Veterans Affairs Committee on March 27th, 2014

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Sergeant, for being here, and Heather, thank you for being here.

You'll find out soon when your career with DND will end—you talked about it being two to two and a half years out—and then you'll move into Veterans Affairs. You talked about furthering your education. Could you elaborate on what your plans might be? I'm curious to know what you're doing now and what will continue when you come under the umbrella of Veterans Affairs.

[Sgt Bjarne Nielsen]

I have a whole bunch of things on the go. I just started teaching myself how to rebuild stuff. I renovated my own basement for the past year. I don't do electrical but I just taught myself plumbing. I taught myself how to frame walls. I do my own drywall. You name it, I do it. I taught myself how to water-ski.

My prosthetic guy who I deal with at the rehab centre here in Ottawa.... When I went on my trip to Europe I ended up cracking my socket. I ended up going into a store in downtown Copenhagen in Denmark, finding some stuff, some silicone, a bicycle repair kit, and some waterproof boat tape, and I repaired my leg all by myself. So I said, look out, Patrick, I'm competing for your job now. But it's the opportunity to continue to learn something, right?

I think more so than anything I have a passion towards financing. I want to become a financial adviser or even a mortgage specialist. Unfortunately, my generation, and the generations that have yet to come, they're not learning enough on how to deal with their finances. Unfortunately, a lot of my peers, brothers and sisters in the military, aren't all that savvy as I mentioned earlier.

I think providing an opportunity and having that opportunity to maintain those connections with the military to help provide sound advice on what to do with your after-tax dollars would be a very good role for me to get into. Continue on with doing the mentorship role, to do the leadership, to apply knowledge with others, I think that's where I'd like to get into. Because going and buying a house with the maximum mortgage amount that you're able to get ain't cool because you're going to end up house broke in a number of years because of all the other expenses. But no one talks about that. So going and settling for a nice $200,000 house as opposed to a $350,000 house....

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Where does the bulk of this education belong then? While you're still in service or after you're finished?

[Sgt Bjarne Nielsen]

I think a good deal of it should come before you release. Obviously, you need to know where you're going. Pull out the compass, find out your direction, and start marching on that bearing. But how do you find out what it is that you like? That's what I like about this return-to-work program. It's not for after your release from the military but it gives you an opportunity to get a co-op placement or an opportunity to work in a certain branch or a certain trade or wherever to build on that experience or maybe gain that exposure to find out whether or not you actually like it.

I could sit here and say I like financing, but until I actually—well, I worked in a bank when I did co-op before I joined the military. I know I like it, but not everyone knows that or has the opportunity. Some guys get released way too quick. That's an unfortunate thing because it doesn't give you that time to figure out exactly what you want to do. A guy with PTSD might have a six month time to release. Whereas I have a physical injury and I have all kinds of rehab and stuff to deal with. But a six-month release doesn't give you that opportunity for a guy who has 10-plus years or more to try to figure out their next career option. What is it that I like other than army stuff?

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

A number of previous witnesses have indicated there are some concerns about the transition from where you are now, for example, into Veterans Affairs, into post-serving life. Do you have those kinds of concerns? I know you indicated financial concerns perhaps when you leave the service, about whether or not you'll have enough to support your family.

[Sgt Bjarne Nielsen]

Before I was in the army I had to get a job, I had to make sure I paid the bills. While I was in the army I had to make sure I kept my nose clean, did my job, did it well, earned the respect of my superiors and my peers in order to continue gaining a paycheque so I could pay the bills. I think that mentality should continue on after your career with the military as well. Nothing should change there.

However, despite the fact that us guys decide to volunteer, yes, we sign up, we go to do a job around the world and it's pretty heart-wrenching stuff that we see, when we sign on that dotted line I think the expectation is that we're going to be cared for after the fact, regardless of whether everything works out well or if someone is injured really catastrophically such as myself or others like me. I think bottom line is that we just want to make sure we're cared for and taken care of for the time ever after for the sacrifices that we did make.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Have you thought, and you do think ahead obviously, about what kind of income you would need post service, so two and a half years from now?

[Sgt Bjarne Nielsen]

I need nothing more than what I make now. I don't need to be a millionaire just because I'm missing a leg or anything. I'm happy with what I have. I don't worry about what I don't have anymore.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Mr. Hawn, please, for six minutes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to Bjarne for being here. That's one heck of a story, and I have a feeling you will live to be 90 and beyond.

I have a question for Heather. Are you proud of your dad?

[Heather Nielsen]

Pardon?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Are you proud of your dad?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I'll take that as a yes.

I just want to correct something quickly about Helmets to Hardhats. The $100,000 put in by DND was simply to educate members of the CF that Helmets to Hardhats existed. The program is actually run by the union, specifically Canada's building trades unions, so DND does not run the program.

I have a number of things. I'll ask you some hopefully fairly quick questions, and the answers you give can be fairly instructive to us. You talk about the lump sum, and first of all you're still serving so you're still getting a sergeant's pay, and so on. Once you leave, other things will kick in depending on your assessment, earnings loss benefits, permanent impairment allowance, and so on, which are obviously in addition to the lump sum for those who qualify. But the lump sum, you suggested maybe taking.... Right now, anybody can take the lump sum or spread it out, and 98% of the people take the lump sum, sometimes with good results and obviously sometimes not.

Would you be making a specific suggestion with regard to the lump sum that says you can only get a year's salary, or maybe two years' salary—some number—and then you must defer the rest of it to some later time? Would that be a good suggestion?

[Sgt Bjarne Nielsen]

There are a couple of points on that, because as I mentioned with my own renovations, I paid about $70,000. So, yes, that's a little more than my year's salary, and it was within the first year and a half, almost two years, after my injury that I had to start paying that out. So having that money initially, say $75,000, would cover some of my current renovation expenses. Having cash every month paid out I think would be ideal. Again, that adds security for your own future, knowing that while you don't have a job now, you don't have a job two years from now because you can't work, or whatever the issue may be, at least you have a guaranteed income to maintain those bills.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

While you're hopefully using the $76,000—

[Sgt Bjarne Nielsen]

While you're still using the $76,000.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

The aim is obviously rehab and retraining, and you're obviously a perfect example.

[Sgt Bjarne Nielsen]

The other point to that is that some of my other peers took their maximum payout all at once and they decided to build a home for themselves. You know what? That's totally fine. You can go and build yourself a home, but spending $400,000 or $425,000 on it.... I don't know. That's a little too much, let alone the property taxes, the heating costs, and everything else that's going to go into that house that you've just spent a huge chunk of your payout on. You might not make it.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Probably bad planning....

[Sgt Bjarne Nielsen]

So I'm happy to have just bought a $250,000 home and paid $75,000 to renovate it.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I want to talk about the transition a bit. There's an issue that I'm trying to deal with—and I will be dealing with it with I'm pretty sure cooperation from everybody—in a private member's bill that talks about the transition from DND to being a client or customer of VAC.

Right now, DND can't transfer information directly to VAC because the Privacy Act gets in the way. It's not DND's fault and it's not VAC's fault. So the essence of the private member's bill is to break that barrier down so that DND can transfer—

[Sgt Bjarne Nielsen]

Yes, because that is ridiculous.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

You would have a service number here and it's the same service number in VAC, and the information transfers. I'd like your thoughts on that, and if that would be a good idea.