Evidence of meeting #12 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 know.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Okay. I want to ask a question that's outside the box.
The new Veterans Charter is nothing but a new public policy, and public policy experts suggest that we wait five or 10 years before evaluating public policy. That's what we're doing right now and what the other committee was doing in its work. I think we can probably partly conclude that this public policy has a lot more failure than success.
The old system that was the invalidity pension was there to serve the financial needs, and I think it was quite simple. It worked. I might be wrong. The new Veterans Charter served two goals: to meet the financial needs of the veterans—so that was the same as the old pension—but also to meet the needs for the physical and mental problems, which was a new aspect in 2006.
To get to the outside-the-box question, should we just go back to the old system? Is this public policy just not good at all? Do we need to just go back to the invalidity pension?
President and Founder, Canadian Veterans Advocacy
No, and I would like to clarify here. When we talk about financial support, you have to differentiate between the pain and suffering award and the actual obligation you have to provide economic stability through the income replacement program. These are two separate issues.
When we talk of the Pension Act, that pension I get every month for life, that 45% for my back and ears, is a pain and suffering award. By court ruling, it should never ever be considered in an income loss replacement equation. We have to take that out of the equation right away.
The new Veterans Charter brought in some significant improvements. It's not all bad. The major issue was on the sacred obligation, and that obligation is to respect pain and sacrifice equally. If you're going to bring in a lump sum award, it has to be equal to what I receive as a pension, because no veteran should receive less than I do when he's lost his legs or other parts of his body or has suffered a serious mental wound. It's not parity. There must be equality in recognition of national sacrifice, and the benchmarks have been set by the Pension Act on the pain and suffering award.
Now, there's a discrepancy, depending on how long these guys live. It could be a million or two million dollars through time. If they live to 90 and were seriously injured at 25, we're talking about many years of pain and suffering awards.
I think it's important that we differentiate the two. I think it's important that we identify the good things in the new Veterans Charter. I think the issues that we brought up are important, like bumping up the 90%, like making that disability award at least up to $360,000, with the discussion of going back to the Pension Act. We are moving in the right direction. As far as the policy goes, I think they should have done it five years ago.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to touch on a couple of things you said, Mr. Blais. Perhaps Monsieur Chartrand will also comment.
In terms of transition from DND to Veterans Affairs, did you have any issues with regard to SISIP, the JPSU, or even VRAB? I've heard the review board mentioned.
Sylvain Chartrand Director, Canadian Veterans Advocacy
For me personally, yes. The problem when you transition is that it depends on if your unit will send you to the JPSU or keep you. That's one issue. If you're under JPSU.... If you're a reservist like me, now you have to do a hunger strike while you're serving to get help, which I did in 2009.
I didn't go through SISIP. I went through the workers' board for compensation, because a reservist is a public servant, even if he's in the military, so I went through the Government Employees Compensation Act, or workers' board compensation, which not many are aware of. For me, the transition with VAC went pretty smoothly then, because I know the process. I know how to get information. I know how to navigate the system. Not many know, and that's a big issue.
President and Founder, Canadian Veterans Advocacy
I will say just quickly, Irene, that I'm on the old system, and when I've spoken to SISIP, I have never ever had a problem with their services. As you know, we speak to that issue, but the problems I've had with Veterans Affairs could have been resolved if there had been proactive outreach when I got out, because I didn't hear from them for a long time. I got medals in the mail. It was just like I was gone, and that breeds discontent. It really does. You have to be proactive.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
When we send our young men and women into combat to Afghanistan or into peacekeeping, there's a great sense of the country doing something quite remarkable, but then when they come back broken, that's a human tragedy.
Were those responsible for looking after military personnel unprepared? Did they underestimate what it would mean to try to put back these lives and these families...?
President and Founder, Canadian Veterans Advocacy
I don't think they understood the repercussions of going to war in Afghanistan or the repercussions of the mental wounds that our young men and women would sustain. No, they were not prepared. As they attempt and struggle to cope with the problems, we've had suicides. We don't track suicides in the veterans community. Yes, we know that there are over 170 dead in the military community, but how many veterans...? How many veterans out there just got frustrated to the point that they walked off in the woods, as Kimberly said, and didn't come home? That's why it's so important.
If we leave any message today, it's that this proactive posture must be adopted, because it does prevent suicide. It does prevent frustration. It does bring you into the fold. When they call you, you're not abandoned. You don't feel adrift when a case manager phones up and asks you how you are and how you're feeling and says that it's just a courtesy call. A courtesy call? I've never had a courtesy call. No one is asking me how I've been feeling.
I think that's the way we move forward. It has to be a personal touch. It has to be proactive engagement.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
We're going to have to stop there.
Ms. Davis, you have your hand up. I could give you 20 seconds, and then we're going to move to another round of questioning with three minutes each.
Director, Canadian Caregivers Brigade
Okay, it's 20 seconds. I'll be really quick.
We're talking about the newly discharged, those who are just coming out of the system right now, but how many veterans who were released on normal category are left out there not knowing that they can turn to VAC? They're turning to these peer support groups asking for help because they don't know who else to turn to to hear about them.
VAC needs to step up and do a six-month to one-to-two-year call list of anyone being released. How many of them are leaving, mental wounds hidden, and being released as normal category? That's what happened to my husband. He was released normal.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
Thank you.
Ms. Wagantall, we have three minutes and we'll start with you.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Thank you very much.
I only have three minutes, so I'm going to direct this to Kimberly, first of all, but if others can help out, that would be great too.
I appreciate, Matthew, what you said about “suck it up” and that whole mentality of the Canadian Armed Forces. I have a good friend who was in the forces in the '80s and was able eventually to talk about it. I understand that you need to be trained to behave a certain way. There's no way you'd get me to go over that hill or jump in that water without having someone doing some significant work on convincing me of all the reasons that I needed to do this.
What I'm also hearing is that they come back and they think they still have to suck it up, we don't know how to deal with that.
My question for you, Kimberly, is this. You had to convince your husband that he had issues, so if the Canadian Forces have a responsibility to train their soldiers to suck it up and to behave in that mentality, is there not a role there then for them when they end up injured and in JPSU? They're not sent back in, but they're given a release date and they're about to face a total change in lifestyle, in their whole thinking. Is there not a responsibility then to...?
Somehow we must have an ability to undo that psychological training, get them to a healthy state, and know all of the things that are available to them before they're released and someone says, “No, they're not ready yet.”
Director, Canadian Caregivers Brigade
A lot of the members who are joining, a lot of the members.... Even Mr. Harris was saying he joined when he was 19. My husband joined when he was 19. These are still formable years of learning how to do things in life. You're jumping into a military culture where they're telling you, “This is how you're going to do it. If you don't like it, you don't have a choice.”
All through my husband's military career he heard the words, “sick”, “lame”, and “lazy”. You cannot be sick, lame, or lazy. That sticks with me because I said, “But honey, you're sick. You need help.” He was released in 2001. He was diagnosed with PTSD in 2011. For 10 years I said, “Dear, we need to go get help. There's something not right here.” From a spouse's perspective....
I hear from a lot of spouses, “What should I do about my husband? What should I do? What should I do?” I say, “You really can only take care of yourself and give them examples of what they're doing that does not make sense to you.” You can't sit there and push. It's like the old adage: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Liberal
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Would it have been beneficial to him to have some kind of support, though?
I've mentioned this before: anyone who goes into these roles and experiences something in their service is going to have issues to deal with. You talked about sick, lame, and lazy. Can they not do something and take responsibility to readjust their thinking and their processing so that it's not sick, lame, and lazy, but instead “I've done an amazing thing. I've served and I'm not lazy. I have an opportunity here to rehabilitate, rejuvenate, and serve my country in another way.”
Administrator, Send Up the Count, Facebook Group, As an Individual
Can I jump in and answer that really briefly?
Administrator, Send Up the Count, Facebook Group, As an Individual
Sorry; I just want to say something really quickly.
At the Royal Military College—I was a graduate of 2011—there were two suicides in the last two weeks because of cadets not being able to handle the stress, because you're not taught enough when it's time to stop and drop the suck-it-up attitude and ask for help. That's the problem. You're not taught enough that it is okay to actually ask for help. That's the issue.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
Thank you very much.
I want to first thank Mr. Blais for bringing up the point that injury compensation is not income. I think it's really important for everybody to understand that clearly. It's only compensating for an injury, doing the best that money can for pain and suffering. It has absolutely nothing to do with income. We need to keep that straight in our minds when we're talking about income support and entitlements that veterans have earned as a result of their service. Thank you for mentioning that.
Further to my exchange earlier with Mr. Blais, I'd like to turn to Ms. Davis and ask her a question to follow up on what she said earlier about there often being financial difficulties in understanding budgeting and all of these sorts of things with veterans.
I think you said that one of the services that's offered, but not required, is the $500 available to seek out a professional expert to help with financial matters. I'm wondering if you think this is something that on a very basic level a case manager might be able to do, with adequate training, in order to meet with the veteran and go through some simple budgeting with them, or if that already takes place, or if it is something you believe might be helpful.