Evidence of meeting #10 for Veterans Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was charter.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Henwood, we really welcome you. And I don't think you're in any danger with Veterans Affairs. Your candour is welcome.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
I know that. I know you're sincere in pointing out what you did.
I have to point out that I wouldn't agree with Ms. Crombie's assessment that it's immoral that the previous government set up this charter. I think we probably all agree it was the right way to go. It needs a lot of change. That's why we're all here, to see how we can make improvements to it.
I would like to ask you at the outset, before I ask you about individual suggestions.... And I like what you said at the very last, the permanent income allowance. There's something that should be looked at in that regard.
If the charter did disappear now--in other words, if the answer was just to get rid of it, because you had suggested that sometimes it would be better if it weren't there at all--what do you think would be lost if there was no charter, in terms of what you're presenting today? What would be lost that's available now?
12:15 p.m.
Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Special Needs
My first inclination would be nothing.
12:15 p.m.
Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Special Needs
But backing up a bit, what would be lost would be health care for the families. The member pays for that. What was found was that a lot of the Canadian Forces veterans who were leaving were not necessarily entitled to access the public service health care plan. So that would be lost. Job placement and location rehabilitation elements would be lost, but some of those were already covered by SISIP through the Canadian Forces. The Canadian Forces, or DND, and VAC are at loggerheads on how to absorb, massage, or change SISIP, moving forward.
Boy, I'd say go back to the Pension Act.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
Okay. I just want to clarify, because that's a fairly large jump, as you can imagine, to go back.
12:15 p.m.
Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Special Needs
No one has asked me that question before, so I haven't synthesized it thoroughly through. I've listed two or three things that would be gone. Out of those two or three things, only one might accrue to the special needs veteran. That might be the health care.
When it comes to job placement, we're already disadvantaged. Vocational rehabilitation training for a quadriplegic who is blind is minimal. I'm giving extremes here just to showcase. The ability—and Veterans Affairs will say this—to transfer vocational rehabilitation or job placement to your spouse is very cool, but from a special needs perspective, that spouse may be looking after the loved one and may not be able to leave the house or move on.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
We're not going to have time to get into a lot of detail, obviously, but if you were to pick your top five, six, or ten things, in order, that you would have done, could you list them? We're looking at improving the charter. That's what the whole process is about. If you can't today, perhaps--
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
Let's say the top five then, sure. What would be the top five improvements you'd want us to be looking at recommending?
12:15 p.m.
Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Special Needs
The second one is to provide tangible support to families. And I would leave it at that.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
Well, that's pretty simple. Those would be the two most important--
12:15 p.m.
Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Special Needs
The families part you can then subdivide into a whole series of things.
12:15 p.m.
Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Special Needs
Our report number four was all focused on families.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
Yes, and we've heard that from different witnesses. The family piece of this has to be looked at.
12:15 p.m.
Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Special Needs
I might toss in--and you could put this under families--that we giveth with one hand and we faileth with the other. We gave the public service health care plan to those veterans who are disabled and to any transitioning Canadian Forces member, but what was not given was the pensioners' dental services plan. I emphasize the very first word: pensioners'. Any young family that's going through life will have their need to get antibiotics, the odd shot, some pills and all that, but the biggest expense—and I found it to be so, and maybe you've found it in raising your families—is when those kids need braces, have cavities, or break a tooth in sports. Dental is very expensive. That's not included in the new Veterans Charter. So they brought in health care for the family, but they didn't do dental. We mentioned that right at the outset.
When you're talking about a lump sum award--and I guess I'm drilling into one through five--there's an earnings loss benefit in the new Veterans Charter. So if you're unable to work and you've been through a rehabilitation plan or program, you may be entitled to 75% of your pre-injury income, reduced by what other sources of income you may be getting. That's all fine and dandy, but that 75% is actually kind of discriminatory, because a lieutenant-colonel's 75% is certainly different from a corporal's 75%. Once again, none of these are recognizing the family. So the corporal or the colonel will get 75%, but where's the family? This is an element that has been misplaced.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
Well then, just quickly, as I said--and I think Mr. Stoffer mentioned it--regardless of where it comes from or where we end up, I think all members certainly want to see improvements and recognize.... A number of these issues have been repeated over and over again, not quite as strongly as you put it, in one context. Most are saying how they could improve the charter, which is where we have to actually go first, obviously.
It's not only the lump sum that comes up over and over again, but the focus on the young veterans. That is a whole different ballgame. It's a whole different relationship and so on. I'm just asking as a general question, because you have raised the issue of them specifically, whether that is a big learning curve, in spite of what we do with the charter, for anybody who's working with or dealing with them, that there's a whole different way of dealing with veterans when you look at the young ones.
12:20 p.m.
Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Special Needs
I would say yes. I think you would have to look at demographics. We have pre-baby-boomers, baby boomers, next-gens, Y-gens, X-gens. Industry will tell you they all have different outlooks on life. There's the “me now” generation; there's the generation of instant communications. We haven't talked about that. The younger cohort coming through feel they should be...maybe not entitled, but they feel they should receive something in recognition of what's happened to them, and they shouldn't have to struggle or fight, they shouldn't have to wait years, and there should be something that will look after them.
The only place they're looking is at their predecessors. They're looking at the World War II veterans and the Korean veterans and asking what's different. What is different is the World War II veterans...it was a different era, a different climate. They had a single, focused enemy, the nation had rallied, and they were all the same age. They were all post-Depression era. They all came back, and there was a mass cohort of a million veterans. Now we've got veterans from 50-plus different missions. They don't have a single voice. So these demographics are fitting in.
I think the majority are asking what was wrong with the old plan. Maybe the old plan needed to be tweaked to bring in some vocational training and some rehab and some job placement--not a clean slate--and now we're struggling with what we're going to do, especially when these guys hit age 65 and everything drops off.
