Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon. It's a great pleasure to appear in front of your committee. As the dominion president of the Royal Canadian Legion, I am pleased to be able to speak to you this afternoon on behalf of our 330,000 members and their families.
The Royal Canadian Legion is well situated to provide advice on Veterans Affairs Canada, cutting red tape, or the transformation agenda. As the only national veterans service organization, the Royal Canadian Legion has delivered programs to all veterans and their families since 1926. The Legion is an iconic cornerstone of Canadian communities and at the forefront of support for military and RCMP members and their families.
Today a new generation of veterans is coming home, and veterans and their families will continue to turn to the Legion for support and affordable housing, representation, benevolent assistance, career transition, counselling, trauma relief, and recognition. The Legion provides representation to assist veterans and their families with obtaining their disability benefits from VAC. The Legion's service bureau network, with over 1,500 branch service officers and 25 command service officers, provides representation from the first application to VAC through to the appeal and reconsideration of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. Through legislation, the Legion has access to service health records and departmental files to provide comprehensive yet independent representation at no cost, irrespective of Legion membership. Therefore, we are an active participant in the VAC transformation agenda.
VAC has embarked on a five-year transformation agenda to cut red tape and approve services to the almost one million veteran community. This is a diverse community: age, RCMP, wartime, regular force, reserve forces, families, male, female, and all with diverse needs. The complexity of this community cannot be overstated. This is no simple task.
The vision for the VAC transformation agenda is to be
...responsive to the diverse and changing needs of veterans and their families by ensuring relevant programs and policies, fast and easy access to benefits and services, professional service by employees who understand the military experience, and seamless transition from military to civilian life.
The Legion is watching closely the implementation of the transformation agenda and the impact it will have on the veteran community. Is the transformation agenda meeting its vision?
While the demographic of the veteran population is changing, there remain approximately 118,000 war service veterans; however, only half of these are clients of VAC. They are the most vulnerable of our veteran community due to their age and increasing needs. Every day these veterans and their spouses continue to come forward needing immediate assistance. We are concerned with some of the specific red tape initiatives that will directly impact this group.
With regard to the veterans independence program, in April of this year the government announced that for housekeeping and grounds-keeping services, veterans will receive an up-front grant for this service with the responsibility to disburse and coordinate with the service provider. For some veterans, this is probably doable; however, there are a number of veterans where the service provider bills VAC directly. For this group, they do not engage or contract with the service provider. Now the onus and burden is being placed on the veteran. There should be a choice.
Additionally, some of our lower-income or fixed-income veterans will be given a seemingly large sum of money and are expected to put it in the bank and disburse it on a biweekly basis. However, should an emergency situation arise, they'll be faced with the decision to use this money or not. This is an unnecessary burden placed on a fragile group.
The purpose of the veterans independence program is to keep the veterans in their homes and independent. Will this goal be met? Is this transformational or is this about deficit reduction?
With regard to district office closures, the closing of district offices to respond to the changing demographic is of concern. The Legion has been told that eight district offices will close in 2014, all at the same time. This will be offset by an increase of staff at the integrated personnel support centres and a consolidation of VAC resources in major centres.
The Legion fully supports the increase in case managers at the integrated personnel support centres to ensure a seamless transition from military to civilian life, especially for complex cases; however, there still needs to be sufficient resources to meet the needs of our wartime and aging veteran population, whose needs can very quickly go from independent to complex with a simple fall or infection. This remains a large group of approximately 118,000 veterans.
How will this impact the RCMP located in small communities across the country? Are there two standards of service—Canadian Forces and RCMP?
On the Service Canada initiative, the government announced in July that services will be available through Service Canada outlets, enabling veterans to drop in, obtain information, and get assistance with applications from many of the 600 outlets across the country.
We are carefully monitoring the implementation of this new service. Have the staff been provided with sufficient training to advise on disability benefits and services available to veterans?
We know that only half of the approximately 118,000 wartime veterans are in receipt of benefits from VAC. Our service officers across the country report that wartime veterans who were previously not in receipt of VAC assistance are coming forward every day in need of VAC services.
The process is complex, and time is critical. If turned away, will they get the help they deserve? Is this transformational?
With respect to the business process, since VAC embarked on the transformation agenda, the time to process a disability application has significantly improved. This has been the result of a significant change to online forms, the introduction of electronic insurance and health records, and simplifying the application process for service officers and VAC disability benefit officers. Once the application is submitted, the turnaround time, especially for aging veterans, has been counted as just a few weeks.
We've also seen adjudicators follow up with service officers to ensure the decision can be made quickly. This is a tremendous change, and it took place over a short period of time.
VA staff, at all levels, should be commended for their effort and commitment to reducing the application processing time. This is transformational.
With respect to reducing complexity, this is a key theme of the transformation agenda and cutting the red tape. The Legion continues to advocate on behalf of wartime veterans and their spouses, including wartime allied veterans, to simplify eligibility for the veterans independence program. This was first raised by the Gerontological Advisory Council report, “Keeping the Promise”, in 2006.
Please remove the artificial barriers and complexity to ensure our wartime veterans and their spouses have access to the veterans independence program. The program is essential to keeping our veterans safe and independent in their homes. This would be transformational.
On eligibility for services and benefits, attached as an annex to the VAC eligibility grid you will note there are 18 categories of eligibility for services and benefits. How will a Service Canada employee interpret this table? Will a veteran or a family member searching online be able to determine if mom or dad has eligibility? Simplifying accessibility and eligibility to VAC health benefits and services would be transformational.
With regard to strengthening partnerships, the Legion, through its legislative mandate, works side by side with VAC. While this relationship has been going on for over 86 years, there's room for improvement and strengthening.
The long-term care surveyor program, in which the Legion provides trained surveyors to visit veterans in long-term facilities across the country to administer a client satisfaction survey on quality assurance at the request of VAC, has been in place since 2003. It is an example of our partnership and outreach capability.
There are approximately 154 active surveyors. These are trained and security-cleared volunteers. In 2010, the surveyors visited 4,230 veterans in 868 facilities, and VAC paid approximately $180,000 for mileage, reports, and training for the same period.
The value of the program to meet with a veteran and his or her family in a facility cannot be understated. The volunteer has visibility in the facility and can hear, see, and smell the environment. They are the boots on the ground. The capability of this program ensures that no matter where a veteran resides, a visit will be conducted at very low cost.
As district offices are downsizing and realigning, the continuance of this program will ensure that veterans in long-term care facilities are not forgotten. The Legion is well positioned as a national entity to continue this valuable program with reliable and trained personnel. We are concerned that transformational priorities will eliminate this program.
In June of this year, at our 2012 convention, the Legion approved $1 million in new start-up funding to ensure the rollout of the national homeless veterans program. This program will be developed from the ground up and will reflect the unique needs of each community. It will build on partnerships with VAC, social service agencies, first responders, and other organizations.
VAC needs to have the resources and staff to partner at the local level in communities across the country. How will closing district offices impact local initiatives and the ability to provide timely response to these veterans clearly in crisis?
This year the Legion will commit almost $1 million to the veteran transition network, an operational stress injury treatment program that grew out of the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Medicine. This is truly a success story. Our new funding will assure that this new network has the capacity to establish a national not-for-profit treatment program and will deliver much-needed programs across the country.
I must emphasize our concern that VAC has not recognized this program as a treatment option for our veterans, despite its more than ten-year history. This is an opportunity to partner and ensure that proven treatment options are available for our veterans. This is transformational.
Next, with regard to sustaining the new Veterans Charter, the new Veterans Charter has evolved since its introduction in 2006. Bill C-55, implemented in October of 2011, introduced improved financial enhancements, especially for seriously ill and injured veterans. Proactive consultation with veterans groups will be important to evaluate the impact of these changes and the gaps and priorities for future change. This is a dynamic piece of legislation, and there's no mechanism in place for veterans groups to address performance measurement and change management in a transparent and holistic approach.
In terms of outreach, over the last two years VAC's outreach has focused for the most part on delivering briefings to the Canadian Forces on bases and units. The outreach to the RCMP has been even less. We know that in recent deployments, 25% of those deployed were reservists. How are they being connected with services that they may require?
The Legion has an extensive outreach program to inform veterans and their families on health promotion, independent living, community resources, and healthy lifestyles. We offer information on our programs, representation, and financial assistance, as well as other government programs and initiatives. Strengthening our partnership with both DND and VAC, and exporting our capacity to communities across the country, would move the yardsticks, fill this gap, and perhaps lessen the impact of district office closures. This is transformational.
A national veteran's identification card would not only provide the recognition of veterans but also a national veterans database. We're surprised that between DND and VAC there's not a single or complete veterans database registry to reach out to the community. This would facilitate communications and benefits and services for both DND and VAC. A veteran's identification card would be transformational.
The Royal Canadian Legion is committed to the transformation process. However, the cutting red tape agenda needs to be monitored. It should not be about budget reduction.
The vision for the VAC transformation agenda is to be
...responsive to the diverse and changing needs of veterans and their families by ensuring relevant programs and policies, fast and easy access to benefits and services, professional service by employees who understand the military experience, and seamless transition from military to civilian life.
This vision should not be forgotten. Each initiative should be evaluated to ensure it achieves the vision. This is significant and complex.
I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to address the members.
Thank you.
