Veterans Affairs Committee on March 15th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll convene the meeting and get started.

I want to welcome everybody to the continuing review of the delivery of front-line health and well-being services for Canadian veterans.

I especially want to thank our guests. Some have travelled quite a distance. We certainly appreciate the fact that you've taken the time to come to act as witnesses before our committee as we pursue this important topic.

We have a number of presenters. Once the presentations are finished, it's important to keep in mind that we'll get questions from the members of the committee, and we'll try to get this all wrapped up in the time we have allotted.

I want to especially welcome Donald Leonardo, founder and chief executive officer of Veterans Canada. He's on the conference call with us from afar.

We welcome you, sir. It's good to have you with us.

I'll introduce the rest as we go through the order of speaking. We have two who are going to divide their time. We'll mention that when we get to it. Generally speaking, we like to get the presentations done in under 10 minutes if we can. Then we'll go around the table.

That being said—and please help me if I make mistakes in the various names—from the Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association, we have Richard Blackwolf, president, and Sylvain Chartrand.

Thank you, gentlemen. Please make your opening comments.

[Richard Blackwolf, President, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association]

My name is Richard Blackwolf. I'm the national president of the Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association. We thank you for the invitation to appear today to provide a summary of our history and current endeavours.

Aboriginals cite the War of 1812 as our commencement of military service to Canada. As is known in history, there was quite a disparity between the population of the United States, at approximately 7.2 million, and Canada, where there were just over 400,000 people. The participation by first nations to support the British troops and forces was critical to preventing the invasion of U.S. forces.

First nations warriors played a part in a number of major battles that were critical to the defence of Canada. In some cases, just their presence on the battlefield was sufficient to cause the U.S. commanders to surrender. A major example would be Lieutenant-Colonel Hull surrendering Fort Detroit to prevent what he thought was going to be an all-out slaughter by Tecumseh's force of 400 aboriginals.

Moving on through the years to World War I, after it was clarified that young men of the first nations could serve without being classified as “civilized” and therefore not being able to return to their respective reserves, they volunteered on a per capita basis at a rate greater than any community in the country. Many of them served with distinction.

In our presentation you'll see that Corporal Francis Pegahmagabow was one of the more outstanding members of the Canadian army. He signed up at the beginning of the war. He was in the 1st Infantry Battalion of the 1st Canadian Division, fought in all the major battles, and took duties in the most dangerous of actions, such as forward scout, messenger, and sniper. He was actually Canada's premier sniper of World War I. He was wounded, but because of his actions on the battlefield, he was awarded three military medals. Of the hundreds of thousands who served in World War I, he was one of 38 who received three military medals for his actions on the battlefield.

Moving on to World War II, again, aboriginal soldiers volunteered in large numbers. The numbers reported both in World War I and World War II only come from reserves where the Indian agent reported the people who left, so this doesn't account for non-status people, people who lived in urban areas, any of the Métis, or the Inuit.

One soldier who typifies the many who served in World War II is Sergeant Thomas George Prince. Tommy Prince signed up in 1939 as a volunteer. He first served as a sapper with the Royal Canadian Engineers, and in June 1940 he volunteered for parachute training. He was a candidate in a class of 100, and he was one of nine who graduated.

He was selected for the 1st Special Service Force. That was a force comprised of 1,600 of the toughest men in Canada and the United States. They were gathered at Helena, Montana, and given their basic training there.

He served with the 1st Special Service Force in Italy. He was cited for a military medal for his actions in Italy. When the unit moved to southern France, he was cited again, this time by the U.S. commanders, and received a nomination for the United States Silver Star for his actions and also for his support of the French resistance.

Moving on to our historical groups of associations, the first associations were formed in 1981. They received letters patent for the National Indian Veterans Association. That association functioned for about 10 years.

In the early 1990s, when the government defined aboriginals as being first nations, Métis, and Inuit, they applied for letters patent supplementary, which were issued in January of 1992, and they formed a new group, the National Aboriginal Veterans Association. That association functioned for just over 10 years, but there was a growing desire to move away from the traditional association of just friends and groups. They wanted to be more service-oriented, and this required a reconstruction in the sense of the way future operations would occur.

On October 28, 2010, letters patent were issued for the Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association. There, we achieved getting “Canadian” in our name, which was one of the goals. The other thing was to include the serving members. We're the first veterans group that I'm aware of that actually includes serving members.

So that's our national group. We refer to this total group as the National Alliance. The National Alliance consists of the national group, the Canadian Aboriginal Veterans Association with the federal registry, and, recently, the Métis Nation of Canada, and the territories and provinces where our members are registered. We have MOUs, memorandums of understanding, for those accords between all the provincial groups. This is now what we refer to as the National Alliance.

We are traditional people in the sense that there's the connection between elders—in this case, veterans—and youth in the aboriginal communities. Aboriginal youth have problems and are also a growing population. Half of the aboriginal population in Canada is under 25. Compared to the general Canadian population, where the average age is 35, it's a very young group.

As you're all probably familiar with, aboriginal youth experience many difficulties because of reserve life and urban life. One of the main things they suffer from, of course, is alcohol and drug addiction. Also, in some of the reserves, they have problems with gangs and drive-by shootings.

So our initiative here is to use our position in the aboriginal community. In the aboriginal community, our veteran elders are the most revered. Consequently, the Canadian Aboriginal Veterans support a military career. We think it's an excellent choice for young aboriginals to make, and we also support the summer programs that have been put in place by the Department of National Defence for aboriginal youth. We refer to them as summer programs because they occur in the summer months, and their names are Raven, Bold Eagle, and Black Bear. There is also the Royal Military College program, called the aboriginal leadership opportunity year, and there is another program that DND runs in the fall as a follow-up to the summer programs, called the aboriginal youth pre-employment program. Aboriginal youth can spend a week or so in the army, navy, and air force, and then they can make a choice of where they'd like to stay.

For our service to veterans in the new era, of course, we use all the modern communications. In this case, we have a national website. We have service and support for veterans there. We have an aboriginal page and support for aboriginal youth. We have a new member registration system. The current membership is in the hundreds, and it has the potential to grow to thousands of members because of the easy access, where they can register through the Internet.

We supply service to veterans through a system of national service officers support, and we provide provincial support, because our object is to have provincial groups incorporated. We've started in the west. There are British Columbian aboriginal veterans and serving members—that's an incorporated aboriginal veterans group—and the second is Alberta, and it will go across the country.

Regarding service to the Canadian Forces, we are often called on by the Canadian Forces to send out messages, usually recruitment for one of the summer programs or other messages. We have an extensive e-mail and fax transmission capability.

We have a number of aboriginal veterans of World War II and Korea. The common thing we find there, of course, is health problems. They have heart problems and things that are associated with heart problems, such as high blood pressure. We counsel them and make sure that they are up-to-date with their services from VAC—Veterans Affairs Canada.

The other type of health problem that's very common is type two diabetes. The problem there is that the elders generally receive prescriptions when they're diagnosed with type two diabetes, and some of them believe that if they just take their medicine, they can eat anything they like after that, and that's not true. So we have quite a time educating them, and preventing them from harming themselves further by taking the wrong foods. We've also started a program of sending letters to various groups, to make sure they have a table where there is food that is safe for type two diabetics to eat. The latest one was to B.C. Ferries, which has a very nice buffet, but it would be deadly to someone with type two problems.

Another problem with veterans from that era—World War II, Korea—is that they've never been familiar with PTSD. I personally phone every one of them practically on a monthly basis, and sometimes they talk about the war, their experiences, or problems they have. If I notice that they're coming up with nightmares or any of the symptoms of PTSD, we contact VAC to go out and have an assessment, and have them receive compensation for that type of thing.

We've talked to a number of new era veterans, what's referred to here as pre-discharge. There didn't appear to be a lot of problems with the army medical system, because it's a very good one, but several things showed up. One of them was that for those who initially have severe injuries, it was quite arduous for them to travel long distances, in some cases, to go to the major centres for their appointments with the army doctors. We're hoping and suggesting the army will adopt a house-call system for them. There would probably be some funding requirements for that, but for those who are in the initial stages of being injured.... The example I would give is of a young soldier who was in a suicide attack. She had both hands broken, her back was broken, and there were head injuries. So in the early days, having to travel two hours to Calgary was quite arduous for her.

Another thing that has come up is that the army has a number of single parents, and when they're disabled, if they don't have any resources, the army isn't set up to handle this. It doesn't appear to have any type of resources for single parents to be able to get an allowance to bring people in, particularly in the first days when they're recovering from severe injuries. I'll use the case of the young soldier again. She wasn't able to pick up her child. She had two broken hands and a broken back, so she was stranded there in quite a bit of distress, monetarily and mentally, having a child she couldn't look after. So that was our recommendation there.

We've talked to a number of soldiers who have been diagnosed with PTSD, and one of the common complaints is that once they are diagnosed, there is a tendency to put off their appointments. If they are given a series of appointments with a psychologist, say once a week, quite often the operations or the sergeant or whoever would say they couldn't go that day, that maybe once a month was enough.

The problem with that is that treatment of this malaise requires steady progress. It's a matter of a culture there.

Also, soldiers may face career termination, and they quite often appear in chain of command disapproval once they're diagnosed, so it creates a problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Mr. Blackwolf, you are quite a bit over time. Do you have the recommendations listed?

[Richard Blackwolf]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Could I leave it to the committee to ask questions, and if there's something specific you'd like to highlight beyond what you've done, I'd certainly welcome your comments. Otherwise, we'll wait for the questions, if that's okay.

[Richard Blackwolf]

All right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much for that. I appreciate it.

We will now turn to Wolfgang Zimmermann, executive director of the National Institute of Disability Management and Research.

Welcome.

[Wolfgang Zimmermann, Executive Director, National Institute of Disability Management and Research]

Thank you very much for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman.

Honourable members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express my sincerest appreciation for the opportunity to be here before you and to offer some thoughts on expected rehabilitation outcomes and services for disabled veterans.

Having lived with a serious spinal cord injury as a result of an industrial accident for the past 35 years, I will try to shape your review in a slightly different direction. Doing this in 10 minutes will be a challenge, but I will try my best.

My comments today are structured into four basic elements: personal experience, consideration of the disability context, what we want to achieve as the optimum outcome for disabled veterans, and the potential opportunities I think you may wish to consider.

My experience with a permanent disabling injury dates back to June 1977, when, as a 20-year-old graduate from a polytechnic institute, I joined the workforce of MacMillan Bloedel, which was then Canada's largest forest products company and British Columbia's largest employer. I was given a power saw, a pamphlet showing how to fell trees, and was told, “Good luck.” The fifth day on the job, a 50-foot alder tree barber-chaired and came down on me. It broke my back and left me with a significant spinal cord injury.

Whether such injuries are a result of military service or some other industrial accident, or not related to an occupation, the impact on the individual and the individual's family and the required rehabilitation measures are identical. This brings me to the overriding outcome we are trying to achieve for the individual, namely, maximizing participation of the disabled individual in all aspects of our society: economically, socially, and recreationally. I was most fortunate to have been given that opportunity, and I am privileged to be here with you today.

Through the National Institute of Disability Management and Research, established 18 years ago as a joint business-labour-government partnership, and supported through an endowment, we've created educational and professional certification and program standards designed to facilitate more effective return-to-work outcomes for individuals who have acquired a disabling condition and are at risk of losing their employment.

Structurally, the standards are administered similarly to what you find in the ISO model. So far, they have been adopted in 16 countries, and through an agreement we signed last fall with the International Social Security Association, a UN-based agency in Geneva bringing together 333 national social security carriers in 153 countries, NIDMAR's standards will be a core element for the global return-to-work best practice guidelines planned for rollout by the United Nations later this fall.

By way of improving outcomes for disabled veterans—and an effective service delivery model is part of that—I will draw on my experience as chair of the Premier's Council for Persons with Disabilities in British Columbia. I also spent over six years on the panel of administrators responsible for the B.C. Workers' Compensation Act, which is not dissimilar to Veterans Affairs, as the occupational injury carrier for disabled veterans. In addition, I spent a number of years on the Veteran Affairs advisory committee.

Key to my rehabilitation was my almost immediate ability to continue productive participation in the workforce, a result of the company accepting full responsibility for the accident and collaborating with the union to develop a creative opportunity for my ongoing employment, even though I was in a wheelchair and there was no precedent for doing this in a logging camp of 450 workers on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Having strategies aimed at maintaining the economic and social productive capacity of the disabled individual is critical for both the employer—in this case, we believe, the Government of Canada—and the disabled veteran. There is an overabundance of national and international evidence to support the strategy, especially if the conundrum of successfully maintaining an employment relationship is to be solved. Many of the associated psychosocial issues, whether they be long-term mental health concerns, dependencies, or other social challenges, will be largely mitigated through this employment relationship. Hence, there needs to be a clear understanding that the Government of Canada is the employer of disabled veterans and that it has an unequivocal responsibility for their continued employment.

In our opinion, there is absolutely no valid reason, given the scope and scale of government operations, for not accommodating the overwhelming majority of disabled veterans within the diverse range of government departments.

We all identify with our role in society, and a key part of that role is gainful employment. It gives us economic and social status; it gives us the flexibility to make our own decisions; and it clearly reduces our dependence on others, such as VAC and everything associated with it. I haven't had to deal with the WCB as much because I have an employer that also covers those benefits.

That being said, here is a quick context. We can only influence the employment outcome for an individual with a disability in one of two ways: by maintaining attachment to the pre-disability employer and avoid entering the social security system, or by optimizing return-to-work outcomes once workforce attachment is lost.

I understand that you have heard from vocational rehabilitation providers, but here are some considerations for you. In British Columbia we have approximately 80,000 disabled individuals on social assistance. The annual outflow rate from the system is 0.75%. They leave through either death or retirement. A similar number applies to the approximately 330,000 individuals on Canada Pension Plan disability. This percentage is consistent with the experiences of social security agencies around the world.

If someone has been out of the workforce for six months or longer on account of a disabling condition, the odds of ever going back to work are greatly reduced, if non-existent.

Additionally, the U.K. Department for Work and Pensions estimates that the suicide rate for unemployed individuals with disabilities is approximately 40 times that of the average population.

On specific issues to address, I would urge the committee to immediately address the question of the DND/VAC interface, since it is always a drawn-out process. It can sometimes take up to three years or longer before an intervention commences, hence radically stacking the odds against the veteran. A triage process, such as the ones used by many successful WCBs around the world, could be most helpful in this.

Experience from across Canada and around the world suggests that vocational rehabilitation providers should be compensated through a staggered process based on concrete employment outcomes for disabled veterans, not merely employability measures, such as improving their resumé writing skills, and so on.

You may wish to benchmark VAC's current compensation and service delivery model against some of our workers' compensation boards for comparison. You may also wish to consider adopting the government employees compensation model. It is a federal-provincial partnership and would likely give you much greater system efficiencies. I can certainly explain a lot of these things in greater detail.

Effective return-to-work and disability management interventions for disabled veterans require strict adherence to substantive adoption of three core principles: creativity, because no two situations are ever quite alike; collaboration, because successful reintegration of disabled veterans requires absolute participation by all stakeholders; and commitment, which is leadership at all levels, and full acceptance of responsibility is the key. Without this being spelled out quite clearly, nothing will happen.

Honourable members, I suggest that the above core principles—and for that matter, all of the presentations you receive—be measured against the overriding objective: how do current policies, procedures, and actions contribute toward maximizing the human and productive capacity of disabled veterans? How do they optimize their continued successful participation in all aspects of our society? And what evidence is being presented to you to support achievements toward this objective?

Failure to support and ultimately achieve these objectives forces many disabled veterans, not unlike disabled individuals in general, to the margins of society economically and socially, with all the inherent tragedies, which are well documented around the world.

Incidentally, these issues are not limited to disabled veterans but apply broadly to people with disabilities, in Canada and around the world, which is why I am personally very pleased that Canada ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

In conclusion, a couple of elements are key if we are to produce long-term positive economic and social outcomes for disabled veterans: recognition by the Government of Canada of its employer responsibilities for disabled veterans, no different from large leading-edge private sector organizations; commitment towards implementation of best practice return-to-work and disability management programs, using internationally recognized and adopted optimum practice standards.

Consider a new model for service delivery through partnerships with provincial workers' compensation boards, specifically using their rehabilitation departments whose staff have intimate jurisdictional knowledge of all relevant issues relating to optimizing successful rehabilitation potential for disabled workers.

In summary, honourable members, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak. I encourage you to take all necessary steps in ensuring that, for those individuals who have suffered a disabling condition while serving our country, this unfortunate stroke of fate does not relegate them to the margins of our society in perpetuity.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Zimmermann.

Now if Mr. Leonardo is ready in Calgary, I'll once again introduce him. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Veterans of Canada.

We're pleased to have you join us today. If you'd like, make your presentation now, sir.

[Donald Leonardo, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Veterans of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, members of the committee.

Thank you, guests.

Hello from the heart of Reform country in Calgary, Alberta. As a severely injured veteran, I thank you for this opportunity to speak today. I'm sorry that I'm not there in person, but it would seem that there is a culture in today's society, in both government and with large corporations, that personal freedom and privacy of individuals are not important. But I digress.

Before I start, I would like to state that VeteransofCanada.ca fully supports the letter the Minister of Veterans Affairs received, dated February 13, 2012, that the member organizations of the Veterans Affairs Canada stakeholder committee sent to the minister.

I'm disappointed with the minister, with his posturing of late and his threats to disband this committee because of a 10-minute incident of a severely disabled veteran. This is 10 minutes in which the deputy minister and the associate deputy ministers had to see what a veteran goes through for his complete life after service and after being injured.

With that, I will go on to talk about my organization, Veterans of Canada. It's an organization that was founded in 2006, and it is an online social networking community, two weeks away from passing the 6,000-member mark. The community is a place where those who have served can reconnect. It's a place where members can make new friends through a common bond and keep informed. It's a place where members can post pictures to rekindle their old memories with other members. This is all done online, on the Internet. It's a veterans community only.

The world has witnessed rapidly changing ways in which communities of individuals can come together, especially since the introduction of the Internet. Although there will likely be a continued place for formal paid membership-based organizations, the reality is that communities are coming together in a more flexible and cause-oriented social network.

Veterans of Canada has capitalized on this new form of organizing individuals and creating real-time communities, which are just as or even more effective at reflecting the interests of the community as traditional paid membership.

VOC does not charge for memberships and does not impose dress codes or other behavioural restrictions on its community. So VOC is a more truly democratic community model, as everyone can express their own point of view and have it heard.

My job as founder and president is to compile these inputs and pass them on to the Canadian public, the media, Parliament, and the veterans community as a whole.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you today for allowing me this opportunity. I wish I were there in person.

If the committee has any questions for me, I would be glad to answer them for you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Leonardo. I'm sure there will be questions once we finish the rest of the presentations.

On that point, as I said earlier, we have a split presentation coming up.

First, from the Canadian Association of Veterans in United Nations Peacekeeping, we have Mr. Robert O'Brien, chairman of the board of directors.

Welcome, sir.

[Robert O'Brien, Chairman, Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Veterans in United Nations Peacekeeping]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The length of our title can be considerably reduced. We just call it CAVUNP.

CAVUNP certainly appreciates the opportunity to address this committee, because we believe this committee can be very influential in how Canada treats her veterans.

Our association was formed a little over 20 years ago, when we felt that there were some needs in existence that were not being met by the organizations of the day. Most of our membership, which is spread through 22 chapters across the country, spent their military service involved in the Cold War, in peacekeeping, or in both. The Cold War did not produce a lot of casualties. Peacekeeping did produce some casualties. Thankfully they were small in number.

But today's efforts are concentrated on considering one veteran: if a person served, they're a veteran. As such, they are part of the social contract that exists between the people of this country and the people who we sent to suffer and serve on behalf of us all.

Regardless of the type of service you're talking about, the military is a very structured, very institutionalized, way of life. It is a way of life where the rights of the individual place second to the rights of the organization.

The adrenalin produced by war serves but to reinforce the tremendous differences that exist between civilian and military ways of life. That understanding—the understanding of what is required of those who serve—must be in place if the needs of transition to civilian life are ever to be met. The transition that is required is made more difficult by what has been experienced. Those differences also tend to indicate the amount of understanding that has to exist on the part of the front-line people.

I notice that your definition here of front-line work says that it's work carried out by individuals who are in daily contact with veterans. That is extremely important to all of us. If those people are not there, then the service to veterans is either denied or delayed.

It's for that reason that last October, veterans organizations approached the Government of Canada and asked the government to follow the lead of our British and American counterparts in declaring that government spending, being faced by all countries, would not affect veterans.

The minister has assured us that the money legislated is there and will not disappear. But we are concerned, desperately concerned, about the front-line staff. If those front-line staff are not there, then veterans will be very poorly served.

We ask of you, members of this committee—a committee that can be of tremendous value to veterans, a committee that has the power, should it choose to use it—to ensure that harm does not come to veterans from partisan political approaches. We ask you to be united in standing and doing the right thing by those who have done so much for us when their country called and they answered.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much, Mr. O'Brien. I appreciate the comments.

Now we go to the NATO Veterans Organization of Canada, of which Mr. Gord Jenkins is president.

Welcome, sir.

[Gord Jenkins, President, NATO Veterans Organization of Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. It's an honour to be here. The gentleman to my right just stole my speech, so I will be brief.

[A voice]

We can hear it again.

[Gord Jenkins]

You can hear it again.

One question that was asked is, who is this group, NATO Veterans Organization? These gentlemen here in the group to my right...I belong to it. I also have done a number of tours of peacekeeping, but I did NATO. It's surprising, we've been in NATO for a third of Confederation, over 70 years. Over 250,000 Canadian servicemen have gone through NATO and are in places of harm in NATO right now.

We call NATO the forgotten generation. There's the Korean War, World War II, and the hospitals and the services that were provided for them. Then there's this quiet period.

I've heard the expression, the “new era veterans”. The term is the “modern-day veterans”, and these are the veterans who are post-Korea, up to and including today. They do not get the same attention, and we are afraid, as Colonel O'Brien has mentioned, that after this upcoming budget, the front-line service will not be there. The government spending...of course, it affects the veterans if you cut out the services, particularly the front-line staff. These are the ones who we deal with. Everybody at this table deals with them on a day-to-day basis. We get excellent service. We have no complaints. We're not here to complain about the front-line service of Veterans Affairs. If anything, we compliment it.

Who are NATO veterans? We are one of the modern-day veterans' organizations, just one. With the other modern-day organizations, we focus on this forgotten generation of veterans. Our patron, for information, is General Paul Manson. I was asked specifically in the e-mail to say who we were because we are a new organization, only two years old. Our two senior advisors are Duane Daly—you might have heard his name, as he's the former secretary of the Canadian Legion—and Sean Maloney, professor of history at RMC, and he asked me to read this out at the committee.

There was an editorial in the Ottawa paper on March 9, titled “All Veterans Need Long-Term Care”. NATO Veterans, Chairman:

I note with satisfaction that there is finally an organization in Canada that recognizes the fact that thousands of Canadians served overseas and in Canada during the Cold War: The NATO Veterans of Canada. These men and women placed themselves at the ultimate risk by volunteering to serve during a historical period of maximum danger to the human race [particularly in Europe] and agreed to serve in the face of a unique form of obliteration: possible thermonuclear weapons use. This fact is receding in the current cultural milieu....

It is in no Canadian textbook about this period of Canada's history. Professor Maloney checked and he could not find one reference.

In conclusion, I'd like to focus on one area that has been mentioned by a couple of gentlemen here, and that's health care. Health care is tied in with the budget cuts. Hospitals are being transferred. All the military hospitals are being transferred to the provinces.

Veterans are not a provincial responsibility. They are a federal responsibility. By transferring these hospitals—I just got the ombudsman's report, and I noted that he picked it up. He said the highest number of complaints received by the ombudsman, and that's true of NATO veterans, relate to health care. These complaints cover a wide range of issues, including reimbursement of travel, limitations on treatment protocols, a cumbersome approval process, and one clear gap is the long-term care program. It does not include a strategy to incorporate the Canadian Forces veterans, the modern-day veterans who may require long-term care—and we're speaking about the people coming back pretty soon—as well as someone like the gentleman who's put in 35 years and will require long-term care in priority placement down the road.

What happens now? Perley Rideau in Ottawa is being transferred to the provincial government. The place is alive with construction. It's going to become a dementia centre. When the last Korean veteran is out of there, that's it, no veterans.

To quote the ombudsman:

There seems to be an apparent gap between programs to keep veterans and spouses at home as long as possible and the provisions of a bridging nature, such as subsidized access to assisted living....

The ombudsman is speaking of a second program; the long-term care program is disappearing. There is a program called VIP, and that means a veteran can be looked after at home. He can have a nurse, medicine, and food, but the problem is, if his roof is falling off, if his furnace is broken, or he needs to have a single-pane window cleaned—they won't do a second window. In other words, he can live in a hovel, but he certainly gets meals on wheels.

In conclusion, it's our first time here as NATO veterans. I want to thank you for taking the time to listen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

If you're visiting the museum, make sure you drop by and see Mr. Jenkins. I don't think he's as shy there as he is here today.

We appreciate all your comments. They're going to generate a number of questions.

I want to move along quickly. I'm cautioning committee members that I want you to keep within your time limit because we've a lot of ground to cover.

Ms. Mathyssen, please, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for being here today. I certainly appreciated all you had to say.

Mr. Jenkins, thank you for your letter. I've sent a response, and you should receive it soon.

I want to pursue this issue of long-term care. Parkwood Hospital is in my riding, and without fail, veterans contact me—and these are modern-day veterans—because they are very concerned that the quality of care, the availability of care, won't be there for them when they need it. They're very pleased that Korean vets and World War II vets have that quality of care, but because of the reality of what they've experienced, they feel very strongly that they must have it too.

You mentioned Perley, and we know that Ste. Anne's has been transferred to the Province of Quebec. And 1,300 people who were specialists in veterans' care have been transferred out of that facility, with no guarantee that they will retain their jobs and that this hospital will function as it did in the past.

I want you to comment with regard to the challenges that modern-day vets face in finding a doctor—there's a doctor shortage—being compelled to rely on provincial care, and in the case of long-term care, a nursing home, where they're not particularly tuned in to the culture of veterans, nor the needs of veterans and their families.

Certainly, Colonel O'Brien, if you wanted to jump in on that too, I'd appreciate it.

Mr. Jenkins, please go ahead.

[Gord Jenkins]

Thank you very much for your comments.

You're right about Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue; it is the last one. I met with the minister last night. He gave me an hour. One of the things I said to him was, for crying out loud, don't turn over Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. Keep one hospital and make it our Walter Reed, the famous U.S. hospital for veterans. Turn it into a centre of excellence for looking after veterans. You have one left out of ten.

Thank you, ma'am.

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

Colonel O'Brien, did you have anything to add?

[Robert O'Brien]

No, ma'am.

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

Thank you very much. I will keep advocating for Parkwood Hospital. I think it's very important.

Mr. Blackwolf, you made reference to the reverence that communities have for first nations veterans. I've seen it. I have had the privilege many times of going to the Munsee-Delaware, Chippewas of the Thames, and Oneida communities, just outside of my riding. I've seen what happens there.

In your brief, though, you expressed concerns about the new Veterans Charter and the option of the lump sum payment. Could you tell us precisely what your concern is regarding that lump sum payment?

[Richard Blackwolf]

Well, we would have to refer back to our actual recommendations on the VAC and post-release side of the equation. In one recommendation, we're focused on the pre-release. What we're saying is that currently there is for-profit insurance provided through Manulife. The acronym is SISIP. It provides long-term disability payments.

The problem that all the members who have been involved with this have mentioned is that in the case of any other payments—say, when they get on the post-release side, if there are any benefits that come from VAC—the money is clawed back. The net result to the veteran is net zero gain. Also, that insurance only goes until they're 65. They're quite concerned about what happens at 65. Is that when we're to die? You can see that anyone in the room looking ahead to age 65, if they knew whatever income they had was going to quit at 65, would be left with a destitute feeling.

What we're suggesting here on the pre-release side.... We could also say that people who join the military or a company or anything usually join for the long term; they're going to go there for employment and then retire. It's the same thing in the military. But if they end up with a disability somewhere through their years of service and are medically released, we're suggesting that the money that's being paid now into this for-profit insurance company be curtailed and that 85% of the premiums and the 15% that the personnel apply go into a military pension.

So there would be three types of military pension.

One would be the standard one, for which you provide service for 30 years and then you retire.

The second is if you become disabled somewhere in your career path, you would be released, but you would receive an accelerated pension; in other words, it would be as though you did 30 years in the current rank. That pension would be for life and would also be indexed. This would give the veteran stability and at least a basic income, and it's not going to quit at 65.

The other type of pension would be for someone who is severely disabled. What we're suggesting here is that they be promoted one rank and then released, and that they receive a 30-year accelerated pension for the rank they were released at. This would give them the basis.

Then when they go to post-care, VAC has a wide variety of programs for them. If their condition worsens, VAC has pensions that they can apply for. If those are approved, they are building on a steady thing; nothing is being clawed back. This would de-radicalize the current people. This is why our veterans are becoming radicalized and turning against the government. They're all upset. We see this as a way out.

We feel that there's a legal bond here. Others have expressed it in other ways, but we believe that in actual fact there's a fiduciary relationship formed between the Governor in Council and a person taking the oath. This comes to the forefront when that person receives a disability. This is where the accelerated military pension steps in and provides that person with a basic income.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Blackwolf.

We'll now go to Mr. Lobb for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question is to Mr. Jenkins.

You brought up VIP and talked about a roof and a furnace and so forth. One question I wanted to ask you more specifically, though, is this. If a World War II veteran today has never had to access Veterans Affairs because they have been pretty fortunate in their life and have not had any effects from their service, but now at an older age have experienced some frailty and require VIP, they're ineligible, more or less, because they haven't had a relationship with Veterans Affairs.

Do you think that's something that should be looked at when we're talking about service delivery to veterans?