Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 17th, 2012

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

I know this question was asked, but do you have any information on the traffic since the browser was launched?

[Sheri Ostridge]

We don't yet. We will soon, sir. Web analytics are working hard, but we don't have the number in yet, so I can follow up with that.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'm done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

You're sure?

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

I don't know how to handle this.

Thank you, Mr. Lizon.

By the way, if he does go on the web page and tries to get his tax return done, you're allowed to turn it down.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you.

That ends round one. We'll now go into round two.

Ms. Perreault, you have four minutes.

[Manon Perreault, NDP, Montcalm, QC]

Good afternoon. Thank you for being here.

When I see sites with so much text, I think to myself that we have to like to read. Indeed, as we go from one link to another, then another, we have to read a lot and be very alert to keep track of all this information.

If someone is entitled to a disability benefit, he may also be entitled to the veterans independence program. However, if I look at your "Long Term Care" section, I can see that it may be the same thing. The person must have his provincial admissions department and must go back to Veterans Affairs. He may also be entitled to the veterans independence program.

In seeing all this, I'm wondering if you are worried that your phone lines will be overloaded.

[Janice Burke]

Maybe I could start, and Sheri may want to respond.

The information that you see on the benefits browser is essentially the kind of information that our folks in call centres will provide to veterans and their families when they call. It's essentially trying to provide this information in writing to veterans when they want to view it at their own leisure.

Certainly, as I indicated before, we want to continuously improve the information that we present to our veterans and their families. We want to ensure that they understand it. We don't want information overload for our veterans. We will continue to look at the information on the web to determine, as Sheri indicated, with veteran focus groups whether or not we need to reduce or change the information.

[Manon Perreault, NDP, Montcalm, QC]

I fully understand what you are saying, but I find it to be quite a lot for people who do not particularly like to read. They must sit down at the computer and follow all the links, one after another.

It is a source of information; I understand that.

Is it also possible to make a request? Could you please give me a very quick answer?

[Sheri Ostridge]

I can answer that. To make a request online is absolutely possible. There's a “Contact us” button. If they have a question on anything in particular, and it doesn't even have to be about the web content, we have an information box that comes into Veterans Affairs; it's monitored and then either followed up on or sent to the appropriate area of the department.

As far as the level of detail goes, there are a couple of things. I think today we went through the demonstration quite quickly. In some ways I think it's a little bit of an artificial environment: we scrolled quickly because we were trying to respect the committee's time, so we gave you a quick overview.

I think how readers will process this quite likely depends, as you say, on their literacy level and on their health condition. Again, we're committed to listening to the needs of our veterans and we understand completely that no one website will answer every question, but we are committed to constant improvement.

We will look at feedback from our veterans in the coming months and ask them whether what they see is too much information for their questions. Do we need to reduce it some? Maybe we just need to have headings. Those are the kinds of questions that we'll get through our public opinion research. Then we'll be able to adapt it accordingly, because without knowing from the users themselves—

[Manon Perreault, NDP, Montcalm, QC]

People who have had access to the site telephoned you. Did most of them have positive things to say? Did they tell you that the site was easy to navigate? Were the veterans able to navigate it smoothly and get around it easily?

[Sheri Ostridge]

I don't have statistics with me on the kind of feedback, but anecdotally I can say that we have had comments that it's difficult to navigate. That is part of the information that we have taken. We agree with the ombudsman that this is an improvement; it's probably not as far as we have to go, but it's a step in a positive direction.

I think it was the volume. It's part of the puzzle of a website of information. More was thought to be better, and to keep putting more information on for the benefit of the veteran was thought to be better, but now we know we need to help the veteran navigate through that information.

On your question on our phone lines and whether we consider we may get more calls because of this, working with our front lines and our call centres is an important part of every initiative that comes out. Call volumes are monitored. It wasn't part of our plan that call volumes would spike. We will watch that, but we have been working with our analysts to make sure they are very trained on what this new tool is and what it can do for them.

However, you're right. It's likely there will be some questions, and that's the benefit of having our analysts there. They can verbally go through it. In the case of a veteran who says he heard on the news about this new tool but doesn't have a computer, the analyst can actually go through it, fill it out, and mail it to him. That's an option we have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Zimmer, please.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Thank you for coming today. I'd also like to thank the veterans in the room today for coming. I recognize you today as well. Thank you for doing what you do and for what you've done.

I just have a comment. I think it's a great place to start. To say that the website is started is somewhat inaccurate; it's been ongoing and it's been a process of improvement as we go.

I have a few comments relating to some of the comments about the usability factors for members. I just noticed a few things that I would probably tweak if I had the choice. I've had websites too, and I fix them and make them better.

What I wanted to know is the format for feedback for the website. Obviously, there's an email, but how quickly can you address those issues if they come up? What's your plan for that?

[Sheri Ostridge]

Usability I mentioned earlier. It's an effort across government, actually. One of the elements of web standards is usability, making sure the sites work and serve the needs of the constituencies that visit the sites. That's very important for us.

As far as a format for feedback is concerned, there is the email option. Obviously, people are online already on this; their tendencies are probably going to be email. That said, we can also receive feedback through our 1-800 number, through in-person service. How quickly we'd be able to update depends on the level of the change or the feedback that we got. Some may be quick fixes and some may be for the longer term. It would depend on what the suggestion is.

Was there another comment or question?

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

I suppose it leads into my next comment anyway.

The website was just introduced on October 15....

[Sheri Ostridge]

Our website has existed for many years, but this section of the website was announced and launched on Monday, the 15th.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

To give you some credit, we're criticizing something that's been open for, what, two days? I think it's trying to make a positive change for it.

I'm not sure which of my colleagues had suggested this, but what's the next step? Somebody mentioned tax interface software that allows you to interact with it and put in your data. The concern with that is obviously with security, especially with veterans' information. It's sensitive, and we don't want to put it at risk.

Are you looking at the next step for the website already? You've done this now. I'm sure you're figuring it out. Is there a next step planned? What are your thoughts on that?

[Sheri Ostridge]

In terms of next steps, the focus group testing is key in order for us to evaluate and get user feedback and become familiar with the online habits of users as to what they need. That's a first thing. This was developed as an information tool. It is interactive, but at this point it does not meet the service delivery aspect. That's in My VAC Account.

Future development of My VAC Account is something I can't speak to, but on this one there's not a plan at this point that would get into decision-making at all. There was a comment made about human touch and the benefit of humans. This isn't a decision-making tool and, as Janice has said, it's a complex process. We have a wonderful range of programs and service, but at this point it's not within the scope of our next step to say that this will suddenly replace the expertise and the decisions that come through the good work of our staff.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

To reaffirm what we've talked about, we're certainly always looking for ways to make things better and sharper. I will say I am amazed at how good things are, and we still can always get better, for sure. The many good things coming out as a result of some of these initiatives are great. Anything that's adding to the pot of good things for veterans is a positive, so we'll take it at that and thank you for your presentation today.

[Sheri Ostridge]

Okay, thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you, Mr. Zimmer.

We'll now go to Mr. Chisholm for four minutes, please.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I enjoyed being here for this presentation.

There's no doubt that this will make information accessible to people who can access it, and that's great. I appreciate the fact that you've already acknowledged that it is complicated to navigate. Some of the concerns you've heard are about whether people who can't access this will still be able to speak to a human being. That's number one.

Number two is where is this going to go? In other areas where Canadians are dealing with governments or accessing government services, whether it be in fisheries when they are applying for a licence or renewing their licence or gear tags or whatever, they now have to go online. A lot of people don't have access to computers or don't know their way around computers, and then when they pick this up and try to get hold of a human being, they're being referred to the website. We get those kinds of calls every day in our office in Dartmouth.

Those are some of the concerns I have. I think it's quite worrisome. What can you say? You folks are doing the best you can under the circumstances to deliver important services, but I want to register that on behalf of veterans and RCMP members in my riding who may run into problems accessing information and talking to a human being.

I'd appreciate your comments.