Veterans Affairs Committee on June 2nd, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

I'd like to call the meeting to order.

Good morning everybody. This is the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee is resuming its study of service delivery to veterans.

I'd like to welcome all the organizations here today. From the Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association, we have Richard Blackwolf, national president, and Joseph Burke, national representative. From the NATO Veterans Organization of Canada, we have Gordon Jenkins, president; and from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Veterans' Association, we have Mark Gaillard, executive officer and secretary.

I know that some of you have been here before. We'll start with the panel and give you 10 minutes each. From there we'll start the first round of questioning and try to get a second round of questioning in.

We drew straws earlier, so now we'll begin with the Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association.

Mr. Blackwolf, you're on.

[Richard Blackwolf, National President, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association]

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and honourable members of the committee.

My name is Richard Blackwolf. I am the CAV national president and a Royal Canadian Navy Cold War veteran. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you and to present our positions and experiences on the questions posed in the committee's invitation.

I am pleased to introduce Mr. Joseph Burke, CAV's national representative. He has served with the Royal Canadian Regiment and the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps as a flight medic. He is here today to assist in the presentation and to participate in the answering of your questions.

The Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association is a nationally and internationally recognized veterans organization. We are in our 38th year of representing Canadian aboriginal veterans. The CAV is a full-spectrum veterans organization, with members from all eras, World War II to the present. Our national website on the World Wide Web is nearing 400,000 visits. The CAV has a presence on social media with 20 groups.

We have endeavoured to answer every one of your 32 questions, but today, for brevity, we will highlight.

Joseph will start off.

[Joseph Burke, National Representative, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association]

With respect to the Veterans Affairs transformation plan, the veterans under the new Veterans Charter report there are problems with the documents they receive from VAC. Confusion and anger are caused by phone calls from unknown VAC staff members rather than letters that clearly state the actions or decisions made by VAC. There is confusion with their My VAC Account, particularly at the start. Their banking information is the very first thing they have to enter, rather than at a later time when they more familiar with the program.

[Richard Blackwolf]

The VAC transformation plan, launched to reduce the complexity of service delivery, has made progress over the years. One example is the reduction in form length, and the simplification of forms. It also includes the establishment of the online My VAC Account, and the new use of telehealth services to contact veterans for VIP and veterans in isolated or rural communities. The adoption of operation codes linked to common injuries that are associated with military occupations is the most progressive step implemented by VAC in current times.

[Joseph Burke]

With respect to reduced wait times for decisions, we cannot positively make the claim that wait times have been reduced for disability benefit and rehabilitation program decisions. Veterans have reported that their claims have gone smoothly, particularly the operation code types of claims—for tinnitus, as an example.

[Richard Blackwolf]

In our experience to date, we are not aware of any new initiatives to ensure that a veteran's application is fully filled out and correct. There remains the standard method of filling out a claim—the veteran himself, with help from various sources, such as Royal Canadian Legion service officers and SISIP.

[Joseph Burke]

The committee heard in earlier testimony that the private sector Manulife SISIP, or service income security insurance plan, provided timely service without problems. The CAV's recommendation for Veteran Affairs Canada, to be able reduce wait times for decisions on disability benefits and rehabilitation programs, is to have a change in VAC corporate culture. This would require legislation to move from a reactive posture to a proactive position to emulate a private sector service provider, starting with VAC being ISO 9000 quality management certified. ISO 9000 certification would bring VAC operations up to international standards, ensuring that VAC services would be consistent in meeting a client's time-related requirements, with performance that is measurable.

[Richard Blackwolf]

Regarding a 16-week service standard, in our view the response time of four months is totally ridiculous in an age of computers and fibre optics. There is no business plan that we have been made aware of at stakeholders' summits or statements by the minister as to how and when the four-month service standard will be achieved.

There is also a protracted process to obtain aids for living, such as wheelchairs, walkers, canes, hearing aids, and lift chairs, which causes frustration and anger.

[Joseph Burke]

With respect to complex cases requiring a case manager, we have not had any reports of changes in the way veterans with complex needs interact with their case managers. We were expecting to hear positive reports as the new VAC philosophy of care, compassion, and respect propagated through the VAC corporate culture.

[Richard Blackwolf]

With respect to the VAC partnership with the Department of National Defence, the VAC has been a consistent advocate for Veterans Affairs to be merged with the Department of National Defence to produce a flat line of communications between DND and VAC where veterans' records could transit unhindered by corporate interfaces and the Privacy Act.

We were delighted to find that the new government's Minister of Veterans Affairs was also a DND associate deputy minister and that the VAC deputy minister, General Natynczyk, was retained in his position. General Natynczyk has a very high level of respect and trust in the veterans' community.

[Joseph Burke]

In our experience, education is key to a successful transition from the military mode to the civilian mode, especially for those veterans with physical or psychological injuries.

VAC partnerships with companies that are entrepreneurial, in the sense that they are searching for jobs that are in demand and that people with a disability can handle, and designing courses to provide clients' training to fulfill these jobs, are ideal for veterans with a disability who need to join the labour force.

[Richard Blackwolf]

With respect to the delivery of medical care services to veterans, excluding mental health services, in general, veterans' claims for medical services are not approved in a timely manner. Delays are prevalent.

[Joseph Burke]

The process is not simple and flexible for the average person. We consider the process unduly complicated, and help is often needed.

[Richard Blackwolf]

There is satisfaction expressed in the delivery of VAC medical services by our older World War II and Korean War veterans.

[Joseph Burke]

There is very much a “no” in the satisfaction of the way VAC handles health care services for young veterans. Approval delays when doctors are submitting extension of benefit forms and then having to wait long periods for approvals to continue treatments cause a break in the veteran's treatment with dire effects in some cases.

[Richard Blackwolf]

With respect to delivery of mental health services, it is our understanding that VAC is responding to veterans' mental health needs when asked and is providing appointments to OSI clinics and other mental health care facilities.

Complaints about VAC information voids and slow responses are common.

[Joseph Burke]

We were deeply affected by the suicide death of Corporal Leona MacEachern on Christmas Day 2013 who was treated for post-traumatic stress disorder.

[Richard Blackwolf]

We were deeply affected by that. On Christmas Day, as mentioned, she was being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder at a health care facility. She was allowed to leave for a trip home, and on the way she intentionally drove her car into an oncoming transport truck on the Trans-Canada Highway near Calgary. She wrote a note for the family stating that her death was a “final desperate act” as a result of “protracted battles” with Veterans Affairs over medical benefits for dental work she received in the late 1980s while stationed in Germany during the Gulf War.

We attribute two things to Corporal MacEachern's suicide death, one being the Veteran Affairs culture of delay and denial; the other, the experimental use of psychiatric drugs. Corporal MacEachern's husband stated that she had just had a change of medication. Our concerns led us to post a warning and videos on our CAV national veterans services page on the CAV national website about the dangers of psychiatric drugs. Brain chemistry is a medical field that medical science has the least knowledge of. Drug companies are producing psychiatric drugs and they are being prescribed on a trial basis to see if they work. In some cases, other drugs are prescribed to counter the side effects of the primary drug.

[Joseph Burke]

In our view, family members of veterans suffering from mental health problems should receive psychological and financial support from Veterans Affairs Canada. Each family member should have a picture ID card and a VAC account.

[Richard Blackwolf]

With respect to rehabilitation programs under the new Veterans Charter, veterans' suitability criteria for physical rehabilitation programs appear to be working. Problems do arise when there are gaps in the treatment cycle caused by permission delays by VAC. Quite often they'll come to a point where they have to renew a prescription or a medical procedure, and then they're waiting, sometimes up to four months.

[Joseph Burke]

Due to the lethality and unpredictable effect of psychiatric drugs, psychosocial rehabilitation programs for the recovery of people with prolonged mental illness, in our view, need heightened screening and DNA testing at the start to ensure clients can metabolize the potential psychiatric drugs they may be prescribed.

[Richard Blackwolf]

We'll move ahead to our last point, which is important to us, with respect to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board.

We have been made aware that the quasi-judicial proceedings of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board have produced marked criticisms for the board's superficial decisions. The board's less-than-professional decisions continue to support the conviction held by many veterans that the board's main function is to deny claims and for the flimsiest reasons. Members of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board are political appointees. Changing the board's makeup to include more veterans would not reduce the number of claims denied because the board does not function as a democratic body.

The current board seats no doctors or doctor specialists who would be peers of the doctors and doctor specialists providing medical evidence at veterans' first-level review hearings, and again at the veterans' second-level appeal hearings. If the board decides that the evidence of a doctor or a doctor specialist is not credible, then the board should be required to provide the reasons for its decision at the same medical expertise levels specified in the board's medical rules of evidence. Simply put, the board's rules of evidence apply also to the board's decisions.

Thank you taking for taking the time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Next we'll have NATO Veterans Organization of Canada, and Gordon Jenkins, president.

Good morning.

[Gordon Jenkins, President, Head Office, NATO Veterans Organization of Canada]

Did you want to have questions?

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

We'll have 10 minutes each, and then each person will direct questions to each person on the panel.