Evidence of meeting #19 for Veterans Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was charter.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Greg Kerr
Thank you very much.
For our last presentation, we turn to the Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association. Again, we have Mr. Richard Blackwolf, national president and chief executive officer of CAV and National Alliance; and also Joseph Burke, national service officer, Ottawa, CAV and National Alliance.
Thank you, and please proceed. If you hear buzzers and bells, just ignore them. That's just letting us know that votes can take place some time.
Richard Blackwolf National President and Chief Executive Officer, CAV, National Alliance, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
Mr. Chairman and honourable members, thank you for the invitation to appear before you and present our findings on the questions posed in the committee's invitation.
I'm pleased to introduce Master Corporal, retired, Joseph Burke, who served with the Royal Canadian Regiment, with the Royal Canadian Medical Corps, and as a flight medic. He is here today to assist in the presentation and to participate in answering your questions.
Canadian aboriginal soldiers, sailors, and airmen and women have been involved for the past 214 years in the defence of Canada, the liberation of others, and on peacekeeping missions in many foreign lands.
Canadian Aboriginal Veterans are well-established on the Internet, with the CAV national website that is designed to be a comprehensive information resource for veterans, a source of information on military careers for our youth, and a wide-ranging video library of military history. The CAV national website has been visited by over 239,000 visitors since 2011. The CAV also maintains 20 groups on social media, enabling the CAV to make a major connection between our youth and our armed forces veterans. The groups feature pictures, stories, and many of the accomplishments of those who served in war and peace.
The CAV has a number of World War II veterans, a good number of Korean War veterans and Cold War veterans, and a growing number of new veterans.
As national president, one of my duties is to place telephone calls to our members across the country on a regular basis to converse with them about their family lives. Our elder World War II veterans, Korean War veterans, and Cold War veterans get concerned when they hear on the news that if their sons and grandsons who are serving today are injured, they are not going to receive the same level of care as they received over the years.
Our answer to them is tentative but hopeful that their concerns will be unfounded.
Joseph Burke National Service Officer, Ottawa, NAV, National Alliance, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, this is the CAV contribution.
On the care and support to seriously injured veterans, veterans report that the earnings loss benefit income replacement program paid during participation in a rehabilitation program or vocational assistance services is inadequate. The problem is that the earnings loss benefit is not a benefit. It represents a 25% loss in net income at a crucial time when the added stress of the loss of income can and does interfere with the transition progress of a person working with injuries and disabilities.
For example, for a military pay of $56,568 military, after-tax net income would be $39,597.60. With an earnings loss benefit of only $42,426, the earnings loss benefit after-tax provides a net income of $29,698.20. Subtracting these figures you can end up with a total loss of $9,899.40 in net income over your military pay.
On the relief sought, we suggest renaming this a “transition allowance” and maintaining the net income at the same level of pay as the previous military net income.
Veterans report that there is no lifetime index disability available under the new Veterans Charter. The new Veterans Charter is intended to aid transition from military service to civilian life. The legislation clearly states two classes of veterans, those with mild injuries, and those with severe, permanent, long-term disabilities. The new Veterans Charter is primarily focused on personnel who are transitioning to civilian life and employment with no or mild injuries. The new Veterans Charter’s rules and regulations are clearly designed to avoid the long-term cost of care for the severely disabled veterans. The new Veterans Charter provides an earnings loss benefit, which is curtailed by age limitation.
On the relief sought, we suggest replacing the earnings loss benefit at the end of the transition and rehabilitation with a viable lifetime indexed veteran’s disability pension. A viable example is a veteran’s disability pension that is based on the average wage of all non-commissioned ranks or ranks below the flag rank in the year the veteran’s disability pension is to commence and then indexed annually thereafter.
Veterans report that a lump sum award for pain and suffering is insufficient compensation, particularly for multiple injuries and the resulting lifetime disabilities. The problem is that awarding a lump sum award for pain and suffering with the aggregate cap is an austere cost control designed solely to save money by setting a limit to the reward available. Those personnel who have suffered multiple wounds and amputations are grievously under-compensated. The lump sum award just for pain and suffering is a deliberate avoidance of full compensation by omitting compensation for the consequences of an injury that will have to be endured by a veteran over a lifetime.
On the relief sought, we suggest the removal of the aggregate cap to provide a lump sum award on the basis of past, present, and future pain, suffering, and the long-term consequences of each injury and each resulting disability.
On support to the family, veterans report that the termination of the earnings loss benefit at age 65 causes veterans and their families stress and fears for the future. On turning age 65 the reality of their fears comes true with the real financial hardships they are facing.
There are a number of problems. Number one, there is currently no spousal allowance, and there is no respite provision for caregivers of the severely disabled. Number two, there are also no provisions for a dependent child allowance. Number three, age 65 is a handy milestone to abbreviate the cost of the severely disabled veterans and their families, accomplished by sidestepping the rule of law and ignoring section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 15 prohibits certain forms of discrimination: sex, age, or mental and physical disability.
We suggest the following. Number one, the inclusion of a spousal allowance to the amount of not less than $1,600 per month indexed annually. Number two, the inclusion of a dependent child allowance to be based on the province of residence rate of child support, or on an income based on the average wage of all non-commissioned ranks or commissioned ranks below flag rank adjusted annually.For example, with an overall wage of non-commissioned ranks to $65,000, for children who live in the province of Ontario, the Department of Justice child support allowance calculation is the following: for one child $594; two children $966; and three children $1,264. Number three, the removal of all age-related regulations from the new Veterans Charter.
The third question relates to improvements to the way in which the Department of Veterans Affairs delivers services and benefits set out in the charter. Why does it take 16 weeks or longer to get an answer or acknowledgement from Charlottetown? Delays that occur now are based on the Privacy Act and impede the efficient flow of documents that occur at the interface between these two different departments with two different corporate cultures. It's a further source of delays. Veterans often express frustration that the people they are dealing with have only an elementary knowledge of what is involved in military service.
The recommendation is for a total unification and merger of Veterans Affairs Canada with the Department of National Defence, expanding the head offices in Ottawa, as required. The rationale is that the Department of National Defence administers and operates the Canadian Armed Forces, regular and reserve forces, and the cadet organizations administration and training service, which is a subcomponent of the reserve force. All personnel serving in the Canadian Armed Forces will become veterans. The inclusion of Veterans Affairs Canada in the Department of National Defence would be the most efficient and cost-efficient operation of the Canadian military force, and services to its veterans. Personnel documents and records would flow efficiently through the integrated Department of National Defence. Transitioning through the military family from the cadet corps to the regular force, or the reserves, to the veteran force would be seamless and would retain DND corporate knowledge and a cohesive pool of talent.
The CAV believes that an integrated Department of National Defence would allow veterans to go to a Canadian Forces base to have their needs met by people who are familiar with military service. At the military bases, the personnel assigned to help veterans would have an in-depth knowledge of military service and would also provide further help to veterans by being able to coordinate with the Royal Canadian Legion service officers who are on a number of the bases.
Military base locations would also eliminate the cost of leasing space across Canada which is a substantial savings in itself.
National President and Chief Executive Officer, CAV, National Alliance, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
Honourable Chairman and honourable members, in closing, because the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act legislation was signed off by all political parties, Canadian aboriginal veterans feel that the honour of Parliament rests on the replacement of this flawed legislation.
We are asking for new legislation to implement a new Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act, 2014. The new legislation would ideally be an amalgamation of the best features of past legislation; namely, the Pension Act; the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act, 2006; and Bill C-55, the enhanced new Veterans Charter act.
The objective of our request for new legislation is to produce a world-class military service compensation and pension act that is fair and generous to all veterans, and especially those veterans with a lifetime disability.
Mr. Chairman and honourable members, thank you for your time and attention.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Greg Kerr
Thank you very much to the witnesses. Obviously, you've left a lot of room for a lot of questions when we return.
As I said, we do have to proceed upstairs and I think that rather than starting questions, we'll break now and be back around 6 o'clock. Please relax and you'll be well taken care of by the clerk.
We'll suspend until after the vote.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Greg Kerr
Okay, folks, we're reassembled. As I said, it is roughly six o'clock. We've had an exciting vote. We're all pumped here, as you can imagine.
We're now going to the question session with the members. As usual, we'll start with Mr. Stoffer for six minutes please.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Thank you much, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry for that interruption folks.
I want to thank each and every one of you for being before us today. Your advice and your recommendations are very helpful for us to narrow down what we should do for the enhancements to the new Veterans Charter.
To Mr. Forbes, Deanna, and Richard, you're all correct. This was an all-party committee. Most of the major veterans groups back in '05.... I remember the late Jack Stagg very clearly. And the selling point was that this was a living charter.
You are correct, it has been some time before we've seen any changes. You're also correct that the time is now. I can assure you that this committee will work very hard to ensure, not every single change that we want will happen right away, but to get the major ones done for the most seriously injured.
My first question is for you, Mr. Forbes. Then I have one for Deanna and then one for Mr. Blackwolf.
We were talking to the gentleman who came before us, the previous witness. He indicated that he knew of a fellow who got in a train accident and lost both legs. He received $1.5 million for that compensation benefit as a disability award or a loss of injury award—whatever the courts call it. In Britain right now the lump sum is over $1 million Canadian. Right now ours is under $300,000. There have been calls to get it to about $350,000 or to half a million dollars.
In all fairness, sir, I know it's always difficult to throw out numbers of what it should be, but when we hear Britain is getting $1 million—and I'm not sure what the States would be—would you support a fairly large increase into what is called the lump sum payment in order to assist the initial action? I don't mean to say that this is the only thing the veteran would get, but the initial action.
Deanna, for you the question is what you want to see interpreted in the act. You have it in italics on page 1. Do the ANAVETS have a legal opinion on that? For you, you know in italics on your front page—you can answer after Mr. Forbes—do the ANAVETS have a legal opinion of what this holds the government or any future governments to?
Richard and Joseph, thank you very much for coming. I'm interested to know about the family aspects for individual members, reservists, for example, who don't have a spouse and children, but leave behind a mother and father who may be impoverished because that person may have been the only breadwinner for the mother and father.
What are your views on what should happen in that particular regard? As you know, when a veteran who is married gets killed there's a lump sum payment given to the family, to the spouse, but if the person is single and doesn't have any family there is no payment to the estate. I'd just like your views on that after the other two.
Thank you for coming.
Chairman, National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, through you to Mr. Stoffer.
I unfortunately didn't hear Mark Fuchko's evidence, but I suspect he was talking about the Canadian courts.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
He told us privately that he knew of a gentleman in a rail accident who had a $1.5 million settlement, plus a disability pension.
Chairman, National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada
Let me just make this observation, that in the Canadian courts the so-called general damage award is capped at essentially $350,000. That's of course where we're trying to move the lump sum disability award under the charter.
When people talk about $1.5 million in a damage settlement, what they're usually talking about is the combination of those general damages together with a lump sum that is given for future loss of income and a lump sum that's usually given for future care costs. The combination of those will often get you into the millions of dollars ranges. You see those reported in the press, but they're rarely divided or allocated to these various heads of damages.
The Americans are much more aggressive with regard to damage suits. They don't have the caps. In fact, there are a lot of politics around why they don't have caps, but they don't. I think maybe what Mark was talking about is a Canadian court settlement which combined different types of lump sums to get to $1.5 million. What we're proposing of course is let's at least get to the Canadian court level on general damages, which would be about $350,000. I'm as intrigued as you are, though, as to what is happening in the United Kingdom, because for the last six or seven years we have been aware that they have lump sum awards that are close to a million dollars for their most severely disabled.
We have been told over the years, and I have a question on this, that Veterans Affairs takes the position that those are so unique and so catastrophic that they don't have too much general application, but I would suspect it would be useful for this committee to take a look at that.
If the British can see the catastrophic case at closer to $1 million, and we are paying $350,000 in the courts and $300,000 under the disability award of the charter, maybe it's time for us to look at those catastrophic-type cases, because there are some. I won't use the names. I think many of you around the table will know the people I'm talking about. But there are people who are amputees who are part of what we do in the War Amps, who have what I consider catastrophic injuries.
I question whether we are doing enough for those people on the lump sum award. If the British have a better sensitivity for that we should look at it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Greg Kerr
Thank you.
We're going to have to move along with Mr. Stoffer's time limit here, so please go ahead.
Dominion Secretary-Treasurer, Army, Navy and Air Force Veterans in Canada
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
In response to Mr. Stoffer's question, what we've written here is the construction paragraph that you find in the Pension Act and many other acts that came before it. It's not found in the new Veterans Charter. As veterans associations that were involved at the time, we understand that this is something that we missed, and we accept our responsibility in that. But never before has any government of this country ever questioned that there is a social covenant or a legal, moral, or social obligation to care for its veterans, until recently, within the context of the new Veterans Charter. The only thing we can point to is the fact that this is conveniently now missing in the new legislation. We would like it to be put back in, and we think that might stop any of the questions. Then it would be very clear that this country and its successive governments do have an obligation to care for and compensate injured veterans.
Thank you.
Conservative
National President and Chief Executive Officer, CAV, National Alliance, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
I believe our question was regarding the family and in particular the parents whose son or daughter was killed in action or severely maimed. But just to refer to the committee's question regarding support to family, family to us, particularly to aboriginal people, is everybody. We don't discriminate between fathers and parents and other children. So there should be compensation there particularly where an estate is involved. We're not lawyers in this case and we can't really quote the law, but in essence and in correctness and in honour, to deny payments, say, to parents is the wrong thing to do. They should be included. It's money that has to be paid out, and it would be paid out normally, so it's fair.
Gentlemen, honourable members, Mr. Chairman, there is no economy in war. History is full of chronicles of those who didn't prepare for war, countries that didn't prepare for war, those countries that didn't prosecute a war properly, and also the aftermath of war. What we're dealing with here is the aftermath of war in families and spouses and children and parents.
Conservative
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank our witnesses for taking the time out and being here before the committee and for providing their valuable feedback on the study we're currently conducting.
Can you tell us if your respective organization called for the comprehensive review and whether you support the committee's comprehensive review of the charter as a whole?
Could I quickly get an answer from each of the organizations?
Chairman, National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada
I would comment that when we were first made aware that there was going to be a further parliamentary review, we felt that it was not necessary. I'll pay this compliment to the committee: You had done a report in 2010 that endorsed the new Veterans Charter advisory group report and also added supplementary recommendations for improvements to the charter. We felt that it was time for that report to be implemented.
Do we really need a further study when those reports of 2009 and 2010 as well as the report from 2013 by the veterans ombudsman overlap many of the recommendations in those earlier reports? Without criticizing the good intentions of this committee, it was our position that your committee had done its work and that it wasn't necessary to do further review. I appreciate that the minister and others felt that other voices should be heard, but in our respectful opinion, there's been enough study.
National President and Chief Executive Officer, CAV, National Alliance, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
In the same regard, we believe the same thing as Chairman Forbes...all the studies that have gone on over these years.... The most important thing is that what's being said here is being said time and time again, so everything that's wrong is known. It's been fixable since 2010, and it's been long overdue, and we consider this another...I wouldn't say it's a waste of time, but it's an unnecessary time to review a review, and to review again. Hopefully, we'll have action rather than review.
What we need is a strong minister at the table, and if we're not getting that, we're going to be pushing for.... We need a strong minister at the table because we support the government's objective of balancing the budgets—we know how important that is to the country—but what we're asking for is to move up the scale of priorities. That's where we want to move up. We need a minister who can move us up to those priorities, because the money is there, it's being spent on all different things. We want to see some action in that area.
Thank you.
Dominion Secretary-Treasurer, Army, Navy and Air Force Veterans in Canada
Mr. Chairman, yes, I would concur with both my colleagues at this table that the work has been done in the past, and doing it over and over again seems redundant to many of the veterans' organizations.
We appreciate the fact that this committee was going to have to do a review on the enhanced new Veterans Charter in Bill C-55 anyway, and we appreciate that the minister created this more comprehensive look at all of the problems, but there could have been action alongside the review. That's what we would have hoped for, to have some of these items that we've been talking about for years actioned, and then continue to review it as required.
Conservative
Parm Gill Conservative Brampton—Springdale, ON
Thank you for actually pointing that out. Obviously, the committee is mandated to conduct a review of Bill C-55. What the minister asked the committee to do was basically turn that into a comprehensive review of the whole new Veterans Charter, and that's exactly what we're doing today.
My next question is, can you tell us if your organization was involved or consulted during the process of Bill C-55 that was brought in in 2011?
Chairman, National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada
Yes, I can speak to that.
If I might just comment on your conclusion of the last question, I think what we expected is that the minister would have had proposals for your committee to consider at this time, implementing at least in part some of the recommendations of the earlier studies. I think, Deanna, you're correct, we were expecting something more than just further study. It would have been very useful, in our opinion, if the minister had brought forward, let's say, five or six proposals implementing earlier reports as part of the ongoing evaluation. That's what we'd like to see in the future, quite frankly.
Now as far as your current question is concerned, clearly our organization...and I believe the ANAVETS, of course, were consulted prior to the enactment of the charter. In fact, many of us sat on the Canadian Forces advisory council from about 2002 to 2005. Many of us sat on the new Veterans Charter advisory group from 2006 to 2009. We agreed with the philosophy—Deanna expressed it rather well earlier—of the need for a new Veterans Charter.
The Pension Act had problems. It wasn't a transitionary piece of legislation. It was no longer applicable to the modern-day veteran in many ways. But the reality is, the document that was produced as a charter, as I commented in my submission, was flawed, and we all knew it was flawed. People were sitting around this table; I know Mr. Peter Stoffer was, and others were. It was flawed and it was recognized as being imperfect.
The thing that was committed to, though, is that there would be an annual review. I remember very well Jack Stagg, and the minister of the day, and the hierarchy of the day...the Darragh Mogans, the Ken Millers of the day...it will be reviewed on an annual basis, and in that way we will catch up with the imperfections. We will rectify the problems with the SISIP program, we will rectify the problems with.... Well, let's not go on to all of the evidence. All of the submissions made today...we expected that to be done eight years ago, seven years ago, on an ongoing basis.