Evidence of meeting #15 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 jenkins.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
I guess the goal was that the invalidité Pension Act would disappear, but it won't disappear because of the RCMP's injured veterans. That's what I understand.
Executive Officer and Secretary, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Veterans' Association
Correct. The impact of remaining on the Pension Act, as though we were pre-2006 armed forces veterans, means that the caseload under the old regime will continue to grow, and maybe grow a lot, despite the fact that the new Veterans Charter was intended to replace the former system with a new and better system.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Okay. Thank you very much.
Mr. Blackwolf or Mr. Burke, you talked about the fact that Veterans Affairs Canada could have an ISO requirement. Could you expand on this thought, please?
National President, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
Well, strangely enough, the federal government requires contractors to be ISO compliant. We're having a problem with service delivery with Veterans Affairs. The way it's set up, it doesn't have standards, per se—obviously not—so we're suggesting ISO 9000 compliance.
I worked in the weapons section for DND. We went through a process there where we went through ISO 9000 and 9001 and the other segments of ISO 9000 to improve our productivity and to make it consistent. Consistency is the whole point of ISO 9000. It's an international standard. That's what we're saying: with all the delays and the problems we're having dealing with this department, our recommendation is that they become ISO 9000 compliant.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Do you think there might be a top-down internal culture in the ministry of denying as much as possible for—
National President, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
Yes, there is so much proof of that, we don't need to ask.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
As Mr. Jenkins was saying, at the end of your speech you were asking us whether the goal was to save money. I think that yes, of course it is.
I think this has created a big problem in the VAC since we're trying to give help and services to men and women in uniform. We say we honour them; we say they honour the country and serve this nation, but then just like everyone else, they have to enter into this mode of constraint, this money requirement, and everything.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
Go ahead, please, Ms. Romanado , and you might split with Ms. Rudd if there's time.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
First, I'd like to thank you all for being here, and thank you for your service.
Unfortunately, I am a little familiar with the unlimited liability as my two sons are currently serving in the Canadian Armed Forces. So I know what it means to sign on the dotted line.
Mr. Jenkins, you brought up a really good point in terms of your medical file: if it's not in there, it doesn't exist. We talk about when people leave the Canadian Armed Forces, whether voluntarily or not, and if it's, unfortunately, involuntarily because of illness or injury, there's a constant fight to prove that the illness was related to service.
I'm going to ask you a question, because I think the problem starts even before that. When you are a serving member of the Canadian Armed Forces, there's something called the universality of service. Now, God forbid that you are struggling with something or you're not feeling well, because it's frowned upon to actually go to seek help, because if you do, something goes onto your file. So for current serving members, whether you just started the forces, whether you're in RMC, whether you've seen action or not, it's frowned upon to seek help, because you don't want to have something in your file.
But, God forbid, later on down the line, you might need to have something in that file to show that you have a service-related injury. So it's chicken and egg. You can't put anything in your file, but then you need something in your file.
So my question is how can we actually change it from the get-go so that if people need help...? I'd hate for people to self-medicate or worse. My son just lost two classmates at RMC, unfortunately, because they were too afraid to ask for help. What can we be doing differently so that folks who need the help get the help they need whether they need it when they're active service members or after?
President, Head Office, NATO Veterans Organization of Canada
That is a super question. I spoke with Mr. Landry who came to see each of the presidents. That's the problem for Mr. Landry at the Veterans Review Board, who is outside Veterans Affairs, as you know, when he has cases come to him. He said right now his hands are tied by bureaucracy and legality. And if it's not in the file, then his 17 adjudicators are stuck.
He asked how to introduce this word “compassion”. He is starting from the top down. And the word “compassion” means, and I use the following example, though I could also use umpteen other ones. I used to work around airplanes, as an air supply specialist. I'm almost completely deaf from working around North Stars. I have nothing on my records. Was I going to complain about that? For the same reason you mentioned, if it's not on the records, it didn't happen. That mentality exists, and it's inculcated, unfortunately, not only in the culture, but also when you get right down to it, if I'm a judge, I have to look at the where do you come under—it's not there.
A good example is along the lines you used about your son. My best friend was in Kashmir. He fell down a hill in Kashmir. He was all alone. He was with a subedar from the Indian Army. He injured both his hips. The nearest medical facility was 60 kilometres away. There is nothing on his records. He gets a refusal letter because it's not in the documents.
This is something for you to bear in mind. You said that you would put it all together and come up with a recommendation.
If you can come up with an answer, then you can make it happen. You can have this tendency go away, and you will be helping the people in Charlottetown who get a very bad rap now—and I say this as someone from a moderate veterans organization.
National President, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
Yes, there is something you can do, madam. What needs to be implemented or brought into VAC's consideration or adjudication is the benefit of the doubt; that's not there now. The veteran is not given the benefit of the doubt on an injury because it may not be on his record.
In my first experience of going in with a problem in basic training, you had to drop your drawers for the sergeant nurse, the medic there, regardless what you were in there for, and it was a great impediment for people to go back. It kept us out on the job.
President, Head Office, NATO Veterans Organization of Canada
Benefit of the doubt is the same as compassion. It is not—
National President, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
Well, that's—
President, Head Office, NATO Veterans Organization of Canada
Sorry, just let me finish. It is the same word, and it's probably somewhere if we looked in the legislation. Nobody's ever found “benefit of the doubt” or used it.
Liberal
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, all four of you, for your service. I appreciate your talking to us today and giving us some more ideas when we're thinking about how can we provide better service delivery.
Mr. Blackwolf and Mr. Burke, you had mentioned initially the confusion with My VAC. Are you given any training before you come out to say, here's some information on you do it on My VAC, or any of the other programs that are offered to you?
National President, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
No. That's why we're advocating that they have a staged release, to become familiar with that software. Using the software, if you go onto the My VAC Account and start the process, the first thing that comes up asks you for your banking information, and that puts a lot of people off. You know: “I'm here for veterans; why do they want to know all about my banking?” We understand why it's done, if there's money to be transferred, but that could come later in the stage of the program, so that people become familiar with going online, putting in their passwords and stuff, and looking through the account. Then they could get to a point at which they would see the reason, but to hit a person right up front, and especially the older people who are.... When you have an 80-year-old on the site with his granddaughter and the first thing they ask him for is his bank account, it ends right there. The younger people are not so bad, but we're recommending a staged release.
Also, there should be training sessions. In 1980, I was brought in to B.C. Telephone for three or four days to go on its Internet. There could be the same thing at VAC offices. They should have terminals there that you can actually.... They're designed as training terminals, so you can go on and put in VAC stuff that doesn't count; it just runs you through the system. Then you can go in and do your own—
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Mr. Jenkins, you look as though you were going to add something.
President, Head Office, NATO Veterans Organization of Canada
It's just your point about My VAC. I happen to have started computers early. Believe it or not, can you guess how long we've been in NATO? It's 70 years. There are more than 220,000 people who are ex-NATO people, and they are generational, despite your saying that it's only going to be RCMP. We, the peacekeepers, are coming down the pipe, but for the people who are, and I won't pick an age, but of a certain age, it's a generational thing, and over that age, they don't have a clue. First of all, they probably don't even have the Internet, so even if you train them.... In my organization, I know I still have to send out paper letters to a good third of them, and I have a lot of young people from Afghanistan, from Bosnia.
Do you understand what I'm saying? It is a generational thing. Not everybody is tuned in to LinkedIn and Twitter and hooked up and—
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I appreciate that.
Mr. Blackwolf and Mr. Jenkins, you both mentioned things. Mr. Blackwolf, you and I talked earlier about being from Saskatchewan, and the issue that I deal with in—
National President, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
You're from Saskatchewan?
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
That's right; I'm from Saskatchewan, but I've mentioned to you what I have to deal with and what I'd like to see.
I have a lot of aboriginal veterans in the area. How do we honour them? As you know, when in a pow-wow, the veterans lead the grand march. We respect that, and we show that respect and honour to them. I truly believe that also helps those veterans assimilate and come back into their community after they've left the forces.
We've talked a little bit throughout this committee's work about decommissioning our soldiers. How do we get them out of there, after they've spent all that time, training, and being indoctrinated into the forces?
I say today, for myself, that my father instilled that in me as a soldier, to the point that I have not missed a day of work because of sickness. I don't show it; I don't show up with it.
How do we step further, to take these people who have made that unlimited commitment to us and say, now let's bring you back down so that you can easily assimilate into civilian life?
Liberal