Veterans Affairs Committee on June 12th, 2019

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Ms. Ludwig.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

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

About 10 years ago, I had a contract through the university to do training with the Canadian Forces. Actually, we did some weekends in Halifax. It was to train the trainers. It was military faculty who were teaching members. It was based on consistency, so no matter where someone was in Canada—and they were receiving online training, for example—they would get the same quality outcomes no matter where it was being delivered.

I'm wondering where we are with that today, because we have heard from different witnesses before the committee that the training and skills they received and the vocations they were practising within the Canadian Forces are not always recognized in civilian life. I'm wondering where we are with that transition.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Of course, training is vitally important. I think that would be the deputy's line, but we're going to make sure that we have people well trained.

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

Perhaps I can approach this in two ways. One, in terms of the Canadian Armed Forces, what you're talking about is the prior learning and the certification—

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Exactly.

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

—of the various trades and qualifications across the Canadian Armed Forces. That question really is in the domain of the Canadian Armed Forces. Even though I know a lot about that, I would be very cautious about going down that path. I can just say the Canadian Armed Forces has made a huge amount of progress in the training they are providing to their men and women and having that recognized by the various professions across the country.

In terms of Veterans Affairs, over the past few years, again, one of the conclusions coming out of this committee was to ensure that we had standardized training for our case managers and our veterans service agents, professional follow-on training for our medical professionals, and so on. As a result of the feedback from this committee, we have instituted a national orientation training program that is provided to all of those case managers. One of the issues here is how quickly we can ramp up these folks so that they have all of the tools to support our veterans. We're putting folks through what I'm calling a “boot camp” for Veterans Affairs.

I would also say to you—again, you may want to ask our assistant deputy ministers about this when they come to the table—that prior to the launch of the pension for life, we brought in 800 employees, the case managers and veterans service agents, to the same schoolhouse. We were able to provide them with education—which, again, came out of this committee—in a formatted, standardized training program. We're still learning about the systems and so on, but we have normalized training coast to coast.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Okay. Thank you.

My next question is about the My VAC Account. That's been in place for a couple of years. Do you have any measurement on both the uptake and the outcomes?

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

The My VAC Account is our online portal for all veterans, their families and survivors to be able to communicate with Veterans Affairs. We've been able to make it a much more sophisticated, intuitive, user-friendly tool, engaging with veterans, with the users, to make sure it actually communicates the information to them in the way they wish to use it.

I think about five years ago we started off the system. My latest data point is that we have 95,000 veterans, family members and survivors who are using the My VAC Account. We are using these various benefits that have come in—an example would be the education and training benefit with the career transition service—to provide some of those services there. Veterans can go into any of our offices. Many like to use the phone. All of that is there as well.

To give you an example of the career transition service, one veteran applied early in the morning, was approved within the hour and that afternoon was contacted for career transition. It's allowing us to use a digital connection between that veteran and his or her service records, his or her medical records, and accelerate the process. To go back to the question about what we're doing, in terms of accelerating services, we want to leverage this digitization in order to assist our employees to provide that quality service to our veterans and their families.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Okay. Thank you.

We had the ombudsman in recently—on Monday, I think.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Yes, it was Monday.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

He spoke specifically about women who are veterans. They don't always self-identify as veterans, and maybe they're less likely to reach out for services. Is there any plan in terms of extending that a little deeper and finding a path for the women veterans?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

About three or four weeks ago, we had a women veterans conference in the department in Charlottetown. We had women veterans from right across the country attend that conference. It was very successful. It spreads the word right across the country so that they're fully aware of what's open to women veterans. We are encouraging them all the time to become involved.

We also indicated quite clearly that this conference will continue so that women veterans feel comfortable and are fully aware that they played a major role. It's important that they're treated exactly the same, and that's what we want to do. Was there a problem? Yes, there was. We're trying to deal with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you, Minister.

Ms. Wagantall.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, it concerns me that it took you so long to determine whether or not families of veterans were concerned about Christopher Garnier's scenario and its impacting them. Believe me, it did impact them. As a matter of fact, it was very clear very quickly that they were very unhappy with this service being provided to him, a non-vet and not a dependent of a veteran's family.

I want to ask you a question specifically in regard to a promise that was made by the Liberal Party in the 2015 election to Aaron Bedard, who was with Equitas at the time. It was in writing to him that they promised they would create a dedicated veterans addictions and mental health treatment centre that would invest directly into the health and recovery of veterans—a hands-on actual treatment centre.

I'm curious. Could you tell me if that's on schedule, and is this promise going to be met before the end of this sitting?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Are you talking about the centre of excellence?

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

No. He asked specifically for treatment, a physical place to treat veterans. It's not to do research, but a place where veterans could go rather than going to these other centres where there are many other different types of people. They wanted a specific treatment centre—hands on.

Yes or no, is that promise being kept?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

We have one in Ste. Anne’s Hospital.

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

No. This was a separate specific facility for veterans.

Okay, so let's talk about Ste. Anne's—

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Why can't we respond to that?

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

No. I want to carry on.

Let's talk about Ste. Anne's Hospital.

I was able to visit with some wonderful people in eight Legions who came together in Moncton to speak with me at a round table. They are very concerned about their veterans health centre in New Brunswick, which is also, like Ste. Anne's, being handed over to the province. However, there is a memorandum of agreement between the federal government and the province that their care as veterans would be continued in those sites. They're very concerned about what's happening there.

I would like to know, with that memorandum of agreement, have you followed up? Are you making sure that the agreement is being met? How often is that happening?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

With any memorandum of agreement, or any money that's spent by the Government of Canada under our government, it's certainly analyzed as to what.... It's always step by step and seeing what progress has been made. I can assure you that would be made here too.

We also would have—

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

When was the last one done?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

I've asked my department to evaluate the situation and come up with the facts of what the situation is in Ste. Anne's—

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

Okay.