Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 17th, 2012

[Sheri Ostridge]

We're always very conscious of spending taxpayers' dollars and where the value is the greatest. In the long term, I don't have a figure on what the cost savings would be because, again, it wasn't the intent of the project.

There is a cost for publications and printing, so long-term savings would be in that area. There's been less demand, though, for publications; we're responding to what we were asked for by veterans. Over time, there could be cost savings as a result of less printing.

I think that's actually a good use of taxpayers' dollars, but it will only be based on the needs of the veterans.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

This next point came up a couple of times when we talked about your having services available to veterans, not just through the veterans browser but also through your offices. When you say you have services and information available through your offices, you're referring to your district offices, right?

[Sheri Ostridge]

I mean all of our offices. We have information kiosks at our offices, and also at the CF offices that are related to us, whether they be military resource family centres or the integrated personnel service units. We have information available at all of the different outlets, including Service Canada, which is part of our new service delivery offerings.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

We're quite familiar with them.

The presentation, and I think I heard one of you also, mentioned that one-third of your policies are under review. Is that right?

[Janice Burke]

Yes, that's correct, Mr. Casey.

We now have the majority of our policies in the benefits browser; we just don't have them all revised. However, by the end of March 2013, all our program policies will be online.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Is the revision of your policies a substantive revision, or is this just a matter of cleaning them up so they can be published? Are one-third of the policies in the department in a state of flux?

[Janice Burke]

No. We're not ready to publish them yet because they've not been completed and approved. Substantive changes have been made to the policies, in terms of using plainer language and trying to keep the terminology in the policies simpler to understand as well. That's what we've been working on for the last year. By the end of this March, all policies will be available.

If anyone is interested in seeing the policies that are not on the benefits browser, they can certainly be made available easily.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Casey.

I'm going to now turn to the new member, Mr. Hayes, for five minutes.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Could you help me out here? I'm trying to grasp this concept of prototype. How was that developed and who was involved? Were veterans involved? I read here that it's an internal tool that has now gone external. I want to have a better understanding of the development process—what was involved, who was involved, and how long it took.

[Sheri Ostridge]

Staff at the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman were the original idea-generators and creators of a tool for their staff. I can't speak in great detail because I don't work with that office, but my understanding is that it was based on questions that they mostly got from veterans and the information the staff needed to answer those veterans’ questions. Definitely that feedback and that kind of service between veterans and the ombudsman's office was an essential part that drove what information was needed in the original tool. Veterans’ feedback was definitely an important part, but I don't know the whole story because I wasn't working at the office at all.

After that, it was expanded and suggested to the department as a tool of benefit to our department. Once that happened, a decision was made and it was agreed that a pilot be run for a small group of staff. Of course, staff numbers in the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman and in Veterans Affairs are very different, so we started with a small group of staff, the Winnipeg district office. We gradually expanded the scope over the fall of 2001. By the end of the calendar year, we had the majority of VAC staff able to access this tool. It was an internal tool, at this point.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Before you developed this tool, how many websites and forms and documents would a veteran have to review compared to now, on one single website? The reality is that this is a single website, but with multiple links. Earlier they probably had to go to each one of those individually, and work their way through it. How many websites and forms were there prior to this?

[Sheri Ostridge]

Our website has approximately 200,000 pages, just to give you a sense of the scope of information. I know many of you are aware that websites have made various leaps, even in the last five to 10 years, but when the Veterans Affairs website began in the nineties, basically brochures were taken and put up on the website. Information was just captured, written, and put up on the web. We've come so many leaps beyond that, and now information is created in an interactive way.

That said, some of the information put up there in the nineties is still legitimate and accurate, so what we needed to do was find a way to quickly highlight that information for the veteran. Not every veteran would come in and touch 200,000 pages. Many of those, for example, are our Canadian virtual war memorial, honouring all of Canada's war dead. Many of the pages there would not be touched by a veteran with service and benefits questions.

This tool is significant in that it channels the veteran. I think there are 48 landing pages underneath this tool. That said, the existing base is still there. If they want the information, it's still available to them.

Part of our work as well, and this is across government, is on web standards. Departments are looking through their websites to make sure that content is updated, that it's not redundant, that it's not trivial, that the best information is there, and that we have quality of information in both languages as a priority.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I keep hearing about plain language and I looked at that. It looks like plain language, but I don't think that's all part of it. You mentioned earlier that policies are being rewritten to have plain language. I would like to see an example of what was previously not considered plain language versus what is now considered plain language so that I can understand what it was people were struggling with in terms of the previous language. Are there any examples of those readily available?

[Janice Burke]

Sure, we could provide that to you.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I don't need anything grandiose. It's just because I keep hearing this plain language terminology and I want to make the comparison.

[Janice Burke]

For example, previously the policies referred to articles and sections without the title of what the benefit was. We did a lot more work in terms of ensuring that technical language was not contained within the policy. We can certainly provide examples of where we have used plain language in our policies.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

It doesn't necessarily have to go to all of the committee. To an extent this is my own personal thing.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

We now go to Ms. Morin for five minutes, please.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In looking at the Internet site, I have a few concerns. Will there be a chat function?

[Sheri Ostridge]

I'm sorry, but I can't hear you.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I don't want to lose my time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

We can hear you now. We will reset the clock. Could you ask the question again, please?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

First, will there be a chat function for veterans who visit the site?

[Sheri Ostridge]

That's a great question, and a great idea, actually. We don't have online chat as part of our plan for the benefits browser at this point. That said, there are multiple different channels, YouTube and Twitter, that we are exploring. I will bring back online chat as an idea. We're looking to expand, and that's a great suggestion. Thank you.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Thank you very much.

You praised how quick and easy to use your website is. You said that your presentation showed just how easy the website is to use.

You know, there are a lot of veterans in my riding. My office is very close to Ste. Anne's hospital, and I am constantly in contact with them. Most of them do not want to communicate with my office by email. We always need to meet with them. I am afraid that some veterans are not comfortable with the website. Currently, we still have people who can respond to requests by telephone, but will those people still be there in the future?

You also contrasted the very quick service of the Internet site and the very slow service over the phone when people want to obtain documents. However, I hope that the existing systems do not disappear.

I would also like to point out that I don't find the website particularly easy to navigate. The home page gives you two options: "Benefits at a Glance" and "Browse Your Benefits". If you click on "Benefits at a Glance", you land on a page with 44 choices: 20 choices under the heading "Services and Benefits", 6 choices under the heading "Acts and Regulations", 7 choices under the heading "CF/DND Programs and Services", 6 choices under the heading "Other Supports" and 5 choices under the heading "Related Government Departments".

Let's put ourselves in the shoes of someone with a health problem who wants to go and look at your website. Of these 44 choices, 6 are related to health: "Long Term Care", "Treatment Benefits", "Group Health Insurance", "Veterans Health Care Regulations", "Health Services" and "Mental Health".

I don't think it's that simple. I'm thinking about veterans who have health problems, who are stressed, who are older, who do not necessarily have help and who have been told that it would take a long time to contact the department to obtain a paper copy of some documents. They go to the site and must choose one of these options. You just said that the site contains 200,000 pages. I find it very difficult. I'm wondering how this will be able to help veterans who are having difficulty and how they could be well served by the website.