Veterans Affairs Committee on May 12th, 2015

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Valeriote. There was a lot there that I'll address in sequence.

Certainly I saw Madam Migneault here today and I look forward to speaking more with her. I've already learned quite a bit from her perspective as a caregiver and the compassion she shows, and I appreciate those in the home helping people with operational stress injuries.

Second, on your statement—is this enough?—and your pessimism about this bill not passing, I sensed that there would be delays in Bill C-58 so that's why it's in the budget implementation bill. It will pass. I've made that commitment.

Is it enough? As I said to Mr. Stoffer, fair criticism is to say, there is more to do. In fact, when your party created the new veterans charter—I know you weren't in the Parliament when it was created—it was intended to be a living charter. I've said repeatedly since I became minister that that's what it will be. What I hope is that we pass Bill C-58, which addresses some of the critical items this committee recommended. That's why I was hoping for swift passage. Then this committee could do what it did last year, which was to look back and see whether the new benefits, the new reforms, the new programs in Bill C-58, and in the last two years on mental health have been having an impact, and then plan a new set of priorities. That's how this committee should run. As minister, I would count on that input to make sure that we're meeting the needs, not just today but in the future.

On PTSD, let me say this. In my work before I became a parliamentarian supporting military families, this was my area of focus. It is a huge priority for the government. By the end of this year, we'll have 26 operational stress injury clinics open across the country. The first one didn't open in Canada until 2002. This is trying to address a growing need.

When it comes to the critical injury benefit, what I've said to veterans is, this benefit is open to any type of physical or mental injury. There is the possibility of somebody suffering post-traumatic stress from a single occurrence. The issue with operational stress injuries is that no injury is the same and no treatment regime is usually the same. They're very individualized injuries, so this is inclusive.

But what veterans and parliamentarians should not do is start comparing physical injuries to mental injuries. If the critical injury benefit ends up being primarily for serious physical injuries, that's okay. We're trying to address the seriously injured. It's a tailored benefit that's not meant to apply to 700,000 veterans in Canada. At the same time, permanent impairment allowance is primarily paid to people with mental injuries from service. Is that inherently unfair to somebody with a physical injury? No, it is not. The new veterans charter tries to tailor financial support, medical support, and rehabilitation to the needs of the veteran, whether their injury is physical or mental. So it's not fair to compare who might qualify; it's about getting them the support they need.

[The Chair, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Thank you very much, Minister.

Mr. Hayes.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Formally, I thank you both for your service. I've really never had the opportunity to do so. To my colleagues here, all of whom have direct military experience on this side of table, thank you very much for your service. I'm the only one that doesn't have direct service, but my immediate family had 100 years of direct service.

I'm hoping, Minister, you can confirm my understanding of the misinformation that is out there with respect to lapsed funding. I've taken the initiative to print out the public accounts over the course of the past nine years, as well as the planning and priorities documents. My observation, as I'm looking at the figures, is that in 2005-06 we had a budget of $2.85 billion, and in 2013-14, that was up to $3.6 billion. Over the course of those nine years, our estimate of what we were going to spend, over nine years cumulatively, was $30.6 billion, of which we actually spent $30 billion. We actually spent 98% of our budget.

Then, during the course of the year, with the planning and priorities documents, I notice that every year we asked for additional authorities—every single year. As a matter of fact, in three of those years where we didn't ask for additional authorities, we would have actually exceeded budget, which I understand is not allowed. The reality is that all of those additional authorities weren't required. A budget is an estimate. We want to make sure we have the funds. We ask for additional funds because we want to make sure no veteran goes unserved.

Minister, in your opinion, lapsed funding doesn't mean lapsed services in any way, does it? Does any veteran go unserved because of a lack of funds within the veterans affairs department?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Hayes, I'm very glad you asked this question because it has caused a lot of confusion for veterans and their families, and it's an issue that because of its moderate degree of complexity can be used to actually sow seeds of confusion.

You're exactly right. A department cannot spend more than its estimated budget, its estimate. In fact, it does have to go back to Parliament to get more funds approved, so every department needs to estimate what they will spend and try to do it as accurately as possible. Estimates that make it within 1% or 2% of the actual spend is very good budgeting.

We don't know what actually goes out the door until the public accounts come in, which is over a year later. Then you try to learn from the public accounts where you did not spend.

Veterans Affairs is a very unique department within the federal government, in that of the $3.5 billion or so of a budget, 90% of that goes to payments to veterans and their families. With statutory benefits, once a veteran or their survivor is eligible for that benefit, in most cases it will be paid until the end of the life of that veteran.

In recent years we've seen some lapsing funds where in the public accounts cycle we don't actually spend what is fully estimated. The majority of that comes from the aging demographic of the traditional war veteran, World War II and Korea. As Mr. Valeriote so rightly noted, among these inspiring gentlemen we were with in the Netherlands the oldest was 97 and the average age was 91 or 92.

That generation where 1.1 million Canadians served in World War II is now in their late eighties to nineties. I'll give you an example of how challenging this is. The estimates do not anticipate veterans passing away over the course of the cycle. That will go into the estimates for the following year. When we assumed government in 2006 there were approximately 230,000 World War II veterans in Canada. In the last year it's around 90,000. It's the same with the Korean War. There were almost 15,000 when we formed government and less than 10,000 now.

We see most of the lapsed funds coming from the fact that, sadly, we're losing a large number of our World War II and Korean War veterans. That's why these commemorations, the 70th of VE Day and of the liberation of the Netherlands and Juno last year, are so profoundly important, but in terms of lapsed funds, this is why.

Other programs that are demand driven under the new veterans charter, for instance, in career transition or something like that, if those programs aren't being taken up as quickly or by as many veterans as we might like, that's where we actually have to learn and make changes. But with some lapsed funds it's due to the nature of the fact that 90% of our budget is statutory payments to veterans and their families.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

You have the floor, Mr. Chicoine.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to thank the minister and the deputy minister for coming to answer our questions.

Mr. Minister, a few weeks ago, you announced that 100 new case managers were to be hired in response to, or as a result of the auditor general's report, which criticized wait times, which really are too long for veterans submitting new applications for benefits.

How many of those new case managers do you anticipate hiring this year? How much has been set aside in the main estimates to accommodate these new expenses?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chicoine.

I enjoy sitting on this committee. You've been here since my time here, and I appreciate that.

I made two specific announcements, one at CFB Valcartier, Quebec City, in relation to at least 100 case managers. It will be more than that, but you've hit the nail on the head. I'm getting final Treasury Board approval for the exact number, but it will be greater, hopefully quite a bit greater, than 100. It's the same with the benefit adjudicators. I've used a minimum floor number, but there will be more hired over the coming months.

Going back to the case managers, we are going to try to see where there's additional acute need throughout the country and build in more flexibility to how case managers are deployed. In my announcement I said we're going from an average ratio of 1:40 of case manager to clients and we'll be going down to 1:30, but we're going to try to build in flexibility.

The benefit adjudicators are directly related to what we learned from the Auditor General. As you said, there were some unacceptable delays in the processing of disability payments for those with mental injuries from service. That was unacceptable. What's interesting to note is that we asked the Auditor General to look specifically at this issue: were our investments meeting our targets? In terms of the processing of benefit claims, they were not. So our hiring of those adjudicators will try to bring down the wait times identified by the Auditor General to meet the departmental targets. Once we get through that backlog, we can then get to a point where we can start meeting our targets of having a disability claim processed within six to eight weeks.

The Auditor General did say that vocational rehabilitation: the retraining, the re-education, that sort of thing, was proceeding okay. But in terms of the financial benefit processing, we were not meeting our expectations. All these positions will be hired in the coming months and there will be more than 100 in both categories.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

It's 100 over five years, but for this year you don't have any numbers of new case managers.

Is that right?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

By June we hope to be hiring and then putting them in acute areas of need geographically as quickly as possible.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

For three years, the date set for transferring the Sainte-Anne Hospital has always been postponed from the date announced. Do you have any news for us about that? How many people will be affected by the transfer of the hospital to the Government of Quebec? Do you have any news about the transfer?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you.

As you well know, for many years, for many decades, there have been discussions with the Government of Quebec with respect to Ste. Anne's. We have an agreement in principle with the government in Quebec. From our standpoint, what's positive is that veterans will continue to get exceptional care in that facility. As an added benefit after the transfer date, for some veterans who have a partner or spouse in a long-term care facility elsewhere in Quebec, now that it will be a provincial facility, we'll be able to reunite some couples who are spread out right now because of the nature of the facility.

Quebec will be in the position of gaining a very modern, advanced, and world-class centre for geriatric care that has been developed at Ste. Anne's over the last few decades, and they will be able to incorporate that into the provincial health care regime. It's a huge asset that I know many in Quebec are looking forward to. Our primary goal is to make sure that the veterans receiving care there will continue to get the world-class care they're entitled to and they deserve.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

So there is no news about the date of the transfer. There have been no developments on this for three years now. Is it about to be done, or not? Do you have no information for us?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

The agreement in principle is set with the Government of Quebec. As you know, the provincial government in Quebec is, at the moment, also restructuring their governance of health care and health care administration across the province. That will be part of the conversation leading up to the actual transfer date in the future. But an agreement in principle has been struck, and I think both sides are satisfied that the needs of the veterans will be met. At the same time, Quebec will be gaining a facility that is world class and will integrate well into their provincial and regional system of health.

[The Chair, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Mr. Hawn.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both our witnesses for being here.

Minister, I want to thank you especially for relating your presentation to the actual legislation. I do fully expect, as Mr. Lemieux has said, that as part of the BIA, when that rolls out, that section will come to this committee for discussion. That would just make sense.

I want to follow up a little bit on Mr. Hayes' point. As you said, the process is entirely normal. Every government has followed the same process. In fact, in the last year that the previous government was in position, they lapsed $116 million for Veterans Affairs by exactly the same process. This is absolutely normal. The analogy I've used is that it's like a line of credit. You get a line of credit, and if you don't spend it all that year because it didn't get drawn down for whatever reason, then the line of credit gets renewed the next year.

Is that a fair analogy?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

That's a good analogy, absolutely.

You draw upon it. Your goal is to clear exactly what you need. You then go back to Parliament if you think there's some special allocation needed, but your goal is to actually estimate exactly. You should always estimate a little more so you don't have to go back to Parliament.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

To suggest that somehow veterans have been shortchanged by $1.3 billion over the last year is just plain false. Is that fair to say?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Absolutely.

This is a story that every once in a while, in a slow news cycle, comes up with all departments. They will say where the government didn't spend money. It's actually a case where there was an estimate and that estimate was not met. When it comes to Veterans Affairs, on average, compared to when we formed government, about $700 million more each year is spent. It's just spent, in many cases, in different ways.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Any government department that budgets within 2% is actually doing a pretty darn fine job. Is that also fair to say?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

I think Treasury Board and the process of the public accounts looks at this closely. I think 1% to 2% is the gold star that departments try to shoot for. As I said, you always want to be a little bit over so that you don't have to go back to Parliament for funds. But you don't want to be too much over, because then it really isn't a solid estimate. If it is way too high, you should go back and ask where the forecasting, as part of the estimates, was off. You should always learn from the estimates process and the public accounts. But in some cases, particularly—as I mentioned to Mr. Hayes—the demographic changes of our WW II and Korean veterans, you really can't build those into the process. At each estimate cycle you have to try to readjust.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you for that.

I want to follow that with the whole issue of this being a work in progress. We're always going to be changing. In 1938 we didn't know we'd have hundreds of thousands of World War II vets. In 1949 we didn't know we'd have thousands of Korean War vets. In 2000 we didn't know we'd have thousands of Afghanistan vets. It is a work in progress and we're always trying to adapt.

To a point that was made earlier about the ombudsman briefing the committee in April about some of the things that weren't done, as I pointed out in the House yesterday, that was in April. In June we tabled the report from this committee, which contained 14 recommendations, all of which are being addressed. You have brought in more measures beyond even what the committee had recommended, which is certainly laudable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

On a point of order, Mr. Valeriote, go ahead.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That report of which I spoke was in April of this year, well after our recommendations were filed—the report of the veterans ombudsman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Thank you, Mr. Valeriote.

Go ahead, Mr. Hawn.