Veterans Affairs Committee on June 12th, 2019

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Pardon...?

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

No. There were 400 in the budget going forward when we lost the election, so you haven't invested more funds.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

I just have to answer that question. The fact is that you fired a thousand people, employees from Veterans Affairs Canada.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

But you haven't rehired them—

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

I'm sorry, but we're going to have to move on. We're out of time.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Yes, we have. We have rehired near 500 caseworkers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Minister, I'm sorry. We're on a tight timetable. We are out of time.

Mr. Bratina will share with Mr. Chen.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. MacAulay, could you finish what you were saying?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

I don't want to be political, but the facts are the facts. The point is that there were a thousand employees fired. There were less than 200 caseworkers in Veterans Affairs. Does that create a problem? Yes, it creates a problem. Are we working on it? You have to start where you are, and that's where we were when we took over government.

Now we have between 450 and 500 caseworkers. We have actually hired about 700 extra, but the fact is that the demand on the department is even larger than it was then. The application process has increased. There's the 60% increase in applications, which creates work, but then we want to digitize the process. We want to make it faster, and we will. It takes time. We want to be able to push a button and immediately get the papers from the doctor for the client. That's the type of thing. We have to digitize the system so that it works smoothly. When it all happens, it's more efficient, but we can't tell if it's going to continue to increase or to decrease. We don't know, but we have to be ready.

The deputy would like to add something.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Please.

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

First of all, with regard to case managers, as I mentioned before, we're onboarding them as quickly as we can. We're also again trying to change the triage system as to who needs case management and who needs guided support.

As the minister indicated, we received surge funding and we've hired not only additional case managers but additional adjudicators.

In terms of the backlog, the backlog is in the order of 18,000. The number of 40,000 is for all of the files that are currently in the department, no matter whether they've been waiting a week or a longer period of time beyond the standard, but the backlog is in the order of 18,000.

What we've been able to do is to get surge funding to assist us in terms of getting more adjudicators and case managers while we try to do some other things, because it's not only about people. As the minister indicated, we're trying to digitize as much as we can. It used to take us weeks to get medical files and service files. We're trying to do it digitally and link in to the Canadian Armed Forces or Library and Archives.

We're also trying to take a much more presumptive approach.... I know that the lawyers in the room may not like the term “presumptive”, but with regard to mental health, we're being much more, I guess, open to the notion that someone who has served and gone through a difficult time, as a result of that has a bona fide diagnosis, and we're approving it at a rate of over 90%.

The other thing we're doing, especially for those veterans who have served in pretty physically demanding trades, is that we're using a cumulative joint trauma tool. For example, for an infantryman who has hundreds of parachute jumps, the likelihood is that he or she could have difficulty with their ankles, knees, hips, back, neck and shoulders. Again, we're trying to expedite it in that way.

What we are also doing is using the My VAC Account in order to—again—expedite the whole application system. One of our problems is that some of the applications don't come in complete, and we have to go to and fro and back to the veteran trying to get a diagnosis. Through using this pension for life digital tool, the system, kind of like your taxes, only accepts it when the application is complete.

The last piece is closing the seam with the Canadian Armed Forces. About 24% of all of our clientele are still serving in the Canadian Armed Forces. By closing the seam of the Canadian Armed Forces, we can get all of this work done while these men and women are still in uniform. They have their pay and they have some of the best medical care in the country. Let's get everything done before they take off the uniform.

It's all of these steps that we're going through in order to see what the trend is if we put all of this into place and then what is in our enduring model in terms of the workforce as we project over the next few years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Mr. Chen, you have two minutes.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister and General, for being here today.

I want to continue the questioning from my colleague Ms. Ludwig with respect to women veterans.

We heard from the veterans ombudsman earlier this week. He said to our committee that he had had the chance to speak to a number of women veterans and women advocates, and it's clear that a number of the programs and services they have access to were not designed specifically with women service members or women veterans in mind.

I know that our government has talked about running government policies, programs and services through gender-based analysis plus. Can you speak to how GBA+ may have been used to evaluate current programs for women veterans and how we can improve those services so that women can have greater access and be better included?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Number one, it's important for the ombudsman to highlight this. Number two, we had the conference for women veterans in Charlottetown. All of this brings together the issues they're facing. What we want to do as a government and as the Department of Veterans Affairs is to make sure that all programs are fully open and accessible and in the right setup for women veterans. That will be done. What problems are there will be dealt with.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Wonderful.

I also want to thank the minister and the general for their work in supporting the Highway of Heroes. Highway 401 runs through my riding of Scarborough North. Earlier this year, on January 31, I wrote to Finance Minister Bill Morneau to encourage the government's support of this very important project that will see two million trees planted honouring our veterans, our brave servicemen and servicewomen, 117,000 of whom have paid the ultimate sacrifice. That investment is incredibly helpful. I want to highlight your comments, Minister, when you said earlier today that the best way to learn history is to ensure it lives on, and this initiative certainly does that.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

I couldn't agree more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

You're out of time, Mr. Chen. Thank you.

Mr. Kitchen.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister and General, it's good to see you again. Thank you for being here.

A year ago, the number of veterans waiting to get access was 30,000. Wait times were 16 weeks. I think I heard today, General, that you said it's now up to 32 weeks. Ultimately, last year the government committed $42 million, plus hiring more front-line staff, to improve that. What did it do? It's up to 40,000. It's almost like climbing up a ladder and then falling down.

My question to you is this. What did you get out of that? You put in $42 million and you've increased the backlog.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

You're right. The fact is, as I said before, there's an over 60% increase in applications for the services of Veterans Affairs. I'm not going to repeat it again, but you know what the situation was with caseworkers and with employees. We have addressed that as well as we can. We're working on the digitization of the department to make sure we'll make it quicker.

The fact is that we have a lot more applications for service because we are saying yes to more customers at Veterans Affairs Canada. That's why it's so important that this money is properly used and we digitize the system and make it faster.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

But it's not accomplishing what you want, so—

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

We're—

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

—you're putting money in and throwing money away.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

I have to answer—

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Sorry, I'm short on time.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

In all fairness you have to let me answer the question. We're not throwing money away at all.