Evidence of meeting #14 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 board.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
In 2011-12, the government decided to give you budget allocations so that the board could become more independent, correct?
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
I'm not certain how that process came about. A number of the small agencies became independent agencies at that time. We were independent before then, but we became an independent agency, as the term is understood, at that time.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
You are saying that we can consult the decisions that were made. Is it possible to see the names of the veterans?
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
Yes. That's the Canadian Legal Information Institute. All of our decisions are published there. The Alberta court now doesn't publish its own decisions; it just sends them to CanLII. We've adopted that model.
As well, we do two other things. We publish our Federal Court decisions on our own website, and we designate some decisions as leading or noteworthy. We put those on our website, as well. Those are decisions we find to be of interest because they should guide panels. There's something unique about those cases.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Can we also find there the decisions that were denied?
Conservative
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
We've depersonalized all those decisions that are published. We operate under the open court principle. There is a view, actually, that strictly speaking, we shouldn't be depersonalizing.
My thought is consistent with what the Privacy Commissioner has said, that tribunals can do this. I am also of the view that we are dealing with people—some are RCMP officers dealing with organized crime, and some have come out of other security contexts—that I don't think this information should really be disclosed for people to gather views about our operations.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I'll just finish with this kind of question-comment.
It says that 10% of the 30,000 decisions made by VAC go to the tribunal, and of those 10%, 50% of the contested decisions were modified by your court. That means that you're judging that 50%, or half of the decisions made by the ministry, are wrong.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
No, we're not.
Of the 30,000 decisions that are made, roughly speaking—and that varies from year to year—VAC granted entitlement in about 85% of those decisions. So if for 15% there was a denial, with my foolish math that's 4,500. About 10% of those cases came to us, so 2,500 people made application to us on review as well as 800 on appeal. We granted an entitlement in about half those cases, so in total that was 1,600 decisions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
Ms. Mathyssen, you have three minutes. Then we'll take a five-minute break, and go to the second round of questioning.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
I wanted to dig down a little bit into what Mr. Eyolfson was talking about. You said that if an appeal is denied, there are two avenues for recourse. The first is board reconsideration, if there's new evidence, and there's no limit in terms of when a vet can do that. The second is the Federal Court.
My concern with regard to the Federal Court has to do with the emotional stress that would cause, and the cost. Have you any insight with regard to veterans who simply cannot pursue the Federal Court route because they can't afford it?
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
No, I don't. They can pursue reconsideration before the board as well, and some do—87 did last year.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
In looking at the process, the Bureau of Pensions Advocates is assigned to a veteran who goes to the VRAB review and then on to the appeal. Is it the same advocate at each level, at the review level and then again at the appeal level, or would the veteran perhaps have a different advocate at each occurrence?
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
That's a management issue for BPA. I've seen advocates follow a file and in other cases—and this is probably the majority—I can say that there's been an advocate on review and then there's an appeal advocate, but that's BPA's call.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
But they can't support the veteran in Federal Court. That's a personal decision by the veteran, and that veteran would be responsible for monetary issues regarding the court appeal.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
I think so. I don't have any involvement in that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
We'll take a five-minute break, and then we'll come back with the second round of questioning.
Liberal
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Part of what we're dealing with is services and trying to figure out how to best provide those services. I'm going to follow a bit on what Mrs. Romanado had suggested.
You'd mentioned that a file goes out somewhere, they do the review, they courier it back to you, and then it goes back to them, and they assess it. I'm hearing of the weeks it takes, where a courier brings it in, which takes a couple of days, and then there are a couple of days to assess it, and then it gets couriered back out again. As a result, we're looking at accumulating timelines or extra time being added.
You also mentioned how bonuses were being provided based on efficiencies in the provision of service. I'm not seeing the connect here. We're taking so long to do things, and we're doing it by paper and courier. To me, efficiencies would involve computers and modern technology to get it done, so the process is shorter. Can you elaborate on that for me, please?
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
In terms of what the board does, we're not talking weeks with files in the hands of couriers. It's a matter of a day. I understand 16 weeks is 102 days, and if I can get four or five of those days back, that's 5% of my time. We are trying to do that. We do use computers. We're fairly technologically well founded. All of our resources are computer based. A lot of our monthly training happens through webinars and the like.
There are opportunities to improve our efficiency, but there is also a certain amount of time that's necessary for files to be prepared. It's necessary for members to have an opportunity to review these documents. For example, in the last hearing week I sat, I had a file that was 500 pages long. That was one of 19 cases I heard that week. I had to write that decision, which is what I'm obliged to do, but that decision was still rendered faster than the service standard we're talking about.
I think there are improvements that can be made with respect to the VRAB aspect of things. I'm going to keep on trying to get as many days as I can with respect to that. I don't see many opportunities for compression within that 16 weeks from the time that a matter is noted as ready to schedule, to the time that a decision is out the door with a hearing in between.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Have you looked into the percentage of cases in which documentation was lost in transit and prolonged the hearing?