Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 19th, 2013

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, your department is closing nine centres. That affects 26,788 veterans. A lot of the veterans are saying they don't want these centres to be closed.

Of the centres that are to be closed, for example Sydney, people will have to travel to Halifax. I'm not sure if you have ever done that trip. I had the opportunity to do it. It's about a four-and-a-half to five-hour drive. People from Windsor will have to drive to London. That's a two-hour drive.

A lot of the veterans, especially the older ones, don't have access to a computer. They don't have access to the 1-800 number. When you are 80 or 85 years old and you dial the 1-800 number, and hear “press one, press two”, some people get frustrated.

The other thing is, these veterans fought in order to put us in front of the line.

Sir, I put it to you that your department is making these veterans go to the back of the line because when you tell them to go to the Service Canada centre, a lot of the Service Canada centres are not equipped to deal with the veterans' needs. The veterans are asked to use the phone and to call the 1-800 number and usually they get the 1-800 number for Service Canada. I'm not sure if you yourself have dialed it, but if you haven't, I suggest you do.

One of my questions to you, sir, is why don't you take a trip down to Sydney? Look the veterans in the eye. Ronald Clarke, for example, he's a good Tory; tell him you're closing the centres. We've got some vets in this room. Maybe you want to look them in their eyes and say you're closing their centres.

Further, your department in 2009 ordered 27,388 medical records. These are boxes. I'm not sure if in one box there is one veteran, or two, or three, but usually in one box you probably have two or three, but let's say for the sake of argument you have three. That translates to about 90,000 veterans whose medical records were destroyed. Are you going to tell me that some of them were people who had passed away?

Sir, I put it to you that there are records in there of people who are alive. One of them is trying to get his records. He couldn't get his records, and neither could others. There are a lot of veterans out there who want to get their records, but they're scared to come forward because of what is happening in your department.

Medical files are being breached. I'll give you a couple of examples: Dennis Manuge, Sean Bruyea, Harold Leduc. These people's medical files were breached. People are scared to come forward and ask for their medical records and to say, “Am I alive as far as you're concerned, or am I dead?” I put to you that Kenneth Young is very much alive and yet your department thinks he's dead because you destroyed his medical records.

Minister, would you go to Sydney, Nova Scotia, look the vets in the eye and say, "I'm not going to close your centres" or look them in the eye and say, "Yes, I'm closing your centres"?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

The one thing I would do, Mr. Karygiannis, is not be an alarmist. I wouldn't be conveying false and inappropriate information such as you appear to be.

I don't want to get into a battle of words with you, but you need to make an apology for the way you have been speaking about veterans. You also need to clean up your act with respect to how you convey information. You are unnecessarily alarming people.

Whatever disposition is made of records, it is made pursuant to the records retention guidelines, rules, and regulations. Also, those that are in the purview of the Privacy Commissioner....

You choose to go off and alarm people unnecessarily, and it's shame on you, because the one thing you should be doing is be helpful and not sabotage the good efforts that so many people are making to help and support our veterans, to be understanding and make progress, in terms of the things that we need to do—

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Minister, would you answer the question?

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

Will you let me answer? I'm answering now.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Answer the question, please.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

Mr. Chair, he asked a question; I think I'm entitled to answer.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Yes, sir.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

What you need to do is better inform yourself about exactly what are in fact the rules, the regulations, the concepts, the policies, and also of course the commitment that people at Veterans Affairs Canada are making to support and deal with veterans; not constantly nag and misinform and create a moral panic on issues that really do not exist, for your own political agenda—

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

I'll stop it right there. Your five minutes are up, Mr. Karygiannis.

Committee, I always ask for respect from the members of the committee to the witnesses, and also from the witnesses to the committee.

Mr. Minister, with great respect, you did use the term “clean up your act”. As the chair, I find that slightly unparliamentary. I know that is not what you personally meant to say, so I will give you a chance to phrase that in a different way for the record, if you wish.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

The application and the references about not creating a moral panic where one does not exist, not misinforming, and not creating difficulty among vulnerable people, many of whom are veterans who need to have accurate, precise, concise information that does not give them a false impression—

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Mr. Minister, my point was clear. You stated clearly on the record to “clean up your act”. That is not something I would ask a committee member to say to a minister and it is not something I would ask a witness to say to a committee member.

If we can't have respect all the way around, and I understand about a good verbal banter back and forth—I've been involved in it myself a lot—but the term “clean up your act”, in my personal view, is not acceptable in a committee.

I would remind everyone in the future, to please—

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Chair—

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

No, Mr. Karygiannis.

I'll just leave it at that for now. I will caution everyone to watch the terminology, the language, and what it may mean. This is all on the public record and we don't want to impugn the motives or reputations of anyone in this particular regard.

At this time, we will now move on to the government.

Mr. Hayes, please, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, welcome.

I appreciate the efforts your department is doing to provide training to Service Canada centre personnel. My riding in Sault Ste. Marie never had a Veterans Affairs office; it was always in North Bay. Now the folks in Sault Ste. Marie can go to the Service Canada centre to receive pertinent information specific to Veterans Affairs. I want you to know that they appreciate it.

Also, Minister, I want to thank you on behalf of the Korean War vets in my riding, for your efforts with respect to the recognition of Canadian Korean War veterans. I had an opportunity to host a great event in my riding in partnership with the Legion. In Sault Ste. Marie we had 23 Korean War vets come out, and I hosted a lunch and presented your certificates and had speeches.

I have a picture here of that particular event, and I'll be sure to send an electronic version to your office. Once again, I want to thank you for your efforts.

With regard to my first question, and Mr. Chicoine alluded to it, you stated that veterans now have access to $75,800 for post-secondary education and trades training or certification. Having supported paying for both of my sons' university tuitions, that is an appropriate amount. That covers four years of education.

I want to get a sense of how this is different from the previous amount and what was previously in place.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

We had a similar program that was nowhere near as generous. The former program had limits. I believe it was in the area of $20,000. There was a great amount of technical work requiring receipts for every expenditure, even minor expenditures. A lot of processing work was required; I would call it a lot of red tape.

This is a bundled amount, which can include a variety of things that a veteran or their surviving spouse can claim for but not have to go through the intimate detailing and processing of every receipt. It's a bundled amount that can be for education, upscaling existing qualifications for a job that a veteran or spouse would be pursuing, or it could be a new trade.

This is a complementary program that also works with the likes of the True Patriot Love programs, the Helmets to Hardhats, the construction unions, those kinds of things.

That's the big difference. This has eliminated, I believe it was a million and change, documentations, transactions, that had to be processed. It's not only more flexible for veterans and surviving spouses, but it's also less cumbersome and less bureaucratic.

Deputy?

[Mary Chaput, Deputy Minister, Department of Veterans Affairs]

If I may add to what the minister has said, the program improvement that I think is most beneficial to the veterans who avail themselves of it is the removal of those item-by-item maximums. An example would be the program as previously designed had a maximum for Internet access worth $25 a month. Over time we all know access to Internet per month costs much more than that. By virtue of that rigidity in the program, just one example, a veteran would have had to pursue an exceptions process to get exceptional approval for Internet charges in excess of $25. By eliminating the item-by-item maximums, we've eliminated much of those exceptional approvals and thereby have made the program much more fluid and useful to the veteran.

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

Thank you.

Is that my time?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

You have 45 seconds.

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

Forty-five seconds, thank you.

In 2013 the government made changes to the veterans independence program, which allows our veterans to remain in their homes longer with the dignity they deserve. I'd like to get a sense of what those changes were and how those changes will affect those in need.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

The deputy alluded to some of that, whereby we've eliminated the need for our veterans to provide individual receipts. Some of these were for minor activities, such as grass cutting and snow shovelling. In essence, it eliminated 1.2 million transactions that were in play before. I think it's a great advantage. It processes things much more quickly. It reduces layers of red tape and makes us all more efficient. This is a great benefit not only to our veterans but also to taxpayers who are not having to fund things that are not very productive.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Thank you, Mr. Minister and Mr. Hayes.

We'll now move on to Mr. Chisholm for five minutes, please. Welcome to the committee.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I'm pleased to happen to be here today. I'm replacing John Rafferty, who unfortunately couldn't be here. It's my good fortune that I'm here at a time when you and your officials are here to present to this committee. I have a couple of things I want to ask you about.

One is the Dennis Manuge case about the clawback of the SISIP. I understand the clawback was stopped and that there was some question about paying back the money that was clawed back retroactively. Whether it was when you were last here or your predecessor was here, a decision had not been made to begin that retroactive payment. I wonder if you could clarify that for me, please.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

Yes, thank you. As we speak, a decision has not been made. The matter is under consideration. We're alive to the issues that are impacting the item, but as of now I can't give you a definitive answer other than that the matter is under consideration.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Just to interject for a second, the SISIP one Mr. Chisholm talked about was dealt with, but I believe you're both referring to the earnings loss benefit.

[Julian Fantino, Conservative, Vaughan, ON]

Yes.