension Act, in terms of financial stability and security for the veteran and the veteran's family.

First, we must remember that seriously disabled veterans are, by virtue of their injuries, at a permanent financial disadvantage when compared to their uninjured peers. In particular, the charter does not take into account in a specific sense, for those specific veterans, lost career progression or lost potential earnings in the workforce, any workforce.

VAC may say there's a whole suite of programs under the charter that did not exist with the Pension Act that will assist in ensuring financial stability and opportunities for the future. I say that's smoke and mirrors. While it may be true in some instances, when you start drilling into the facts, there are a lot of holes.

VAC will say there's vocational training and job placement, but these do not work well for special needs veterans who are permanently disabled.

Let your imagination run wild, to a quadriplegic who is blind. How on God's earth is he going to get back in the workforce and have a reasonable chance of earning something? Not likely. I use that as a gross example, but there are lots like that.

Special needs veterans, by virtue of the new Veterans Charter, will be relegated to a subsistence level of quality of life, and I think that's wrong. From a special needs perspective, under the Pension Act there were a lot of financial elements that were available and provided support and stability. You'll hear from my colleagues later on because they'll be talking about similar, parallel issues. If you keep hearing it, something's wrong. If you keep taking your car back because there's a problem with it, chances are there's a problem with your car. It's the same here. If you hear about it, there's a problem.

Let me just run some quick numbers. You can look them up on the web or you can get them from your analysts. Under the Pension Act, if you were 78% or higher disabled, you would be receiving a monthly disability pension from between $1,900 and $2,300 a month, tax free for life. Other financial benefits I'll skip over because of time, but rest assured that financial stability was provided under the Pension Act. If the individual passed away--died of old age or as a result of injuries--all those benefits and allowances would accrue to the family and to the spouse for the rest of their lives, or until they turned 18, and it would be tax free.

The disability pensions and allowances have all disappeared with the new Veterans Charter---ALL, in capitals, in case you haven't got it. All of it is gone. VAC will tell you not to compare the Pension Act to the new Veterans Charter. You'll hear that. You'll hear that from them, that you cannot compare apples to asphalt. Well, there are some good elements of the charter, such as vocational training and job placement, but I would submit to you, as I mentioned candidly, that the most seriously injured and permanently disabled veterans may not be able to fully utilize those programs. So the special needs veterans are left with very little under the new Veterans Charter that helps them. The disability and family pensions and allowances are gone. I believe these financial changes were implemented under the new Veterans Charter as a cost-savings measure, and you as parliamentarians voted on that.

I think there were some unintended consequences that came out of this. The special needs disabled veteran no longer receives a disability pension, and there is no financial security for the family under the new Veterans Charter. I can't stress that enough. We're screwing the young guys.

I've provided copies of my notes. I don't know if they've been handed out or not.

The new Veterans Charter is fundamentally different from the Pension Act. The Pension Act provides a safety financial network for life for those who need it the most. The new Veterans Charter has failed to provide this safety network. The new Veterans Charter does provide a one-time disability award for pain and suffering--for pain and suffering that will last a lifetime, mind you--and some financial support and income replacement. But this income replacement ends; this ceases at age 65. It stops. At 65, the special needs veterans, who are already financially disadvantaged over their life course, will only have CPP and OAS and perhaps a small RRSP to fall back on in their golden years.

The new Veterans Charter is all up front. It's like front-end loading your RRSP. It's all up front. And SNAG foresees problems with this front-end loading down the road.

Veterans Affairs will tell you there's a permanent incapacity allowance--PIA, for short--that special needs veterans may qualify for. This is an allowance for life, but it is taxed. The main drawback is it's so restrictive in its eligibility criteria that I think to date three PIAs have been awarded. It might be five now, but it's a very small number. So it's smoke and mirrors.

Many permanently disabled special needs veterans simply will not qualify for PIA. I mentioned the disability award. It is a one-time lump sum award that recognizes a lifetime of pain and suffering. It's great that there's recognition for pain and suffering, but I would submit that that has varying degrees, and duration is an issue. This award needs to be reviewed to ascertain whether it is fair, based upon age, marital status, family circumstances, and severity of injury.

Now, let me just go off my notes for a second here and say the following. If you're a double amputee, which I am, you will receive from Veterans Affairs $276,000 as a disability award, whether you're single or married. The new Veterans Charter keeps talking about the new Veterans Charter and the families. I cannot see how the disability award can be the same, whether or not you're married, irrespective of your age, and whether or not you have kids, given all of the allowances that accrue to spouses and children, a point I skipped in my presentation.

We have a serious failing here with the new Veterans Charter. It needs to have a better award method. It should not be a one-time lump sum, because the guys are blowing it. They're blowing the money. You're going to hear that next. I'm going to read you an excerpt from an e-mail I got a couple of days ago.

But first, if I were 20 years old and someone gave me $276,000, which VAC does.... You actually get the cheque in the mail; you don't even get it by hand. So you get this award for your sacrifice, your loss, pain, and suffering, and then you're told by the same people who gave it to you, “Don't spend it. It has to last you for the rest of your life. Don't spend it.” Well, if you're 20 years old, the temptation is to get a car. You might get a house, a big house or a small house, and then you will worry about the mortgage payments later on down the road—though I come from Calgary, where you can't get a house for $276,000.

Here's the e-mail I received the other day. I took the names out to protect the innocent. It reads:

Last week Cpl X approached me somewhat distressed re the “Lump-sum” payment issue. He indicated that a number of his colleagues who had received the lump-sum payment (and spent it) were now in dire straights. And stated that it "wasn't fair that a triple amputee received the same as a double amputee"—he thought it (triple) should be more.

These things are now in the undercurrents out there in the veterans community. They're criticizing this lump sum. There's no security for them. Once it's gone, it's gone. Under the Pension Act, you may not have received such a large amount, but you got something every month that you could take to the bank. You could show your bank that you're getting five hundred bucks a month, and that was perhaps enough to cover your mortgage. You don't get that now.

The new Veterans Charter's “ethereal financial aspects”, as I call them, are very different from the tangible ones covered by the Pension Act, and very few people can tell you—or maybe three or four within Veterans Affairs can—how it all works, because it has such a complicated calculation matrix. However, for the new veteran and a special needs new veteran, they feel cheated, they feel ripped off, and they feel marginalized compared with the traditional veteran—and we have two here. They feel a huge amount of distrust for Veterans Affairs—they think the wool has been pulled over their eyes—and they feel very vulnerable about their financial security over their life course.

As mentioned, there is no financial support whatsoever for spouses and families under the new Veterans Charter compared with what was there under the Pension Act. The new Veterans Charter overuses the term “family”. It's as if the word “family” has been added every time you see the word “veteran”. But show me it; go back to the beginning and show me the money.

What is needed, in my opinion, Mr. Chair, is an independent fiduciary review of the new Veterans Charter to determine if, as a minimum, it is equal to the Pension Act in terms of financial security. No matter which way you crunch the numbers, it appears that under the new Veterans Charter the veteran is at a distinct disadvantage in terms of their financial security when compared with the veteran under the Pension Act. The veterans under the new Veterans Charter do not have a financial safety network for life. They're screwed in many ways.

Given the time available, I will restrict my comments just to the financial side, though there's so much more with the charter that could and should be discussed.

Under the new Veterans Charter, the financial security safety network for life that was previously available under the Pension Act has been removed. The argument made by Veterans Affairs for the termination of benefits at age 65 is that Canada has the CPP and OAS, which will carry on. Unfortunately, this will relegate the veterans with the greatest needs to a bare minimum standard of living, whatever OAS and CPP provides them, $1,100 or $1,200 a month for life.

What is being heard in veterans' communities, particularly among those with special needs and the highly disabled, is that Canada's veterans are being treated no differently than the average Canadian in terms of CPP and OAS. I would ask, is there some obligation on the part of Canada to ensure that our special needs veterans, those with the greatest needs, are adequately looked after, not marginalized or relegated to a subsistence-level quality of life? I would say that under the Pension Act this was not the case; they were protected and they were okay through their life course, right to the moment they died. When they died, the benefits accrued to their spouse. This is gone under the new Veterans Charter.

One can see how the special needs veterans are feeling vulnerable and marginalized, despite their service to Canada, by what is not being offered or provided by the new Veterans Charter. It is up to all of us, and I challenge all of you to ensure that special needs veterans of today, supported by the new Veterans Charter, are receiving, as a minimum, what the traditional veteran received in terms of financial security for themselves and their families, and that the support is for life.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Henwood.

[Bruce Henwood]

Did I take my 10 minutes?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

You took 15 minutes, sir, but with your service to the country, I think everybody here would be in agreement that you could have that flexibility.

We have enough time for one round of questions, to respect our second guest from the 22nd Regiment.

Mr. Oliphant for seven minutes.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

We may share time, since there's only one round.

Thank you, Major, and thank you for, obviously, both your work with the Special Needs Advisory Group and for your military service. It's appreciated, even though sometimes I'm sure you wonder whether it is.

[Bruce Henwood]

I've never doubted it.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Are you still the chair of the SNAG?

[Bruce Henwood]

Maybe for another five minutes. Yes.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I was just confused, because our briefing notes say you're here as an individual. I was just a little confused about that. I had assumed you were still chair of the Special Needs Advisory Group.

[Bruce Henwood]

I assumed I was here in that capacity.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Right. That's why you're here. I just want to get that on the record, that you're not here simply as an individual.

How long have you been on the SNAG?

[Bruce Henwood]

Five years.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Five years. And that's when it was first....

[Bruce Henwood]

From the very first meeting. I became the chair after about a year.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

So 2005.

One witness previously told us there were four reports from the advisory committee, with over 200 recommendations. My staff has given me three reports, which I've been through. Am I missing one?

[Bruce Henwood]

You may be missing report number four. The first three reports were a bit lengthy and it was hard to find the actual points. The fourth report...I had an academic help me. It's more succinct. I brought a copy, which I can leave with you.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Perfect.

[Bruce Henwood]

It's only in English.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

We can get it. That would be very helpful for us.

They are thick reports, but they're actually very helpful. I think your committee has done some very good work. In this parliamentary committee we're not an independent judicial committee, but we are a committee of Parliament really delving into this charter. Frankly, our work won't be finished until we're satisfied that we understand it and can make recommendations to the government to improve it. The recommendations you have made are obviously fundamental for us, because the special needs veterans are one component that, I would say, is paramount in our minds. That would be our first thing.

What is the relationship now of the Special Needs Advisory Group with Veterans Affairs Canada? What's the tone of it?

[Bruce Henwood]

Fine. We march to their drum. We can provide all our recommendations and observations, but we are an advisory group, so if Veterans Affairs chooses not to do anything, that's their call.

I think they appreciate our reports. You've seen my candour today. I let it all hang out. I think they appreciate the front-end blast. It catches their attention.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Does the group still meet quarterly?

[Bruce Henwood]

No. Veterans Affairs is in the process of changing all their four advisory groups, so we met in December, and we may meet again in November.