Veterans Affairs Committee on March 23rd, 2010

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I was going to ask this as well. All of us have difficulty in filling out myriads of forms and applying for benefits. Do the veterans understand the benefits they're entitled to and have any difficulties in applying for them, especially after suffering the types of trauma they have?

[André Bouchard]

Maybe this will be a multi-faceted answer, but when we look at SISIP...we're making it very simple for claimants. Essentially we have one application form that deals with the application process. Once we are aware that someone is going to be released for a medical reason, typically up to nine months, the process starts, and within three months...within six months of the date of release, we have the vocational rehabilitation plan, which typically is already in progress, and on the date of release the financial benefits start.

So we have a process whereby as soon as someone makes an application we have all the paperwork that is required. It's fairly simple. As I've indicated, SISIP LTD is entitlement-based, so we don't need to wait for medical records to make a decision. We can make the decision on the spot that this person will become a claimant. On the VRP side, they start the process, and we have someone who has the latitude to make all the decisions related to vocational rehabilitation. So he doesn't have to check with me at every point in the process. He makes a recommendation and he can approve his own recommendation. He has his vocational rehabilitation counsellors who do the same thing, and they can also make decisions on the vocational rehabilitation.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I can see that Mr. Chislett is really interested in jumping in--

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Five minutes have expired, but I will allow--

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Can he respond?

[Doug Chislett]

I can be very short.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Talk about the harmonization of benefits with Veterans Affairs and SISIP too, because there's some overlapping and some are complementary.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

That's great. I think even Mr. Blais wanted to address that question as well.

[Col Gerry Blais]

Yes. What are the Veterans Affairs forms and the Veterans Affairs benefits now that we have the joint personnel support unit and the integrated personnel support centres? As I said, six months prior to their release they're in contact with Veterans Affairs, within the unit, and we also have staff from DND and the CF to help them fill out these forms and understand what's available for them.

[Doug Chislett]

On the SISIP side, about nine months before release, when the member is provided with his disclosure package telling him that he will be medically released, he gets our SISIP package. The application form was developed in conjunction with the OSISS program, so it's specifically designed for individuals who have psychological disorders to simplify it for them.

Once the application has gone through, my staff get face to face with the members and they walk them through it. Once they have filled out the application, we will walk them through all the steps, and since they're assigned one counsellor who stays with them for the duration of their claim--that's no less than two years, and in many cases much longer--they develop a long-term rapport and they act as a sounding board for the client to remain focused and on top of things as things move forward for them.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Chislett.

Now on to Mr. Lobb for five minutes.

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

Thank you. My first question is for Mr. Bouchard. Do you track, or if you do track, where are new veterans heading for career paths after they move on? I'm just curious if there's any information you track on that, and then I'll follow up with another question.

[André Bouchard]

With respect to SISIP financial services, we don't track it per se. Once someone is on a claim, obviously we know where they are because they're active claimants, but once they leave the claim, we're not keeping track of them. But I understand that maybe the CF would have a tracking system to track those veterans after release.

[Col Gerry Blais]

Again, the stand-up of the joint personnel support unit only started in March of last year with the first nine units, so I can't give you any statistics that are relevant as of yet, but we do actively ensure that we have, for example, the transition assistance program, where we partner with civilian employers across the country. There are more than 300 of them registered with us now, and we have a Workopolis website for our ill and injured who are going to be released, and the employers, so they can gravitate to each other. We now also actively job match to help the guys get work afterwards.

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

That's really where I was leading to, the partnership with the actual employers to be able to connect the dots and build those networking relationships. Is there anything else on that topic where you would suggest there's an opportunity for improvement? I know certainly if there's some PTSD that's there, there needs to be a certain understanding with an employer, and that is obviously going to impact their success or failure in their first job after getting out.

So are there any trends that you've seen, or any suggestions you can make to the committee that we can get ahead of the curve on?

[Col Gerry Blais]

There's no doubt that those with mental health illnesses are more difficult to place in employment than those with physical injuries. It's a question of finding the right job. Of course, depending on what the trigger is for your mental health or your operational stress injury, the type of job that you're going to be able to perform will be different. Each solution has to be tailored to the individual. It's a time-consuming process, but the time has to be taken to treat each case individually.

[Doug Chislett]

On the SISIP side, we also have a job search assistance program. Essentially we take each individual client and walk them through it. We teach them how to write their résumés and how to do their covering letters. We walk them through job search methods, including interview techniques. Then we set up a targeted job search for them. We liaise directly with the TAP program through the JPSU. We set up targeted job searches based on the information provided in the résumé. We will actually give job leads that go toward that.

We've averaged about 74 clients per month in the program, and since 2006 we've given out more than 30,000 job leads.

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

That's good, and I think it would be beneficial to the committee, in due course and when you have more statistics behind your success rate, to come back and report some of the successes or some of the opportunities for improvement to the committee.

I have one final question.

It appears from our testimony so far that the relationship with DND and Veterans Affairs is certainly satisfactory, although I'm sure there's always room for improvement. Coming from a small business background, I know there's a lot more red tape in government than there is in small business. From your experiences, could you comment on any improvements that we can take forward or take back to try to eliminate some of the potential red tape there?

[Col Gerry Blais]

The two departments don't function in exactly the same manner. Veterans Affairs, on the management side, is much more centralized in Charlottetown, whereas DND has a much more decentralized approach, but the two departments are working together. A lot of improvement has happened over the last few years.

There is now something called the VAC/DND steering committee. There the two senior ADMs from Veterans Affairs and the chief of military personnel sit as co-chairs, along with the RCMP. We work together. Every three months or so there's a meeting at which all the issues of concern are raised and discussed. I think that's one forum in which things are getting a lot better. Again, it's two different cultures and two different departments, so overcoming a lot of that is probably the biggest obstacle we still face.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Lobb.

[BGen D.C. Kettle]

Nobody likes red tape, and I believe both DND and Veterans Affairs are making every effort to make this as simple a process as is humanly possible, for the good of the member.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

As chair, I usually try to stay out of the conversation, but let me just say that I was also on this committee in the 39th Parliament, when the committee began as a committee that was separate from DND; what I'm hearing today is substantially better than what we were hearing before, so kudos to you for the great work you're doing to try to make that transition as seamless as possible.

We'll now go on to the Bloc Québécois.

Mr. Vincent, you have five minutes.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you Mr. Chairman. You did say "seven minutes," did you not?

Mr. Bouchard, how long does it take to process a claim?

[André Bouchard]

As I mentioned earlier, once we receive all the documentation, we can usually make the decision and put everything in place in a week or two.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

You are better than the minister! He talked about four months, and the documents I read also mentioned four months.