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.
11 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
We'll get the meeting started. Thanks to everybody for coming out.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), and the motion adopted on February 25, 2016, the committee resumes its study of service delivery to veterans.
Today's witness is Thomas Jarmyn, acting chair of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. We'll begin with our witness and then start our round of questioning.
Thank you very much for coming. You have up to 10 minutes.
May 31st, 2016 / 11 a.m.
Thomas Jarmyn Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
Good morning, Mr. Chair and honourable members.
I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to talk about the work of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board and its role in service delivery to veterans.
The board is an administrative tribunal that provides veterans, members of the Canadian Armed Forces and the RCMP, and their families with an independent appeal process for disability benefits decisions that have been made by Veterans Affairs Canada. Our mission is to ensure that veterans receive the benefits they are entitled to under the law through timely, respectful hearings and fair, plain language decisions.
To be very clear, the board is not part of the Department of Veterans Affairs. We are an entirely separate organization and we operate at arm's length to provide a fair appeal process. As well, our mandate is limited to reviewing departmental decisions on veterans' disability benefits. We're not involved in any of the other programs and services that are delivered by Veterans Affairs Canada.
Before I tell you more about the board's program, I'd like to share a bit about myself. I'm a veteran with more than 18 years of service as a regular and reserve force naval officer. I'm a lawyer with more than 20 years of experience and graduate degrees in administrative law and ethics. I'm very proud to be in my current role leading the board as it serves veterans across Canada and provides them and their families with the benefits they're entitled to under the law.
I'd like to start by explaining how our hearing process works. Veterans who are dissatisfied with departmental decisions on disability benefits can apply to the board for an independent review. In any given year, between 8% and 10% of those who receive a departmental decision come before the board for redress. Those cases tend to be the most challenging and complex.
We provide veterans with two levels of redress: first, review hearings; and, if they are still dissatisfied, an appeal hearing.
Review hearings are conducted by panels of two board members in one of 22 locations across Canada. To my knowledge, we're the only administrative panel in Canada that has an even number of members. The reason for this is that the veteran need only convince one member of the panel of the merits of their claim. That's consistent with the benefit-of-the-doubt provisions we're required to apply. At these hearings, veterans can bring forward new evidence, give oral testimony, and have their case presented for free by lawyers from the Bureau of Pensions Advocates or service officers from the Legion. A very small percentage of them have acted on their own.
Our hearings are non-adversarial, which means there's no one on the other side arguing against the veteran. The review hearing is a very important opportunity for veterans. It is their first and only chance to appear before decision-makers to tell their story in their own words. I've seen the value of that, as I sit on a regular basis. Their testimony is often significant, as it can help them establish the required link between their disability and their service. If a veteran is dissatisfied with their review decision, they can then proceed to an appeal decision. That's a brand new hearing by a panel of three board members who were not involved in the case at review. While the legislation does not permit oral testimony at this level, the appeal hearing provides the veteran a further opportunity, through their representative, to provide statements and other information to the board that may clarify reasons of the decision.
I'd like now to talk to you about the board members who hear the cases.
Our members are dedicated Canadians who qualified for appointment to the board through a merit-based selection process. Today 13 of the board's 20 members have military, RCMP, policing, or health care backgrounds. Veterans and stakeholders have told us that all board members should have a good understanding of the military and RCMP work and culture, and we agree with that thought. All members receive hands-on training from serving personnel at Canadian Forces bases, where they learn about the physical and mental challenges that are inherent in various trades. They also receive continuous training on common and emerging medical conditions that may be related to military service.
Last year our board members issued 2,500 review decisions and 800 appeal decisions. As a result, about 1,600 veterans, almost half of those who came to us, received new or increased disability benefits from the board. I think those numbers speak clearly to the value of our independent appeal program. They also prompt some to ask whether these veterans could have received the right decision at an earlier stage.
That's why in 2013, in response to that question from a prior version of this committee, the board began tracking reasons that our panels rule favourably where the department did not. We asked our members to categorize the reasons. Was it because of the veteran's testimony? Was there new medical evidence? Could a more favourable decision have been made earlier?
One of the things we found as a result of that study is that new evidence and the veterans' testimony are the factors in the majority of cases—almost 81%. We share the reasons these decisions have been made with the department so they can look for opportunities to improve the initial application and decision-making process to ensure that veterans get the benefits they are entitled to at the earliest possible stage.
Obviously, decision outcomes are very important, but we also want to ensure that we're delivering that service to veterans in a fair, timely, and respectful way. One way we do that is by asking veterans about their experience in the process. In 2013, the board established an exit survey for applicants who had had a review hearing to get their feedback anonymously about their experience. During the last three years, about half of all veterans who had a review hearing have completed our exit survey, and I am very pleased to report that the vast majority of them have indicated that they had a good experience with the board.
We report the entirety of the survey in our annual report. Of particular importance is that 97% have told us that board members treated them with respect, and 91% said their hearing was conducted in a fair manner.
The survey also gives veterans the opportunity to make open-ended comments about the conduct of the hearing, and it gives us genuine and instructive feedback that we use to address things like methods of questioning. We have also improved our pre-hearing materials as a result of those comments.
What else are we doing to serve veterans better? Over the last few years, we've embraced and acted on feedback and recommendations from this committee, the veterans ombudsman, veterans organizations, and stakeholders. We made great strides in improving our appeal program.
First, we made a priority to improve our decision writing. We put significant effort into improving our decisions to make sure they're written in plain language and that reasons are clearly explained what has been decided and why. These efforts have yielded results at feedback sessions coordinated by the Legion. Serving members and veterans have told us that our decisions are clearer and easier to understand.
Second, we've increased transparency in our decision-making by publishing, starting last summer, all appeals and many reviews on the Canadian Legal Information Institute's website. As of this morning, there are more than 2,600 cases available for veterans and Canadians to read. Those decisions are depersonalized, but they are instructive as to how decisions are made and why entitlement was granted. I encourage you to visit the CanLII site to read some of our decisions.
Third, beyond fair hearings and clear decisions, we know we must provide timely service. We demonstrate our commitment to timeliness by establishing service standards for the time within our control and we meet them in the vast majority of cases. Our goal is to schedule, hear, and decide a case within 16 weeks of being advised by the veteran or their representative that they're ready to proceed. Last year, we met the standard in almost all of our cases, far exceeding our 80% target.
Our second service standard focuses on decisions with a goal of issuing 80% of the decisions within six weeks of the hearing. Again, we exceeded our target there, issuing 86% of those decisions within that timeframe. There are some cases that are complex and do require more time, and those are monitored on a biweekly basis to make sure that nothing slips through the cracks. We know there's still room for improvement, which is why we continue to focus on reducing our timeframes through flexible scheduling, close monitoring of our work, and modernizing our operations for people's hearings.
Lastly, we continue our focus on plain language in our general communications as well, not just our decisions, through expanded outreach to the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP, veterans organizations, and other groups dedicated to supporting veterans and their families.
Ultimately, we want veterans to know their rights. If they are dissatisfied, we want them to come forward to tell us about their situation, to know they've been heard, and to have confidence in our decisions. Most of all, we want them to receive all the benefits that they are entitled to under law.
With that, Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank you for allowing me to talk to you today about the important work that we do on behalf of Canada's veterans. I hope I've been able to provide some information that enlightens you with respect to our commitment to fulfilling our service standards and providing better service to veterans.
I'd be happy to answer your questions.
Thank you.
11:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
Thank you.
I just have one clarifying question before I start. Am I adding this up right? Your benchmarks are 16 weeks before you hear a case, and then six weeks is your benchmark of the average time it takes to solve a case, which adds up to 22 weeks, which is—
11:10 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
No, Mr. Chair, those are actually overlapping conditions. It's 16 weeks from the time a case is ready to schedule to a decision out the door, and six weeks from the hearing to a decision out the door. Those are the two major milestones we have within the overall process.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Mr. Jarmyn. I am happy to meet you.
It seems to me that the challenges that come before your board are only for the refusal of benefits. Is that the case?
11:10 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
Yes, it is. Typically there are two questions that come before the board. The first is about benefits that have been refused, which is an entitlement question, and the second is about the assessment of the extent of the disability. For example, a veteran may have entitlement for a condition and have their disability assessed at 10%. He believes it should be assessed at 21%, and he would come before us on that basis.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Okay.
In those two cases, for the maximum and minimum benefits that a veteran could receive, what are the most common challenges? Based on your observations over the years, what types of benefits have been most often denied by the Department of Veterans Affairs or, at least, the type of benefit that has caused the most problems to veterans?
11:10 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
The top six claims the board saw in the past year were osteoarthritis, or lumbar spine conditions; tinnitus, which is a ringing in the ear, or a sound of some sort that is not usually present in normal conditions; cervical spine injuries, usually osteoarthritis or degeneration of the cervical spine; osteoarthritis, or degeneration of the knees; hearing loss; and PTSD, with the most significant portion of the PTSD claims being related to assessment of the PTSD.
11:10 a.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Why are those six types of benefits denied most often by the department? Is it because it is difficult to prove the injury? How do you explain the fact that those are the types of challenges that keep coming back before your board?
11:10 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
We don't categorize the decisions on that basis. The most common issues related to all of these claims are whether there was a single incident that caused the condition, and whether that incident occurred during the course of service. Alternatively, was there a cumulative effect of the service upon the veteran that caused the claim condition? Those are typically the two types of claims that come before us.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
My question is along the same lines as the others.
At the end of the year, do you submit reports to the Department of Veterans Affairs to advise the department of the benefits that your board most frequently denies regarding a given problem?
11:15 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
All decisions go to the department, as well as the veteran, so that the department is aware of the outcome. Often the department has to take actions as a consequence. When we give entitlement, they then have to assess the extent of the injury and make a payment as a result of that. We report on our work on an annual basis in our annual report, and that too is provided to the department. We have ongoing discussions about overall trends that we see.
I would say that the two most frequent questions are common, and the department is turning their minds to those questions on initial granting. I don't think we ask any different questions than the department asks on the initial application.
The department usually writes a good decision when they deny applications now. The decisions are much better than they were probably eight or nine years ago. They clearly set out, in almost a checklist format, the documents that were looked at and where the gap was in the evidence. I see the veterans taking those decisions away and giving them to their counsel or their doctors. That's what they aim at: filling in that gap. I think there's a good recognition on the part of the department about why we're coming to our decisions.
11:15 a.m.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I attended a few sessions of your board in Quebec City. I very much appreciated my experience and I thank you for allowing me to attend those hearings. I noticed that you provide legal counsel to veterans who challenge a decision.
I also noticed that, in a number of challenges by veterans—without naming anyone—they said that they didn't have access to doctors to obtain the evidence requested by the department or, at least, by your board. You provide legal services. Do you think medical services—perhaps not by your board—should be provided to veterans who need that medical expertise?
11:15 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
I have one point of clarification. The board doesn't offer legal services. The Bureau of Pensions Advocates was created under, I believe, the veterans affairs act, so it is a stand-alone, independent office within Veterans Affairs. As a result, we don't do anything on that front. We also can't go out and get evidence, because that would compromise our neutrality in the overall process.
I'm aware of the challenges you face, but that's not something the board could do.
11:15 a.m.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
Mr. Jarmyn, thank you very much for your presentation today and for your service to our country and the good work that you're doing on behalf of veterans. It's appreciated.
I'd like to talk about the timely service of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. I understand the goal as being 16 weeks from beginning to end, that is, from when you receive the file. I believe you mentioned that the vast majority of the cases meet that threshold. I'm wondering if you can give me some sense, though, of how many don't as far as actual numbers of files go.
11:15 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
It's 4% of the cases, which I guess would be about 125 files. I can attribute that, I think.
We sit in 22 locations. The vast majority of our work occurs in about six cities: Halifax, Charlottetown, Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, and Edmonton. There are a number of locations, for example, Regina and North Bay, where there are few veterans around. We will go to those locations, where necessary, but it's difficult sometimes to get a full load of cases ready to go. Typically, we look for a week's worth of hearings, 18 cases, so it's difficult to arrange for a week's worth of work. Sometimes those cases take a little longer to get on our calendar.
We do offer video conferencing for veterans in those locations if they want to proceed more quickly, though.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
I'm from West Nova, Nova Scotia. If somebody wanted to have their case served more quickly, if they wanted to go to Halifax they could do that; otherwise they might have to wait for a longer period of time to have a full calendar in their area.
11:20 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
No. In Nova Scotia, we only hear in Halifax and Sydney.
11:20 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
I've had veterans appear from the Wolfville and Kentville areas as well.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
So, 4% of cases, then, don't meet the 16-week threshold. I understand that, and obviously you're working on it, but can you give some sense to the committee of how long some cases may have to wait for a decision to be rendered?
11:20 a.m.
Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board
Typically, from the time it is ready to schedule.... Part of that timeline is also driven by cases where the advocate has noted that it's ready to schedule but not been prepared to put it on the calendar. We rely upon the BPA, the Bureau of Pensions Advocates, to actually put the cases into the week after they've noted them as ready to schedule. At particular point they will note the cases that are ready to schedule. We'll then say, “Okay, we're going to send a panel to Victoria.” There are maybe 30 cases in Victoria. The advocate then has to arrange which 18 cases are going to go forward. Sometimes veterans aren't available, sometimes the case isn't quite ready, and there's some sort of improvement they want to go to. There are a number of reasons with respect to that. We don't see very many cases that go very far beyond the 100-day range.
11:20 a.m.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
These complex cases may take a little longer for one reason or another before the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. I assume that it also most likely took a long time for the decider of first instance to come to a conclusion because of the complexity of the case. Is it true that these cases typically are in the system for a long period of time compared to the normal?