Veterans Affairs Committee on June 9th, 2016

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I want to come back to a question Ms. Lockhart had.

General, you said the purpose of the physician at DND is to make sure individuals are well, yet when they get to VAC, if there are issues in their medical condition that impact benefits, then there seems to be this vacuum.

How do you ensure that there is an understanding of the medical condition when individuals arrive at VAC and are assessed?

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

I'm sorry, you'll have to give a 10-second answer or come back in the second round of questioning to answer that.

[BGen Nicolas Eldaoud]

Okay.

Thank you.

Actually, we do ensure that. We do pass the medical file to VAC so that it can make the assessment. The medical piece to this is actually transferred. I would need more specifics to understand what that barrier would be. It's the determination maybe that you're talking about, which we don't do, but the medical situation of members is passed to VAC.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Bratina.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you.

I'll just stay on that point. It's not to be redundant, but it needs to be clear in all of our minds.

I appreciate the notion that the service medical people are interested in dealing with the facts of the case before them, not what funds may be available as a result. The file should be written up in a way that everything with regard to the service people's activity should be seamlessly transportable to the veterans' situation, and to us around the table, because we heard so many of these witness testimonies that there didn't seem to be an understanding of the service time in the post-service time.

Is there no way that the medical records could have a strong indication that didn't require months of interpretation by veterans affairs as to the attribution of the problem?

[BGen Nicolas Eldaoud]

Thank you for this question.

It's important that we put stuff in context. A lot of these injuries and illnesses that are related to service are obvious; for example, someone fell from an obstacle course during training and broke something. They are very obvious. The files, when they transfer them to VAC, will be pretty obvious.

The ones we most likely hear about, which may be more complex, are the ones in which that determination is not that obvious. Our surgeons will do their best to determine what happened as much as they can, but the linkage to service may not be that obvious at the end of the day. When the case passed to VAC, it has to do the determination with its criteria. It's not always obvious that an illness is related to service.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Do you have anything further, Ms. Douglas?

[Elizabeth Douglas]

Yes, I'd like to add to that. To your point, we have in the last year put in place a streamlined, evidence-informed decision-making model for four areas. Those areas are hearing loss, tinnitus, PTSD, and MSK, or musculoskeletal.

The reason we have done this is that they represent approximately 50% of our claims. Instead of doing that deeper dive that the general referred to, we have found, based upon evidence, that it's far easier to identify that we can streamline the decision process in those particular categories. We've had that in place for over a year. We are now meeting our service standards in those categories. Service-related injuries over and above those four areas may take more time because you would have to go in and make that linkage as attributable to service.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

It's helpful to our committee that you did produce, in your comments, statistics regarding the percentage of released CAF members reporting adjustment difficulties and so on, because we have to continually monitor how we're performing.

We've heard some excellent presentations, but we've also heard from the witnesses a different kind story.

In your statement you speak of “providing information on how to access employment in the federal public service”. Apparently there are joint personnel support unit staff shortages. Did they come together somehow?

[Elizabeth Douglas]

I'm going to turn that question over to my colleagues. Thank you.

[Capt(N) Marie-France Langlois]

Thank you for the question, sir.

It is a challenge. There were many vacant positions within the JPSU across the country, but we have put forth efforts to make sure that we're filling those positions, and I am glad to say that since April we have reduced it to half of the positions. We're getting close to the point where we're going to be fully staffed.

A lot of our public servants employed as service coordinators in the IPSCs are former military personnel because they have the knowledge of the organization and the knowledge of the program and services as well. They understand the clients and the people we support.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

How's my time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

You have one minute.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

“Seamless” is one of the things we're after here, because of service delivery. In identifying a veteran, we were talking about an identifying card. Is there some way, or is it the case, that the veteran's identity as a serviceman and then former serviceman is continuous and easily accessible in the process?

[BGen Nicolas Eldaoud]

Yes, and that's one of the efforts we're going towards, and it's how we identify our veterans.

I'm sure you may have heard of this issue of the ID card for veterans. We're on top of that at VAC to make sure we produce it in the next few months so that they will have something that is recognizable that they're proud of, because that's a lot to do, and that we will be able to track them to some degree because they have that ID card.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

I have a clarifying question again, and I apologize to the committee.

There's some conflicting information on staffing issues from the ombudsman, which I believe would be in the blues, that said this is recurring yearly and there hasn't been a catch-up. I wonder if we could ask you to go back over the last, say, five years and send us information about the shortage of staff so that we can see if we are reaching those complements or if it's what we might have heard at the last testimony, which was that this has been an ongoing systemic factor.

On OSISS I would ask the same. Could you get that to the committee in a document, if that's at all possible?

Thank you.

Now we have Mr. Fraser.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for your appearance today and for your testimony, which will be helpful.

I'd like to start, Brigadier-General, by asking you about something you mentioned, the ID card. I've heard about that from a number of my constituents. Will the ID card that you're looking at and working on have a photo on it of the person?

[BGen Nicolas Eldaoud]

That is the plan, sir, absolutely.

What I know about it, and maybe Captain Langlois can add to this, is that it will look more or less like the ID military card we have, but turned sideways. The reason it will be sideways is that it's a security issue. We want to make sure there is no confusion between a serving and a retired member. We want it to have a bit of the look and feel of the ID cards that those members had all their careers. It's a question of pride and recognizing themselves.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Exactly, and that's exactly what I heard. Having the photo ID recognizes that they get discounts if they go travelling and all of these sorts of things, but it also is a recognition of their identity as former Canadian Forces members. I implore you to have a photo ID.

[BGen Nicolas Eldaoud]

That is the plan, sir.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you. All right.

One thing we've heard from a number of witnesses is that part of the stress in transitioning is financial matters. I noticed in your notes that you mentioned one of the things is to work with VAC on financial planning or to have that service available. I'm wondering if you could comment on the financial planning aspect of transition. Are those services offered widely, and are they well known to members who are transitioning?

[BGen Nicolas Eldaoud]

I'll start, and I may see if my partner wants to get into this.

Yes. As part of their transition, there's a piece to it that is about finances. It's part of the overall advice they get as they transition. Right now we participate on several task forces, and one of them is focused on their benefits and includes some financial advice.

[Elizabeth Douglas]

Thank you for that, and thank you for the question.

In terms of transition and financial advice, I am going to turn it over to Anne-Marie Pellerin, who can provide more information, but I want to stress one of the points that the brigadier-general has just made. Part of the VAC five-year strategic plan is to ensure seamless transition, which will deal with all of those issues including finances. We have set up several joint task forces, and we have several transition teams, including a CAF-VAC seamless transition team that Anne-Marie co-chairs.

That's why I'll turn it over to her to answer that question for you.

[Anne-Marie Pellerin]

Thank you very much.

During the transition period, at the transition interview, the VAC agent counsels releasing members on our benefits and programs. That is one option for us to inform the member of what financial benefits are available from VAC. That is promoted and encouraged. For those who are case managed, likewise the case manager would inform the veteran and the family regarding the benefits available and encourage and support application where that may be indicated.

For those who are receiving a disability benefit, a disability award, there is also financial support from Veterans Affairs for the member, the recipient, to obtain financial advice in the community. We will fund that financial advice, obviously, because our agents and case managers are not financial experts.

These are some of the opportunities and occasions when we provide that support.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you very much.

Sticking with Veterans Affairs, regarding the military family resource centres, I think in your comments you said that 2,400 veterans and family members have been assisted through this pilot project and also at non-pilot sites. I'm wondering what that means. How are they able to access services at non-pilot sites?