Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 28th, 2012

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I'll ask it for you.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

No, that's okay. I'm sure I'll be able to pull myself together.

Witnesses, you are here seeking approval for additional expenditures of about $18.8 million. You are undoubtedly aware that the Government of Canada is the subject of at least two class action lawsuits, one that has been commenced on behalf of some modern-day veterans based in British Columbia who are seeking to be treated equally with people who are on workers' compensation. That's the Equitas lawsuit. Another was commenced about five years ago, at the same time as the Manuge class action. That class action lawsuit was brought on behalf of RCMP veterans who want the Government of Canada to stop clawing back their pension benefits.

My question to you is, how much of this additional $18.8 million that you're seeking approval for today is dedicated to, one, fighting those lawsuits, or two, settling them?

[Mary Chaput]

None of it is.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Okay. We have it on the record.

Thank you for that.

[Mary Chaput]

Mr. Chair, if I may, we do have the answer to the question regarding how many veterans have chosen to take partial payments of their disability awards versus lump sum payments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Okay, sure.

[Mary Chaput]

It's apparently less than 5%.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Good. Thank you for that.

Okay. We're going to vote on the supplementary estimates. You're certainly welcome to stay. It's an open meeting. If you feel that you'd like to move on, it's totally up to you.

[Mary Chaput]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

I want to thank you for being here and participating today.

We have two votes. I just want to remind everybody that you can adopt, reduce, or negate the vote—in other words, vote against it—but you cannot change it, you cannot add to it, and you can't try to be innovative and change around what's there.

So it's very simple: adopt, reduce, or in fact vote against the supplementary estimate.

The first amount is in vote 1b and it's an amount of $2,890,963.

Those in favour?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

I have a motion to make a slight alteration.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

You're going to reduce the amount?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Okay.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

And I can explain why.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

There's a motion to reduce.

You've made the motion. That's in order. Would you like to explain why?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Sure. Just to let you know, it's the page where it says “Funding for the Service Canada Partnership” of $2,219,000. That is a transfer of money over to Service Canada to provide services for veterans throughout the country.

As you know, nine district offices are being closed across the country, and seven veterans across the country have already written to me. They have gone into Service Canada and they have asked for a variety of help and benefits. Every single one of them has had a negative experience at Service Canada. I understand that this is in the initial stage. They said that every single person at Service Canada was very polite, very nice, and very helpful, but three of them got the wrong website, two of them got the wrong toll-free number, and one was told, “The computer is over there”. Another one was told he could call the 1-800 number for help, because the person at Service Canada just wasn't qualified to do that yet.

We personally, on this side, do not agree that district offices should be closed and that the work should be transferred to Service Canada. Service Canada employees are very busy right now with all kinds of other objectives, so we're basically saying that the $2,219,000 for Service Canada should be deleted.

That's what our motion is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Okay. The motion is made. It is open for comment and debate.

Ms. Adams, and then Mr. Casey.

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

Thank you.

Well, I'm shocked to hear that the opposition would want to reduce the level of service available to our veterans.

We've heard that previously veterans had 60 points of access. They're now up to 600 different points of access for general information. We've recently gone online, of course, so we've had presentations to this committee about the enhanced level of customer service available to our veterans.

Those veterans who need home visits will still have home visits. If there is a specific complaint about a Service Canada office, my goodness, we want to hear about it. We want to fix that and remedy that. It is our intention to provide the highest level of customer service to our veterans, and I can't believe the opposition would actually want to strip money out of the budget, money that would serve our veterans. There is no way we are prepared to support that.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

I understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you.

Mr. Casey, please.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Acknowledged.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to be voting against Mr. Stoffer's motion, but I feel compelled to give an explanation. I am indeed not happy that my province will be the only one with no case managers. I'm not happy that my province will be the only one without a district office. I do understand that the department has decided that all that Prince Edward Island veterans are entitled to in the way of face-to-face service is Service Canada.

I'm extremely concerned that Service Canada plans to reduce its workforce in Prince Edward Island by 46% over the next three years at the very time when they will be the only point of contact.

Having said that, I think I would be doing a great disservice to the veterans in my province, and probably a great disservice to veterans in other provinces where the department has already decided to go this way, by tying their hands behind their backs and not giving them enough money. There isn't enough money in Service Canada now to do the job. They're cutting back, and for us to compound the error would be a grave mistake.

So I'll be voting against the motion, although I'm not at all happy that the Department of Veterans Affairs has decided to go in this direction.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Okay, and that will certainly show in the minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Casey.

I think Mr. Zimmer is next.