Well, what you're talking about with reference to the Pension Act is the disability compensation, right, and what's better about it, right? Well, it's for life, for starters. The current lump sum system is equivalent to only about 10 to 12 years of the compensation that you would have received.
What was better about the Pension Act was that it only dealt with pain and suffering. Now, the earnings loss benefit that's part of the new Veterans Charter, that was handled by SISIP before the new Veterans Charter came in. You still got your 75% of long-term disability; it just came under SISIP. It was just a renamed program. You still got retraining through Veterans Affairs and through SISIP could go back to school, prior to the new Veterans Charter. These aren't new benefits.
The huge difference here is that for pain and suffering under the Pension Act it was a lifetime monthly pension that was commensurate with the degree of injury incurred and was relatively comparable to personal injury compensation elsewhere in the country. It's been replaced by, in some cases, one-tenth, in a small amount that comes up front. Yes, it's tax free, but all the other benefits are taxable. The old pension under the Pension Act was tax free, it was indexed, and it was for life.
The new benefits, the earnings loss benefits, are taxable. They only go to age 65. They're not indexed. If you're going to compare the two time periods, we were much better off under the Pension Act because that was money in our pocket to spend and to feel self-sufficient and move forward with.
Not everybody qualifies for retraining. The ombudsman's report this year says that 53% of veterans who qualify for these programs aren't even allowed to have access to them. They're denied by Veterans Affairs.
So there's an accessibility issue, but there's also the overriding issue, which is that the programs aren't as generous as what was offered under the Pension Act. That's why I'm saying it's disingenuous to compare the Pension Act to the new Veterans Charter, because the Pension Act only represents the disability award part of the new Veterans Charter.
You have to take into account things like the earnings loss benefit. That was SISIP under the old system. There was another program and another benefit that paid out for guys who couldn't work. They weren't left to their own devices just on the Pension Act; there were other programs in place. You have to compare the two systems comprehensively, not just the one piece of the Pension Act versus the entire new Veterans Charter.