Veterans Affairs Committee on June 16th, 2016

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

You answered this next question a bit with Mrs. Romanado's question. Do you have stats that indicate the length of time that it takes to finish a file?

[Anthony Saez]

We do, on what we call the initial claims study. The initial claims study is a label we give to the first contact with a client. If the client contacts us to discuss pursuing an appeal, then we give the lawyers five days in which to initiate the claim. That is the standard that we set for our lawyers, and that's the standard by which they are measured during their performance evaluations every year.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

If you have those statistics, could you send those to us so that we have just an idea?

[Anthony Saez]

Sure.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you.

You indicated 10,000 files and you mentioned that the bureau goes deeper into those files on the clients' issues. Would you be suggesting that every veteran, once they get a disability assessment, should send it in to you to see if they can get more out of it?

[Anthony Saez]

No, not necessarily.

The system that exists in the department is the system that is best suited to deal with the vast majority of the cases. BPA is set up to deal with those cases that are much more difficult and complex to deal with, which couldn't really be dealt with at the first level. If for every single case that came into the department the first level gave the same amount of scrutiny that we do, that would probably impact resourcing, turnaround times, and so on.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Okay.

We talked a little bit about electronic medical records and how they might be compatible or not compatible. Once you get that information, who do your advocates get to assess that information from a medical point of view, to give them the answers so they can understand them? I'm assuming they aren't MDs or psychologists or psychiatrists with those specialties.

[Anthony Saez]

That's exactly where the medical reports come in. The lawyer will send a letter to the doctor explaining what it is the lawyer is looking for, the client is looking for in support of their redress, and it is the doctor who provides that medical opinion.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Is that their personal doctor or your specialist that you use?

[Anthony Saez]

It's their doctor or a specialist who is acting for the client, which we pay for.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

I just want to get some clarification on the hours spent on a case.

We all know that in the private world, a lot of lawyers are leaving firms and a lot of our students are getting out of law because of billable hours, which is basically what the legal firms work on. You just mentioned performance reviews and this. Those hours are not billable, but with respect to a client, how does that culture in your organization differ from that in a private law firm?

Could you just give me a quick overview?

[Anthony Saez]

We don't necessarily keep track of hours. We keep track of the number of files completed, because whereas one file may take 30 minutes, another file may take 30 days depending on the complexity of the particular file. We don't have billable hours per se. We monitor the lawyers' production on a per file basis.

As an interesting aside, we recently did a study on the cost per case to the Government of Canada for these, because there was talk about whether it would be more efficient just to contract it all out. We discovered that each case costs the Government of Canada about $700 to $800. If you went out to private practice, it would probably take the lawyer $700 worth of time just to come up to speed on the legislation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

We'll end with three minutes of questioning by Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you very much.

I have so many questions.

You said that for the DND records, it would be helpful if they could arrive more quickly. Shouldn't those records already be at Veterans Affairs since the service person in question would be leaving or about to retire?

[Anthony Saez]

They're not always.

Back in 2000, Parliament legislated that a serving member could collect a pension at the same time, so the member does not necessarily have to leave the forces in order to collect a pension or an award.

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

I wanted to go back to your remarks on sexual harassment and the fact that there's more understanding in terms of these kinds of complaints. Do you receive a number of cases in which there is sexual harassment in a situation, and if so, have there been successful cases where the women affected have received compensation?

[Anthony Saez]

First of all I'd clarify it's not just women who are affected; there are men affected as well.

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

That was my next question.

[Anthony Saez]

We have had successful cases like that, but I have to say that they've been few and far between. Most of the cases we get involve either musculoskeletal injuries, hearing loss, or psychiatric conditions, and then we get a smattering of others including those involving sexual harassment.

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

Is it perhaps because there is still hesitation about reporting this kind of injury—because it is an injury?

[Anthony Saez]

I couldn't speak to that. It's a good question.

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

Okay.

Once a veteran has gone through the process and been rejected by the VRAB appeal, the only recourse is Federal Court.

Do many take that particular decision to go to the Federal Court, and, if so, is there a significant overturning of the VRAB decision by the Federal Court?

[Anthony Saez]

That is a good question.

First of all, they do have one last chance before the Veterans Review and Appeal Board after an appeal, and that's called the “reconsideration”.

However, whereas under review or an appeal it is completely up to the veteran whether to proceed or not, the reconsideration is up to the board. The board can decide not to hear a reconsideration unless it's very special, and they probably hear about 150 of those a year.

In terms of Federal Court, the bureau doesn't have the jurisdiction to represent clients in Federal Court, but there are entities that will assist. There are a number of private law firms that do pro bono work and have taken cases to Federal Court. We sometimes liaise with the ombudsman's office and may flag a case where we think one may do well at Federal Court, and then they will liaise with the law firms to provide that pro bono service.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Great, thank you.

This ends our round of questioning to the witness.

Now we will allot you a couple of minutes of time if you would like to do a quick wrap-up.

The floor is yours.