Evidence of meeting #103 for Veterans Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was year.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

General  Retired) Walter Natynczyk (Deputy Minister, Department of Veterans Affairs
Karen Ludwig  New Brunswick Southwest, Lib.
Michel Doiron  Assistant Deputy Minister, Service Delivery, Department of Veterans Affairs
Charlotte Bastien  Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Oversight and Communications, Department of Veterans Affairs
Rear-Admiral  Retired) Elizabeth Stuart (Assistant Deputy Minister, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Services, Department of Veterans Affairs
Bernard Butler  Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Commemoration, Department of Veterans Affairs
Richard Martel  Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, CPC

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Phil McColeman

I'm going to have to cut you off. I'd love to hear the story of the Legion and going there, but we are over time on that significantly.

The next slot is a Conservative slot, and I'm going to begin it. As the chair, that's my prerogative. I'm just going to ask one question of the minister.

This committee did a study on transitioning from the military to civilian life and dealing with Veterans Affairs, and the report was unanimous. All recommendations were recommended. You received it, and you came back to refuse to accept one recommendation, and that was something that was advocated for by the former DND ombudsman, Gary Walbourne. You said no to what we recommended, which was that there should be an ability to get an attestation from the defence department that would confirm that a veteran's disability—if they were disabled—was attributable to their service.

Why did you say no to that?

4:15 p.m.

Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk

The issue, sir, is that only about 25% of our clients come to us while they're still in service. The Canadian Armed Forces' surgeon general's responsibility is to get those men and women—those sailors, soldiers, airmen and airwomen—as healthy as possible and get them back to units right away. Working closely with the Canadian Armed Forces and the surgeon general, their view and our view was to have one standard of assessment of service, and non-service-related injury was the more appropriate way. Seventy-five per cent of our clients come to us after they've left service. To have two standards, so to speak, of judgment of whether it was service or non-service was less than efficient or effective.

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Phil McColeman

Mr. Walbourne maintains that this could be a simple fix—no cost or very low cost—to speeding up decisions on claims if it could be attributed. That's why this committee put that recommendation to you in there. Were you aware of that, that this was the testimony we heard from witnesses? They said this is a good idea even though, as you say, it doesn't encompass everyone.

4:20 p.m.

Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk

Sir, I would just like to add that we are working very closely with the Canadian Armed Forces to get all of that work done while people are still in uniform. The effect that you heard as a committee will be achieved so that all the homework is done before people transition. As the chief of defence staff has mentioned, we need to ensure that prior to someone's release, if indeed they're coming forward for a medical release, be it service or non-service, we get all that work done as effectively and quickly as we can, sir.

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Phil McColeman

Okay.

I'm going to yield the balance of my time to Mr. Johns.

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Thank you, Mr. McColeman.

I'm going to go back to case managers. Can you tell the committee how many job cuts the last government made in the department, and how many of those were case managers? It shouldn't be a long answer. It should be a short one.

4:20 p.m.

Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk

Sir, I don't have the details of any of that. I would just say that again we're working very hard to find the best case managers—social workers—coast to coast. I know when I got into the job we had just under about 200 case managers. Over the past few years, we have hired such that we have more than 400 case managers today. My colleagues will be here at the table in a few minutes and they may have more detail. We'll have to come back to you—

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Is it my understanding there were 1,000 before?

4:20 p.m.

Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk

I think it's important that we drill down on numbers because the transfer of Ste. Anne's Hospital involved a significant number of employees. There were also, through a whole number of exercises over the past few years, others.

I just want to clarify, Mr. Johns. From my understanding, they were not all at the front end of case management. There was corporate services. There were a number of areas. As well, when we leveraged civilian contractors with regard to—

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Clearly, we don't have enough right now. What is the current case manager to client ratio?

4:20 p.m.

Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk

My understanding at this moment, sir, is that we're in the order of 32:1 or 33:1.

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Twenty-five is the target.

4:20 p.m.

Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk

Our target remains 25:1. As I mentioned before, we have now more than 400 case managers. My understanding is that we're hiring another 50. I have met many of the new case managers coast to coast who have come in either from other departments or actually from the schoolhouses, from colleges and universities. What we try to do is ramp them up. I've met some case managers with higher numbers than others.

The other thing we're trying to do—

4:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Phil McColeman

I'm sorry. Time is up.

I'm going to put it out to the committee at this point because I'd like to stop the rotation, if that's okay. We have approximately seven minutes left. I'd like to put it out to the committee that I'll take a single question from any member on either side—if you have a single question. I'll offer the first single question to the Liberal side.

Mr. Samson.

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS

Thank you.

Mr. Minister, you spoke about pension for life. I've heard from many veterans in my riding that they're very excited and waiting for their pension for life. You talked about the $1,150 for pain and suffering, but I'd like you to talk about the other pieces. In actuality, depending on your needs, you could have the additional pain and suffering compensation or you could have the income replacement benefit, which would be even greater. You used the example of 25 years old to 75 years old, which is almost $700,000. That's just under category one of pain and suffering. Could you just expand on the other two categories, please?

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Seamus O'Regan Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL

In some categories, as opposed to what it was in 2015 when the maximum would have been about $315,000, now you're looking at, for some, depending on circumstances, over the course of their lifetime, it being $3 million.

We will continue to offer a certain amount of money, $500, I think, one time, so that you can get financial assistance to determine that this is what you want to do. It's really important to point out. We keep saying “option”. As a default we're definitely going to be nudging people towards pension for life because we know as, I think, many Canadians knew when we were all grappling with the lump sum, that it is simply financially more stable to have a monthly amount. Walt could tell you stories about going to see an injured soldier in hospital and the family members saying, “Please don't give him that full amount”, but at the time, that's what he or she was entitled to.

Now we have a far more lucrative option for them, one that I think will add to wellness, because of that monthly...and because of all the other benefits and vocational rehabilitation that will come with it. It is a significant outlay. It is $3.6 billion from the treasury that will be going towards pension for life. That's out of the $10 billion that we have put towards new benefits and services since coming to office. This is significant.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Phil McColeman

Thank you, Minister. That's two minutes. I hope to keep these under two minutes so we can get as many as we can in.

Mr. Brassard.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON

I'm going to take 30 seconds, and then I'm going to pass it over to Mr. Kitchen.

Minister, will you do me a favour and send a message to the Prime Minister? Will you do that for me? Tell him next time he tweets about $50 million to Trevor Noah to think about the impact that has on veterans in this country who are fighting with their government for service dogs, who are living day by day with PTSD, their lives literally in the balance, and tell him to think about that next time he sends an irresponsible tweet like that. Maybe that money can be better spent on veterans and service dogs.

Mr. Kitchen.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Phil McColeman

Thank you, John. I said one per member.

Mr. Johns.

4:25 p.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

My question is when. When do you expect Veterans Affairs Canada to meet the 25:1 client to case manager ratio? When will that happen? What's the plan?

4:25 p.m.

Liberal

Seamus O'Regan Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL

Mr. Johns, if I could give you a date, I would. All I can say is that we're working full forward on it. We are hiring people as quickly as we possibly can within the federal civil service. It is very easy to let these people go. It is very difficult to hire them back.

4:25 p.m.

Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk

Can I also say, Mr. Johns, that what we're doing as well is hiring as quickly as we can and getting folks through a training school to standardize training.

The other thing we're doing is actually looking at each individual veteran. When I meet with case managers, I ask them how many of their cases—and often they have a number between 35 and 40—they actually have to engage with, to support on a weekly basis and so on. Generally the number is much lower than that higher number.

One of the things we have to do is to say who out there is at medium risk or high risk and how do we triage them? Sometimes, just through our processes, if somebody's on a vocational rehab program, we automatically give them a case manager when indeed they're doing really well. Some are master's students or Ph.D. students. We've met ordinary seamen who are going to university and we're providing them a case manager.

We are starting a new program. It will be coming out in the next little while. We've been piloting it for a little while. It's called guided support. We're taking veterans service agents who have a number of files and saying we need to have them now support those veterans who are no longer at a high risk because they're graduating—they're actually moving forward—and provide them support to transition them until we know for certain that they're low risk, recognizing that things can turn around and if they do, we'll get them back to case management. It's a much more agile system than we have right now.

At the same time, we are hiring the best social workers we can. We're attracting them from the provinces, attracting them from anywhere and training them up. It's basically a multi-layered approach to addressing this need. We do know that with our case managers, the probability that someone will be re-established, have purpose and move on with their well-being is much higher.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Phil McColeman

Thank you, gentlemen. That wraps up the hour. Thank you for coming. Thank you for responding under the gun. This is good for our democracy. We appreciate your being here.

Next time could you maybe consider two hours, Minister? It would send a great signal to the committee and to Parliament if you would. We were told today that these are independent committees, so let's make it independent and let's make it innovative by having a minister come in for two hours. It's just a suggestion but please consider it.

4:25 p.m.

Liberal

Seamus O'Regan Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL

Done.

4:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative Phil McColeman

Thank you, General Natynczyk, for your service to our country and for your continued guidance to our veterans.