Veterans Affairs Committee on Sept. 26th, 2012

[Charlotte Bastien]

What would help us is to ensure that the case manager has an equitable workload or a balanced workload between more complex cases and cases with less complexity so that the case manager can dévouer the time and the effort required to help the veteran.

The tools have allowed the case manager to balance his workload and have enough time and disponibilité to help the veteran. If the veteran were to need daily access—because there is a critical period during the phase of the case plan—then the case manager could be available for the veteran to follow up, meet, do the case conferencing, seek advice from other experts, health professionals, to support and assist the veteran in the case plan.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

What reaction have you had from veterans so far?

[Charlotte Bastien]

We do get anecdotal feedback from veterans. They feel that their case manager is more accessible. They feel they can access the case manager and that they get a timely response when following up on their case plan, especially if a request for treatment is being put forward, and the implementation or the approval for the treatment.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

I know that members on this side of the table certainly feel strongly about providing great care to our veterans. We, for instance, voted in favour of $659,000 in funding to improve services for severely injured veterans, whereas, the NDP voted against that. We voted for $20 million of funding on Agent Orange and $8.5 million of funding to support service enhancements to the new Veterans Charter, all things that the NDP, of course, voted against.

I want to thank you for coming forward and presenting to us on these new measures.

Can you tell me what changes veterans would have noticed had these new changes not been brought into effect? What would the experience have been like for a veteran?

[Charlotte Stewart]

I can address that question.

When it comes to case management, it's important that we maintain a professional practice, that our case managers have the credentials when they are recruited into the department or they receive adequate training throughout their time in the department. From the veterans' perspective, they're going to meet with someone as the front-line face of the department who is a professional practitioner in the area of case management. It's a core competency in our department and we're committed to maintaining that.

With the new tools...what they might have experienced in certain areas was a workload issue. Case managers might have had a certain number of cases that made it difficult to address every one of them in a timely fashion. With these tools, we can very quickly see where we need to adjust our resources. We have made that commitment to keep our ratio of case managers to cases at 40:1.

Before we had those tools in place we could not quantitatively have determined that. We had other indicators and experienced staff who could tell us about the situation, but now we have something that's very firm.

In addition, when we look at case managers across the country, we want to make sure they have ongoing access to professional practice training and to coaches and those in their profession who can give them ongoing advice. The department has made a commitment to that, as well.

From the veterans' perspective—

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Your team members, Ms. Stewart, are incredibly professional. As I've been meeting with veterans throughout the summer, that was the comment I heard.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Ms. Adams, we're way over time.

Mr. Casey, for five minutes, please.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Stewart, you indicated in your remarks that you have district offices throughout the country. Are there district offices in every province?

[Charlotte Stewart]

Yes, there are.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

When all of the planned changes are implemented, will there be district offices in every province?

[Charlotte Stewart]

No, there will not.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Which provinces will be without a district office when all the planned changes are implemented?

[Charlotte Stewart]

Currently the district office in Charlottetown is slated to close towards the end of 2013.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

So once all of the planned changes are implemented, Prince Edward Island will be the only province without a district office.

Is that right?

[Charlotte Stewart]

That is correct.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

You also indicated in your remarks that there are 24 IPSCs. How many of those are on Prince Edward Island?

[Charlotte Stewart]

There is an integrated personnel support centre, which is a satellite of the Moncton IPSC, but it is located in Charlottetown.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

You indicated that there are 250 case managers across Canada. How many of them are on Prince Edward Island?

[Charlotte Stewart]

I'm not sure of the exact answer. I believe there are three.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

There are about 120 veterans in Prince Edward Island who are being case-managed.

[Charlotte Stewart]

That would be an approximate answer, yes.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Once you close the district office on Prince Edward Island, the availability of front-line service from the Department of Veterans Affairs will be limited to those three case managers, or is there someone else they can see?

[Charlotte Stewart]

The provision of the front-line case management services will continue to be provided to our veterans in Charlottetown, P.E.I. What we have to do is make sure that as we.... I mean, our demographics are definitely driving some changes in the department. As the numbers decline, there are certain areas of the country where the client base today, and certainly going forward, does not support having a permanent office.

At the same time, the department has made a commitment to provide those veterans with front-line case management. They will continue to have home visits from case managers of Veterans Affairs Canada and will be provided with their services in that fashion. While we have to redefine our model to meet the needs and expectations of our veterans, we can do that by continuing to provide front-line services.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

When you say they will continue to be provided with front-line services, if there are only three case managers and there is no district office, who will be providing the front-line services?

[Charlotte Stewart]

Case management services will continue to be provided in Prince Edward Island. In many parts of the country today we do that in areas where we don't have a district office.

We do it through making sure that our veterans know who their case manager is. They will be contacted by their case manager, who will make sure their needs are being met. They'll have the opportunity to communicate with their case manager through our national call centres or through regular contact with their case manager as required.

We know that we can maintain this service, and we will continue to do so in those areas where we will, due to declining overall client numbers, have to close some of the smaller offices.