Thank you for that. I would certainly be pleased to.
With the new Veterans Charter enhancements, there are a number of key elements to it that members around the committee should be aware of. The first one is that over the last few years we were getting advice and we were determining that the income support program, the earnings loss benefit, which is payable to members who are in our rehabilitation program, was not sufficient for low-income veterans.
A group that was most impacted was the group who might have been released a number of years ago at a very low level in the military. If you take an example of a private who might have been released several years ago, if he or she entered our programming today, they would not have an income level sufficient to sustain their needs and the needs of their family. The new Veterans Charter enhancements will ensure that at very minimum those members will receive an income support level of $40,000 a year. That's the minimum threshold.
For those individuals who were released at higher pay salaries, they will receive 75% of their release salary during the time that they're in our rehabilitation program, and if they cannot be rehabilitated and they cannot return to the work environment, then that earning loss benefit will continue on until they are age 65.
Another major enhancement of the new Veterans Charter is the provision of an additional $1,000-a-month benefit through our permanent impairment allowance program for those most seriously disabled. If an individual finds himself or herself in a situation where they're suffering permanent and severe impairment and they cannot return to suitable and gainful employment, those individuals will now receive an additional $1,000 a month payable for life.
The third element of the program is that we've ensured that members who are receiving benefits under the old pension legislation we talked about and people receiving benefits under the new system--some veterans receive them under both.... It was an oversight in the development of the charter, but we now through the enhancements have ensured that they can actually calculate or take into account benefits they're receiving under each act, to ensure that they maximize opportunity for access to exceptional incapacity allowance under the Pension Act and access to our permanent impairment award under the new legislation. That's a significant improvement for veterans.
The final advantage of the new Veterans Charter will be we're going to be giving access to payment options for the lump sum award. You may remember controversy over the last few years. There was concern that there were some younger veterans in particular who might receive a large lump sum disability award for a service-related disability and might in fact not spend it wisely. The response to that through these enhancements will be to enable, with financial planning, members who receive these benefits to elect to take that lump sum as a whole or to take it in a combination of a lump sum and an annual payment or to take the full amount in an annual payment over time.
Those are the key changes that will come. These will add significantly to the financial benefits payable to veterans. Essentially what it will ensure is that younger veterans, the modern veterans who are entering these programs, will be assured of at least a minimum of a $58,000 payment from the Government of Canada while they are in rehabilitation or thereafter if they can't be rehabilitated for those who are the most seriously disabled.