Evidence of meeting #21 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.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Derryk Fleming  Member, 31 CBG Veterans Well Being Network
David Fascinato  As an Individual
Donald Leonardo  Founder and National President, Veterans of Canada
Sean Bruyea  Retired Captain (Air Force), Advocate and Journalist, As an Individual
Robert Thibeau  President, Aboriginal Veterans Autochtones
Harold Leduc  As an Individual

6:55 p.m.

Conservative

Wladyslaw Lizon Conservative Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON

If I can jump in quickly, on this issue we had witnesses here who actually said that the problem they see is with the amount that's offered. It's not really with the—

6:55 p.m.

As an Individual

Harold Leduc

And that's fine, and those people weren't at the table with me when this was happening, and it was just pure discrimination between Canadian Forces and World War II veterans. I did propose that we extend the benefits and programs of the World War II Veterans Charter to Canadian Forces veterans, the way they did it for the Canadian Forces veterans who served in Korea. Remember, the Canadian Forces Act changed in 1950. So we qualify for those benefits. There was no need to recreate it.

As I said, the new Veterans Charter was simply a duplication of SISIP. To get rid of SISIP was what Veterans Affairs wanted to do, and they were going to deal with the aging and other programs elsewhere. So I think we need to fix the inconsistencies right now.

6:55 p.m.

Retired Captain (Air Force), Advocate and Journalist, As an Individual

Sean Bruyea

Harold's perspective is correct. If, of course, we had a wish and a dream that we could go back and rewrite this whole thing and recreate the original Veterans Charter for modern Canadian Forces' veterans, absolutely. However, the reality is right here and I know that you guys are under some pretty tight constraints in terms of budgets, but you need something tangible, doable, right away.

I take you at your promise, Mr. Lizon, that this is not the first kick at the cat, because the minister in his testimony to the Senate on March 26 said that this could be our only kick at the cat, and that was quite disappointing. So I would hope that, first of all, we have regular, legislated parliamentary reviews of the new Veterans Charter every two years that are comprehensive. So we repeat this every two years, and that would be part of one of the legislative changes.

I'll let Don speak about the three priorities, but in terms of the family I wanted to add for Mr. Chicoine's benefit and yourself that when a relatively healthy veteran is transitioning and going through rehabilitation, we pay half of the child care expenses. But when a family is burdened with spouses losing jobs and suffering career consequences while caring for the severely disabled veteran, we provide no child care whatsoever. Absolutely 100% child care for TPI veteran families. It's a no-brainer.

The other one is that because many of those family members cannot pursue their original career, we should open up the vocational rehab to them, not just if they're TPI veterans, but open the education to both of them. It shouldn't be one or the other. The TPI veterans should be able to expand under vocational and professional exposure to the community, and the wife or husband should be able to reconsider what their participation will be in a new career while taking care of the severely disabled.

6:55 p.m.

Founder and National President, Veterans of Canada

Donald Leonardo

It's really hard to really trust what you're saying. To say, “What are your priorities?” and “Trust us, just give us your priorities for now and trust us, we're going to make more changes”. It's only been one change in 10 years. As I was saying, it's only eight years since 2006, but by the time any changes that come from this committee are implemented, it's going to be another at least 18 months by the time it goes through Parliament, gets gazetted, and goes through the system. So it's hard to trust when you say, “Give us your three priorities”, but I will, and those are the three priorities that we provided from the stakeholders and from the veterans consultation group, and from the Veterans Ombudsman.

The three priorities are:

The earnings loss benefit must be improved to 100% of pre-release income, continued for life, and include increases for projected career earnings for a Canadian Armed Forces member.

The maximum disability award must be increased consistent with what is provided to injured civilian workers who receive general damages in law courts.

The current inequity with regard to ELB for Class A and Class B reservists less than 180 days for service attributable injuries must cease.

It's time that we start doing something here and start providing the benefits, because as I was saying, not one of you would take a 25% pay cut, so why would you expect an injured veteran to do the same?

Thank you very much.

7 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Greg Kerr

Thank you.

7 p.m.

President, Aboriginal Veterans Autochtones

Robert Thibeau

The only thing I'll add to that...everything I'm agreeing with at the table right now, the three priorities.

We sit here as a committee, and we sit here as a group of veterans and other people who are in the room here that are associated with the veterans, and I remember back in 1996, I think, when I was a sergeant major up in Wainwright. It was shortly after the disbandment of the Airborne Regiment, in which I was proud to have served, so it hurt very dearly. I remember that the Department of National Defence, a government agency, actually sat down and developed the charter, which covered eight specific points. We took, I don't know, about a week down in Cornwall to discuss those points.

We're sitting here, as a group that comes together, and it's not the same group who comes together all the time. Is there a possibility that somewhere down the line you can get something together where...? I don't care if it's travelling across the country as a group; I think what you need to do is stand up and look face to face at the individuals who have served in Afghanistan, who are hurting from Afghanistan, whether mentally or physically or both. Stand in front of them and find out what those answers are.

It's nice to be sitting in a cushy office. It's nice for me to be sitting here too, because I have a cushy little place down in Kingston. But I think I understand a little bit more about what these veterans are going through, because I have a veteran at home as well.

One of my aboriginal veterans brought up a good point: don't use time as a weapon against veterans. I think that's what we have to consider.

7 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Greg Kerr

Thank you.

I'll warn the committee that after the Liberal Party finishes up, we'll probably have time for one more from each side. You may want to decide now who that will be.

Mr. Hsu, welcome. It's nice to have you here. You have six minutes, please.

April 8th, 2014 / 7 p.m.

Liberal

Ted Hsu Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of you for coming today to the committee and to help out with this study.

My question is on a topic that was addressed by you, Mr. Bruyea, so this is mostly for you, but I think everybody else should chime in.

I'm interested in this concept of psychosocial rehabilitation. I'm wondering if this approach is something that can bridge a problem that's been identified—namely, this gap between the time spent in the forces and time where somebody is taken care of by Veterans Affairs Canada—and minimize the number of veterans who fall through the cracks. I'm wondering if this approach is something that could bridge that divide.

You also spoke about families who have to take care of disabled veterans, and families who fall apart because of the stress. I'm wondering if you could also speak to how the family fits into psychosocial rehabilitation.

7 p.m.

Retired Captain (Air Force), Advocate and Journalist, As an Individual

Sean Bruyea

Certainly.

As I said in my original presentation, psychosocial rehabilitation, as we understand it now, exists as a set of principles but is not actually consistently practised. However, I believe that if a working group could be set forward between Veterans Affairs, with veterans and families on that working group of course, and DND, we'd come up with basically the principles being applied.

With regard to those principles, there are a number of treatment modalities, but one of them is an active care team. This active care team essentially would consist of anywhere from 10 to 12 multidisciplinary practitioners. It would include such people as medical doctors, of course, but it would also include professional coaches. It would include as well someone who would help them fill out the forms for their disability benefits. We're talking about seriously disabled veterans, and no seriously disabled veterans should be filling out their own forms. This is patently absurd.

Next you would have individuals who would help them with basic care needs in the home. When someone suffers a severe either physical or psychological injury, all of life is relearned. It's relearned in terms of self-esteem, it's relearned in terms of motor skills. All of those skills are not being addressed. They can't be addressed in a once-a-week appointment in a psychologist's office.

This 10- to 12-member practitioner team would have no more than 100 clients. These practitioners would be dedicated to only these 100 individuals. This process would last certainly over the transition period, so over a period of months, and the families then could be brought in with regard to the principles of psychosocial rehabilitation in terms of education. There would be intensive modules for teaching the family how to interact, support, and understand when that veteran screws up at home, because God knows, seriously disabled veterans screw up a lot at home. The families don't understand and often take it personally.

If we had a work team of true integration, that would bridge the gap between the transition experience and the hand-off from National Defence to Veterans Affairs. It would ensure a seamless, a truly seamless, transition. This team would be available to those veterans 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's what we really need, because that's what the disability is, initially. It's trying to manage it 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

7:05 p.m.

As an Individual

Harold Leduc

I agree with what Sean said, and I would add that we need to retrain the adjudicators at both Veterans Affairs and the Veterans Review and Appeal Board.

The application process is dead simple. I know there have been articles put out on it, but all you need is a connection to service and a diagnosis. You don't need any medical opinions. You don't need a whole bunch of paperwork. It's simple, but the adjudicators have gone off the application process. At the department level, it is mostly a resource issue. The application process is so simple that we need to get back to the basics. That would help the families very much.

7:05 p.m.

Liberal

Ted Hsu Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

I want to extend that question a little bit with Mr. Thibeau's remark in mind about not using time as a weapon against veterans. It looks as though some work needs to be done to implement psychosocial rehabilitation to figure out how exactly it could be realized. I'm wondering if this is a case in which instead of trying to figure it out you should maybe just do a pilot and figure it out by doing it.

Do you have any comments on that?

7:05 p.m.

President, Aboriginal Veterans Autochtones

Robert Thibeau

When you mention time as weapon, we have to consider how long we have been sitting here at the table. This is now 2014, and the issues have been on the table for quite a number of years now. So, yes, there has to be some sort of a pilot. I approached people for a pilot program dealing with aboriginal veterans, which is open to any veteran. It may work. I don't know.

The other issue I'll bring up is that when we start talking about all these medical people getting involved, let's not make a mistake by looking at people who have never dealt with a veteran or a Canadian Forces member. You have to start looking at our back door, because there are people out there who will be trusted more if they are sitting in front of that individual as well as that family, I believe. That's something I think should happen.

As for pilot projects, let's throw them on the table and find out which ones we want.

7:05 p.m.

As an Individual

Harold Leduc

You know we had these same discussions back in the late 1990s and early 2000s on the exact same topics. Suicide was one of them, and now we have this one about family. We have to be listened to.

7:05 p.m.

Retired Captain (Air Force), Advocate and Journalist, As an Individual

Sean Bruyea

Absolutely. In terms of tangible doable things now, we're not too far off from that, but the problem is that we have many practitioners operating independently; there's no coordination between the two; and those practitioners are not dedicated to those particular clients. So what we have to do is bring that team of DND and VAC together and set out a budget immediately for a pilot program. We could have two teams of 100 transitioning veterans each for a total of 200. We could allocate those people and they could go through. There's a learning process of course. Everyone understands that there would be a lot of mistakes, but by God I think we'd come out with something very good at the end.

7:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Greg Kerr

Okay. Thank you very much.

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

7:10 p.m.

Conservative

Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

I know I'm going to run out of time, so I'm going to throw out two or three things and let you chew on them.

Sean, I basically agree with most of your recommendations. A couple I disagree with and a couple I agree with partially or whatever. This is going to sound like a crass question, but it's the reality, and you've mentioned that. Philosophically cost is no object; practically speaking there are limits. So I guess to what Mr. Lizon said, if you could put some priority to these, that would be helpful. That's not to say the ones at the bottom don't matter; it's just that there are some practical realities that we have to deal with.

One of the issues I've been seized with for a long time is access and barriers and burden of proof. We can argue about the amounts of various benefits and so on, and those are all fair points. How much would it alleviate at least part of the problem if we lowered the burden of proof—i.e. dropped the insurance company mentality and made access easier? By that I don't just mean burden of proof, but I mean things like turning an 18-page form into a 5-page form—which is happening, by the way—and making sure the website is more friendly for those who can use the website and so on. How much would that go to it?

The other one is I'm tabling a private member's bill tomorrow that isn't the be-all and end-all, but it will address at least partially the issues of transferring medical information from DND to VAC and giving the member control over his or her own medical information. I can't go into details, because it hasn't been tabled yet. If you could chew on those three things.... I'm sure you have a cost to this. Is that a fair statement?

7:10 p.m.

Retired Captain (Air Force), Advocate and Journalist, As an Individual

Sean Bruyea

No, I've asked—

7:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Greg Kerr

Please, very succinctly....

7:10 p.m.

As an Individual

Harold Leduc

I adjudicated over 5,000 claims approximately with the veterans review and appeal board. I can tell you that the premise of the new Veterans Charter, there are three access points. One is with the Pension Act disability, the other one is with the part 3 lump sum, and the other one is no disability but you have a transition need. So the burden is very low.

As I said earlier, with respect to lowering the burden of proof, it's written right in the legislation. It can't be any clearer that we have to retrain the adjudicators.

7:10 p.m.

Conservative

Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

Okay.

Your comment....

7:10 p.m.

Retired Captain (Air Force), Advocate and Journalist, As an Individual

Sean Bruyea

Yes. Super.

So, yes, I've got my query into Veterans Affairs. I'm sure they'll be providing me with those cost estimates shortly.

You're absolutely right. Access is a huge problem. What I tried to do in my report was provide, basically, existing programs, that all we had to do was just open that door to another population that, in essence, is receiving something similar. For instance, the permanent impairment allowance supplement should be made available to people with exceptional incapacitated allowances. That's an easy door to open.

In terms of burden of proof, Harold's absolutely right, the burden of proof can be provided. We lower that burden of proof based on a career review medical board, right? For the people who are released for medical disability, clearly that should be all they need when they walk into Veterans Affairs to receive their pension.

As far as the priorities...I'll do my best to prioritize those for you, but I think you'll notice that most of them will allow for just a quick wording in the legislation and there's access, done.

7:10 p.m.

Founder and National President, Veterans of Canada

Donald Leonardo

I would say that we need the adjudication system changed to a medical evidence-based system. We need to disband the VRAB so that it's an easier transition system. Where the National Defence medical review board...their word is taken.

They're all doctors. If they say you can't fulfill the obligations of your trade and you're being removed from the military for medical reasons then that should be transferred to Veterans Affairs without adjudication. It should just have a rubber stamp by a medical officer.

7:10 p.m.

Conservative

Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

What about the case where a guy comes back 10 years later?

7:10 p.m.

Founder and National President, Veterans of Canada

7:15 p.m.

Conservative

Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

When a guy comes back 10 years later.... Because if I come back now—