Veterans Affairs Committee on March 30th, 2010

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

Good morning. I am glad you are here.

I was reading a report by the ombudsman, whom you no doubt know and whom we met with in Prince Edward Island. In that report, some clients said they experienced undue delays in receiving their review or appeal decisions. These are complaints that were identified. Decision letters are often complicated, and clients did not necessarily understand the content or the reasons why their applications were denied or the reasons why they were not entitled to the full amount of the claim. There was a lack of understanding. In addition, clients had questions about—of course, this was mentioned by my colleague and others here—the benefit of reasonable doubt. You did not convince me with the points you made. I think that more questions still need to be asked about this.

I would also like you to briefly explain in more detail the selection process for board members. On average, how many ministerial decisions end up before the Veterans Review and Appeal Board? I was also quite surprised to learn how many cases are not resolved in the client's favour. I would have expected more decisions in the client's favour.

Briefly, what is the most common type of legal situation you see under the New Veterans Charter?

[John D. Larlee]

The most common?

Mr. Chair, if the member is asking what disability conditions are brought most before the board, those will be the back, the knees, the neck, hearing, and lastly, psychological conditions.

If I recall correctly, one part of your question had to do with the criteria for appointments. I think that in 2005-2006, a new system to identify the best candidates was established. We have a system of applications that have been received. They are examined in order to hire someone in human resources who is independent from the department and even our board. Next, we look for people with medical, legal or military experience. Then, interested applicants must complete a rather detailed exam. The third part of the process involves interviews. Last week, we completed another cycle of individuals who applied to be on our board.

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

In terms of the undue delays in some decisions, as per the ombudsman's report, people do not necessarily understand the whys and wherefores. Is it possible to adapt procedures to better reflect the reality of veterans?

[John D. Larlee]

To answer the question, Mr. Chair, I would first like to say that our members receive training courses. When they start, they do not necessarily always have expertise in medicine, legislation or in writing decisions. There is a three-month training period for new members. But even while they are on the board, they take courses on how to simplify decisions and make sure they are written in language that can be understood. That needs to be in line with what the Federal Court is doing and how decisions are written so they can be easily understood by clients. We work hard to do that and to adhere to the guidelines we receive from the Federal Court.

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

It is clearly not enough because the ombudsman's report identifies it as a fairly big problem right now.

I have one last question about the New Veterans Charter. We are all talking about a lump sum payment or lifetime payments. Do you see many cases like that? What types of situations go before the court, the board?

[John D. Larlee]

Do you mean many cases of post-traumatic stress disorder?

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

I mean complaints or situations that arise as a result of that type of compensation, lump sum payments.

[John D. Larlee]

Mr. Chairman, our caseload continues as it has in the past, and we deal with all applications for disability. It's not identified whether it's because of the charter, it's the situation of doing what we can to make sure our veterans, the military, as well as the RCMP, receive the best services we can provide.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Larlee.

We'll now move on to Mr. Mayes for five minutes.

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

Mr. Chair, I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Lobb.

I have just a quick question. You see so many cases, and I'm sure there are some trends. Is there an opportunity for the board to report back to the ministry with best practices or trends that you see so that they can maybe change the guiding processes for their front line people?

You see particular cases coming forward all the time. Perhaps some of the policies with regard to processing the applicants could be changed so that you don't see those coming through as much.

Do you have that opportunity to communicate with the department on some of what I would call “best practices”, or trends?

[John D. Larlee]

As a body that reports to Parliament through the minister, we in our quasi-judicial role are providing the minister's office with our statistics, as we do this committee. In that aspect we're showing trends, I suppose, of not only our workload, but where we are in the country and the kinds of hearings.

So in that sense, that would be the manner in which we are responding or providing information about what the board does and where our efforts are needed with respect to where in the country there's a need as far as our membership having a presence or being able to do our hearings.

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

I'll turn it over to Mr. Lobb.

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

Thanks again, Mr. Larlee.

In your “Strategic Priorities 2010-11” document, you talk about improved program delivery. I wonder if you or Ms. Sharkey could comment briefly on a couple of your top priorities for improved program delivery.

[John D. Larlee]

With respect to our program delivery, we are very conscious of the anxiety on the part of the veterans or the clients, whether serving in the military or the RCMP, to have their decisions or to have their cases dealt with. From the time the file enters until we render a decision, we work continually to reduce that time period. In addressing that issue, our priorities are to deal with the systems that are available to us. We've introduced video conferencing to assist us, for example. It's not only that the parties agree to it in order to have their hearing dealt with more quickly, but it's a trend that we're investigating all the time, because as technology improves, it becomes more readily acceptable to everyone. We can all remember when there were delays in video conferencing, but now everything seems to have improved, and we're looking towards using that as one example.

Another example is talking with clients and their representatives in non-central areas in order to make other arrangements to bring them easily to appear for their review hearings. We're very flexible in that aspect.

Our priorities over the future are to maintain our service standards and also to improve on them.

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

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

You have 30 seconds.

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

On page two of your presentation, you talk about how the law requires the applicants to provide sufficient credible evidence in their case.

I can imagine some of the people who come before you; they're probably in various levels of fractured psyches or levels of self-esteem. There could be a great variety. Do you find there is insufficient evidence in many of the cases brought before the board, or that people are unable to bring forth a solid case? If so, what's their next step?

Maybe you could describe to the committee how that's dealt with, because I'm sure it happens from time to time.

[John D. Larlee]

It happens, and I think that all our tribunal members want the veterans not only to receive as much benefit as possible from all the information they are given, but also, if things are lacking when they leave, to understand what they require and that they do have the time to go out and find other evidence. It doesn't necessarily have to be a better medical report; it could be a witness's testimony or any number of things. The role of the adjudicator is to then take all that information and use it to apply the law and the benefit of the doubt as much as possible in favour of the applicant, and I think we do that very well.

What's also important for the benefit of the veterans and the clients who come before us is that there is no limitation period. As I said earlier, when they are not satisfied with a review and bring the case on appeal, they have a representative and they have time to gather additional information. Some information from our traditional veterans is very difficult to find, but that is often brought forward by testimony from members of the family or by statements from friends who were present with them if it was an activity in the service and there's little record of it. All that information is gathered and taken up, so when we talk about credible evidence, it can be in many forms.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much, Mr. Larlee and Madam Sharkey.

I regret the fact that because we have some business to do, we don't have an opportunity for you to make closing comments, but we appreciate your testimony.

Right now we'll pause and go in camera and deal with business. Normally people would like to say greetings to you on the way out.

[John D. Larlee]

Thank you for allowing us the time to appear here. We look forward to coming back again and discussing how our priorities are proceeding.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]