The chair.
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.
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.
May 31st, 2016 / 11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Thank you so much for being here and for your service to Canada.
Further to my colleague Ms. Mathyssen's question, whom do you report to directly?
11:30 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
I report to Parliament through the Minister of Veterans Affairs.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Is there any goal to reduce that 16-week time? You mentioned the time when you receive it to the time that it's out the door, but you didn't indicate any standards to reduce that from 16 weeks to, say, 10 weeks or so.
11:30 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
From a practical perspective, I'm not certain that we could do it. For example, just in terms of rotating boards, we sit in Montreal and Quebec City on an alternating basis every week. We sit in Ottawa a couple of times a month as well. Those are our high-volume locations.
I don't think, practically speaking, it is going to be possible to move much beyond that. That said, we are taking some steps with respect to people's processes, both for the movement of files and the rendering of decisions, which may begin to save some time in the overall process.
As you can imagine, right now I'm couriering statements of case out to panels in remote locations. We lose a couple of days with documents in the hands of a panel. The panel hears the case. Then someone writes a decision on location and couriers the file back. That is turned into a document that is couriered back out. In the handling of a file, I could say that we typically lose somewhere between five to seven working days with documents in the hands of the courier. I'm hopeful that we're going to be able to eliminate some of that time.
We're close to piloting that process this year. If the pilot works, hopefully we'll implement that process some time in 2017. I don't want to rush into that because I don't want to prejudice the service we have.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
I'm going to stop you there, because I don't want to run out of time and I have lots and lots of questions for you.
I want to make sure I understand this correctly. If a veteran presents himself at VAC, asks for benefits and so on and so forth, and goes through the process and unfortunately gets denied service, there is a checklist somewhere that is magically produced by VAC that says these are things that he provided and this is what he said, and these are the gaps. You get that. It's nice and dandy. You mentioned your checklist of decisions.
From there it takes 16 weeks, hopefully. You mentioned that usually 50% are overturned, and in almost 81% of those cases it's because of new evidence or a veteran's testimony.
Could we not have it so that somewhere along the way when a veteran first presents themself at VAC, they're given the decision criteria, to the effect, if you have osteoarthritic problems, you are going to need a doctor's note clearly indicating X, Y, and Z—that you're going to need this, this, and that?
The problem right now from what I'm understanding is that from the time a veteran shows up to the time the decision is overturned, we could be talking about 32 weeks, and it's not retroactive. They have not been getting any benefits. There's no incentive anywhere; no one is saying they are going to make that retroactive, that we made a mistake somewhere over here or we didn't ask you for the right paperwork.
How is a veteran supposed to know that they need X, Y, and Z? They are ill and injured. How are they supposed to know? Who's making the effort to try to make sure that the decisions are being made early enough so that we can get the folks the care and benefits they need? Could you elaborate on that, please?
11:35 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
The entitlement eligibility guidelines that are prepared by the Department of Veterans Affairs actually do address the questions you've raised. The first level adjudicators have those guidelines. They're also publicly available on the Internet.
The adjudicators actually ask—at least to my understanding, and I'm stepping a little bit outside my lane here—these sorts of questions. I understand, as well, the adjudicators have been given direction that before a denial decision is made, they are to speak to the veteran to ask them these sorts of questions and go through the file one last time before they come to that decision.
Then when they make that decision, it's not really a checklist. There's a decision letter that identifies in list format, often in bullets, what evidence was looked at and where the gap in that was. The veteran has already been asked once by the adjudicator, as a general rule now, if they have the evidence, the documents. Then the decision is rendered, and it's turned into a formal decision.
They don't actually then come right to us. Usually what ends up happening is that the veteran goes to see the Bureau of Pensions Advocates, takes their decision there, and says, what do I have to do? They go to see a doctor, they get evidence, etc. After they've gone through that process, that's when they come to us. Generally, the Bureau of Pensions Advocates brings them to us.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
You see that you're putting the onus on the ill and injured veteran, and there's no one there saying, okay, hold on a second, let's see if we can sit down and go through this together. They're providing you the evidence or the testimony at one point, because you have 50% of them that are being overturned.
11:35 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
I understand that the adjudicators do ask those questions before they render the decision. There is an adjudicator.
I understand, and I think the department would be better to clarify this than I, that before a decision is rendered by an adjudicator, they call the veteran and ask them these questions. They do that before they make their decision.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Do I have any more time? I'm not going to be able to ask a question in 20 seconds.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
Thank you for appearing today. The information you're providing is very useful.
As you know, we're doing a review of service delivery. One of the things that I found interesting from your testimony today was when you were talking about the feedback you receive from exit interviews. There were some really great numbers there of veterans who were pleased with the service that was provided.
Do you know the breakdown of how many of those exits are successful applicants versus those whose applications were overturned?
11:35 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
At the review level, in the past year, 52% of review participants received further or greater benefits from the board. The survey is of the review population. But the survey questions were asked before they have the decision. They're asked these questions shortly after their hearing experience, with respect to their experience in the process.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
So we're not actually doing an exit interview after they've received a decision, then.
11:35 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
We had this discussion, but the question is whether the fairness of a process is really determined by its outcome, or whether it is determined by your view of the process before you know whether or not you've succeeded or failed?
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
I appreciate why you would do it before, but I think there may be some value to doing it after the decision is rendered as well.
You also mentioned that it wasn't just a yes-no questionnaire, that there was opportunity for written feedback. Is that correct?
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
Are there any themes that have been identified in those written feedback sections, any consistent things that you are seeing? You said you are using it for improvement, so....
11:35 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
Yes. One of the common ones is the opportunity to tell their story, the importance people see in actually being able to sit down and tell their story in their own words.
A number of people have said, “Well, I didn't know I was going to be given the opportunity to have a closing statement”. As a result, we amended our pre-hearing materials to say, “and you will be given an opportunity at the end of the hearing to add any closing comments you choose to make”.
Some veterans prepare documents, prepare a statement, whereas other veterans just tell it from the heart, and some don't say anything. Some are just happy with the way the advocate has presented their case. Improvement in pre-hearing materials has been one of the things we have learned.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
Is there a format or a standard way in which that information is presented back to the minister?
