Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 29th, 2011

[Bernard Butler]

Absolutely. Yes, it's certainly possible, and we'll provide it to you.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you.

Now we go to Mr. Lobb for a quick question.

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

Thanks.

Most of the discussion has been on new veterans. I have a question about traditional veterans. If a veteran has a relationship established with Veterans Affairs and now requires a lift for his home, can you tell us how the procurement for that works or how he would go about getting it?

If I have time, I'd like a follow-up question.

[Charlotte Stewart]

A traditional veteran would in some cases have a case manager, depending on their situation. The case manager is on the ground—

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

That's correct, but for the actual procurement, how do they go about purchasing the lift and getting it installed on their property?

[Charlotte Stewart]

Once a lift is approved, there are registered providers who can provide that service. The individual would procure it and, I believe, submit the claim to Veterans Affairs Canada for reimbursement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Casey for one question, please.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Ms. Stewart, if the Department of Veterans Affairs accepted the advice of the ombudsman and reinvested the $226 million, putting it back into programs and service delivery, where would you spend it?

[Charlotte Stewart]

The $226 million is not a reduction in benefits to Veterans Affairs' clients.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

That wasn't my question. My question was, if you had an extra $226 million over the next two years, what would be the areas of greatest need? Where would you spend it?

[Charlotte Stewart]

Actually, we have programs and services that we're delivering. We're going to be doing them better. Any discussion or decision around additional money would not be within my purview.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Dykstra, please.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

I have an overall question. How many veterans are we serving today compared with the number we served a decade ago?

[Charlotte Stewart]

I have the number from a decade ago, actually. I can get it for you.

I can tell you that today, we are serving about 216,000 clients.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Okay. I'll be interested to see how that rates against the situation a decade ago.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Are you going to provide that number to the committee?

[Charlotte Stewart]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Stoffer, you have a minute.

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

I have a quick question for you. We speak a lot about the military veterans, but we don't talk much about the RCMP veterans. And of course, their benefits and programs derive from DVA as well.

I was wondering what you're doing to ensure that all RCMP veterans and their families have access to these services and are fully aware of everything they are eligible for. What transition services are in place for the serving RCMP who become RCMP veterans, similar to those for the military?

[Charlotte Stewart]

We meet regularly with the RCMP. They're also part of our senior-level committee with DND. We work with them in the transition process in a very similar fashion. They have access to our district offices for information and guidance. Effectively, we can follow the same process with them, in terms of the provision of information to them and transitioning....

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Storseth.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

At the end of my questioning, we were talking about tools used for monitoring the satisfaction of clients. You talked about the survey that is sent out to clients. I have two quick questions.

One is, do you use any social media as a tool, or are you looking at using social media to enhance your feedback mechanisms?

The other is, do you ever take a small group and survey the family members as well, and not only the clients?

I'd like to add a little point, if you can do something to fix the following issue: Many of my traditional veterans or new veterans from Cold Lake drive into Edmonton to receive benefits and have been doing so for years, but somebody at DVA checks Google Maps and says they're out 15 kilometres and, all of a sudden, their process gets held up. We're not sure what kind of construction they've faced. There should be a variance there.

Thank you.

[Charlotte Stewart]

The issue with respect to Googling has been addressed.

Social media is going to be used, and perhaps Bernard could speak more about that in terms of the outreach. It's key that we reach people in the way they want to be reached. For the new veterans, social media is a huge part of that. As for the timing of that, I don't know if we can add anything more in terms of when social media might be used for our client surveys.

[Bernard Butler]

I can't give you a time on the client surveys. But I can tell you that we are now very much engaged with what we're referring to as phase two of our outreach strategy. Family members are going to be part of that. We're going to be working through things like the military family resource centres and so on to try to connect with families to continue the discussion we've had over the last year on bases, and with members directly.