Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 29th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

I think that's quite likely.

[John D. Larlee]

We can wait outside if you want us to come back.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

If you wouldn't mind, Mr. Larlee, and we'll try to let you know. We tried.

[John D. Larlee]

The VRAB isn't that far away.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

I understand. We're going to visit some time.

I'd ask all those not affiliated with the committee to please leave.

We'll suspend for a moment while we go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[Public proceedings resume]

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

We appreciate your patience. Mr. Lobb wanted a chance to ask you some questions, so if you people are ready to go, we'll turn to Mr. Lobb, please.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

There were others too, Chair.

Thanks for coming back. My first question is for Mr. Larlee.

Transparency is something you've talked about at length. With respect to the quote of $3.5 million that you have been given to make sure the results are published on the web and fully translated, does your group participate in pre-budget submissions? Is this something you would submit to either the Minister of Finance or to Minister Blaney? Is it something that you would put forward?

[John D. Larlee]

Most definitely, if it came to that, that is the process we'd use, would it not be, Mrs. Rowell?

[Karen Rowell]

I'm not overly familiar with the process, but normally to obtain additional funding we'd have to do some sort of Treasury Board submission and get it supported up through the line.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

If this is the hindrance to the entire process, then I would encourage you or someone else who is an advocate to propose this as a budget submission.

There is a question I have, though, regarding the outcomes and the translation. I'm assuming that the results are now only published in the language that is spoken. If I were appealing, my result would be in English. If Mr. Casey wanted to see how my result played out, would he be able to see a redacted copy of my outcome?

[John D. Larlee]

No, the privacy aspect would enter into it, and unless he had your permission to access your case, he—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

—a redacted case?

Then how is the whole idea of publishing every result to the web ever going to happen? If there are some hundreds of thousands of outcomes, how would you ever go about publishing them all to the web?

[John D. Larlee]

No, we're talking about, on an annual basis, the cases going forward.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

That's fine. In the past there have been, let's say 5,000 cases. If you add up all the years it could be 85 or 100, so let's say it's 5,000. How would you ever go about publishing those to the web?

[John D. Larlee]

Do you mean the 5,000 that you're talking about?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Yes. You're saying that if it were my result, I would have to give the approval to put it on the Internet. Aren't these public results?

[John D. Larlee]

I guess I'm not following....

I'll ask Ms. Rowell to....

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

If I were a veteran I'd go to you and get a result from VRAB. It is a public hearing, isn't it?

[Karen Rowell]

It's a public hearing, yes, but whenever we look at posting our decisions, what we would be doing is de-personalizing them. Again, with the two concepts of trying to maintain the open court principle and trying to ensure transparency and getting information out there, to achieve that goal we would redact it, as you mentioned, and would take out the personal information that was not related to the reasons.

The other step we have to take—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Would you need my permission to do that?

[Karen Rowell]

No. We would take out all your personal information so that it's not evident that the decision is about your case.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

My result is in English, isn't that right?

[Karen Rowell]

We would translate it into the other official language.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Okay, this is where I'm not understanding. If it costs $3.5 million to translate, and you're already doing it, where is....

[Karen Rowell]

We're not already doing it. This is an additional step that we would have to take.