Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 29th, 2012

[John D. Larlee]

Yes, it had to do with the evidence received by the board.

With respect to the evidence required at hearings, it's a matter of the directives that we've received over the years from the Federal Court on instructions on what is required as far as their interpretation of the different levels of a requirement of proof is concerned.

Again, I have my legal counsel here who could talk about the burden proof.

[Karen Rowell, Director, Corporate Operations, Veterans Review and Appeal Board]

I can probably add to that one.

I think, as you heard in previous testimony, there's a very small percentage of cases that come to the board. Of the 35,000 to 40,000 decisions that are rendered by the department that are appealed to the board, only 10% to 15% come on to VRAB. Those are the more difficult, complex cases where it may be more difficult to find or establish the evidence to make the link to military service.

As a result of that, what's happening in those cases is that they usually have the assistance of the BPA or a service officer of the Royal Canadian Legion. They assist the veteran in getting extra evidence that will better support their claim when it comes to the board. Often that will involve getting medical opinions, maybe expert medical opinions, corroborating statements from somebody who witnessed an accident during their service.

Those are important elements. Time is taken in the interest of the veterans coming forward with their best case to be able to get a favourable outcome, understanding that they had already received an unfavourable decision at the departmental level, and possibly even through a departmental review.

That time, I would suggest, may be in favour of the veteran, in that the veteran has been supported in trying to find additional evidence or proof to get a favourable outcome once the decision is taken by VRAB.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much. That's our time.

[Manon Perreault, NDP, Montcalm, QC]

So you're saying that decisions aren't necessarily taking longer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Ms. Adams, you have five minutes, please.

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

Madame Perreault, thank you for appearing before us again. It's been an interesting four weeks of testimony.

I would encourage you to continue to work on behalf of our veterans. Their service and their sacrifice to our nation demands nothing less than continuous improvement from every organization which serves them. It's very heartening to hear the humility with which you serve our veterans, and the fact that you are willing to continually improve to benefit and ensure that fairness is provided to our veterans.

We've heard a number of themes over the course of the last four weeks. One of the themes, almost universally, when the question was put to our witnesses, was that VRAB should continue, which is contrary to what the NDP has proposed, which is to eliminate the VRAB. Just about every witness has come forward to say that VRAB does provide very meaningful assistance to our veterans and that it should continue to exist.

We have heard a number of themes, and perhaps I could put some questions to you and you could comment on them. The first one, and you began to address it, was the request that we've received to post each and every one of your decisions on a website to ensure transparency. We've heard that there is an association or group out there that would provide the service completely free of charge.

Are you indicating that it would cost $3.5 million to translate those decisions and to remove all identifiable information?

[John D. Larlee]

That's correct. My understanding is that CanLII is the company that has been mentioned as being available to place decisions on the web related to your committee free of charge, but CanLII does not take over the translation or any compliance that's required for de-personalization or the Official Languages Act. That's where the cost would come in.

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

If you were to accept their services to transcribe all of your decisions, would it still be an additional $3.5 million?

[John D. Larlee]

That's correct.

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

Okay.

We've also heard that VRAB needs to track its performance in a way that veterans and members of Parliament and stakeholders can track and monitor your operations. The other item that we've heard is that your action plan is a very good start in addressing the recommendations of the ombudsman, but there are concerns that VRAB is not addressing all of the needs of all veterans.

Perhaps you could comment on these items and other items you think deserve your attention going forward.

[John D. Larlee]

Since the beginning of the year we've gone out to our stakeholders at different associations and done more outreach with them in having them understand our work, the process, the benefits of the legislation. All that information is on our website, including the publication of the decisions that we started in May that will assist in that approach of being more transparent and having the people understand what we're doing and to assist them. We have those initiatives that we started as well. Again, I would defer to Ms. Rowell with respect to what we've done with respect to the ombudsman's recommendations and where we are with the plan of action to address each recommendation. Actually, we're seeing benefits already within the board with these initiatives, in assisting the members and the staff in exactly what you stated at the beginning of your comments.

Everyone who comes to work at the Veterans Review and Appeal Board is there because they are dedicated and they want to do their part to assist veterans to obtain the benefits to which they are entitled. Anyway, I digress, and I'll ask Ms. Rowell to address the specific points of our plan.

[Karen Rowell]

I'm happy to answer that question because I think we're making very good progress.

Let me first state that the board received very warmly the recommendations of the Veterans Ombudsman in terms of some ways in which we can improve our program. As mentioned by Mr. Larlee, we have already published a number of our noteworthy decisions on our website. Our plans are to continue to post those on a go-forward basis.

We've also added to our website a number of legal and medical resources, again so applicants know the tools that our board members are using to decide cases.

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

Perhaps I might jump in there.

We've heard testimony from a witness where adjudicators were calling in medical experts, almost acting as an investigator. Could you comment on that? Do you think that happened? If it did happen, what basis is there in law for that type of action?

[Karen Rowell]

I'm going to ask Kathleen to speak to that after I finish going through these points, if I may.

One of the other key initiatives that we have under way in response to the ombudsman's report is that we have put in place a team internally within the board to look at the format for our decisions, and to change the way in which our decisions are communicated to veterans so that they're set out in very clear and plain language. It's a key undertaking that we have implemented. We're in the transitional phase now of the commitment to ensure that all the board's decisions that are written by the end of this calendar year are written in plain language so that veterans very clearly understand the reasons for which the board has taken a decision.

We've also put in place improved procedures around cases that are returned from the Federal Court so that they're handled much more quickly. We have a case coordinator who has been assigned to manage those cases. We work very effectively with the Bureau of Pensions Advocates in terms of coming up with a new streamlined process so that cases get dealt with on a priority basis and move very quickly through the system.

We have also established a task force with the Bureau of Pensions Advocates and the Department of Veterans Affairs so that we can look at decisions returned by the Federal Court to examine any trends in those decisions, again, with the idea of what adjustments we might need to make or can make within our organization to improve service delivery.

In short, that's a number of the initiatives that are under way. There is more work to be done, but we're making good progress on a number of fronts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much for that. We appreciate it.

Mr. Casey, for five minutes, please.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As you know, last week I gave notice of a motion that I now wish to put before the committee:

That, the Committee invite representatives from the Office of the Auditor General to discuss the troubling revelations about the treatment of veterans contained in Chapter 4 of the Fall 2012 Report of the Auditor General entitled—

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Mr. Casey, do you mind, we want to get the motion circulated first, please.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Okay, thank you, Mr. Casey.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

The motion is before you. As you can see, it reads:

That, the Committee invite representatives from the Office of the Auditor General to discuss the troubling revelations about the treatment of veterans contained in Chapter 4 of the Fall 2012 Report of the Auditor General entitled: Transition of Ill and injured Military Personnel to Civilian Life and that this meeting occur before December 14, 2012.

Mr. Chairman, I did inform the witnesses that the only opportunity to present a motion in a public forum was to do it in front of witnesses, so they are aware that my intention was to do this and not to inconvenience them.

This motion is necessary, I would suggest, in part because of the good work of Mr. Parent. We have been studying the transformation agenda. The rationale for the transformation agenda is that the number of traditional veterans is lowering and therefore, the entire department needs to be rethought, reformatted, and downsized in order to address modern-day needs. That's been the rationale for the transformation agenda that we've been studying.

The ombudsman has rightly pointed out in his previous reports that the rationale has some problems because it doesn't take into account the complexity of modern-day veterans who are coming back. Indeed, the Auditor General is supportive of the view expressed by the ombudsman. At paragraph 4.64 of the report, the Auditor General points out:

Veterans Affairs forecasts did not take into account information about the increasing number of Canadian Forces members with mental health issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

My point is there are a whole lot of reasons that this committee should be looking at the report, but none more important than that the entire underpinning of the transformation agenda, according to the AG, is flawed. I think this needs a full airing and it's the role of the committee to do that. The motion doesn't actually call for the AG. I doubt we'd get the AG, but if we had representatives from the department appear to speak to this report, I think it's incumbent upon us to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you, Mr. Casey.

Mr. Hayes, first.

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

I move that we go in camera, Mr. Chair.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I would ask for a recorded vote. I think the public deserves to hear this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

There is a motion, in order, to move in camera. It is non-debatable. We can record the vote, but the motion is non-debatable.

We're going to do a name call by the clerk, please.

(Motion agreed to: Yeas, 6; Nays, 5)

The motion is carried.

I thank the witnesses for being here with us.

Since this meeting will go in camera, all those not associated with a member or who are not staff, I would please ask that they vacate the room, and our apologies for the process.

[John D. Larlee]

Are we excused for the day?