Thank you, Charlotte.
Bonjour. Ça me fait plaisir d'être ici encore une fois, Mr. Chair and members, before the committee to share with you some of the progress we're making.
I'm going to talk just very briefly, because I know our time is short, about our benefits and services and how they reflect the change in demographics Charlotte has referred to.
Traditional veteran programming has been in place for many years. And when we talk about traditional veterans we're talking about World War I, World War II, and Korean veterans. For that group of veterans, that older group of veterans, we've had a number of programs that have been in place, as I say, for many, many years. Essentially these were two programs, which we call gateway programs. The first one was the disability pension program, which was designed to compensate veterans for injuries that were service-related. The other major program was an income-tested program, the war veterans allowance. And those were the two main vehicles whereby traditional veterans would access benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
As Charlotte has indicated, we are now in a major transition. This is the first year, the year 2011, when the number of traditional veterans now is actually less than the number of modern veterans we're serving. And modern veterans are defined simply as those Canadian Forces members who have served since the end of the Korean War.
In the early 2000s it became apparent through various discussions with stakeholders, members, and veterans that the traditional programming was not meeting the needs of the younger veterans, particularly in the context of enabling them to move from living and working in a military environment to a civilian environment. Through a period of research and consultation that was quite extensive over time, the Government of Canada adopted, in 2006, the new Veterans Charter. And this was a series of programs basically designed to support the rehabilitation, transition, and reintegration of younger members of the Canadian Forces into civilian life.
On slide 9 you'll see a summary of those benefits and services for modern-day veterans.
We refer to things like disability benefits, which have taken the form now of a disability award, but also major programming to support rehabilitation, financial support, health benefits, and related services.
In the next few weeks there will be major improvements to the new Veterans Charter, which are referred to as Bill C-55, new Veterans Charter enhancements. When these come into effect, they will ensure an additional infusion of financial benefits for the most seriously disabled Canadian Forces members and markedly improve the economic conditions of those individuals who find themselves unable to restore themselves fully. They will benefit markedly from these types of improvements.
Those are some of the changes we are making on the program policy side of the department. You will find that when you compare the two suites of benefits you always have to bear in mind that the policy basis for the benefits and services for traditional veterans has changed and shifted over the last number of years. So we've moved away from a pension model to a wellness, re-establishment, and rehabilitation model. And that's what the new Veterans Charter is essentially all about.
As Charlotte has indicated, there is a whole range of other programs that modern-day veterans can access through the department. Some of these relate to our mental health strategy, which is designed to address the emerging mental health challenges of the younger modern veteran, with a series of operational clinics across the country. We have beefed up resources in terms of our capacity and our case management across the country and have specialized mental health resources that are available to support members and veterans who are transitioning and have these types of challenges.
That's just a very quick overview of some of the changes we are engaged in, in terms of programming and services.
With that, I'm just going to skip quickly to the last slide of the deck.
Remembrance programming is another key element of what engages Veterans Affairs. I understand that our director general for Canada Remembers will actually be appearing before the committee over the next short while, and there will be ample opportunity at that time to have a more fulsome discussion of that.
Mr. Chairman, in consideration of your very tight time limits I'm going to cease talking and turn the floor back to you.