Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 6th, 2016

[Elizabeth Stuart, Assistant Deputy Minister, Chief Financial Officer & Corporate Services, Department of Veterans Affairs]

Thank you very much for that question.

Over 90% of Veterans Affairs Canada's budget goes directly to veterans for benefits and/or services. Those benefits and services are event driven in that a disability or an illness triggers entitlement and eligibility for certain benefits.

We also have the fact that we have to look and project out over the entire lifespan of veterans. We have a lot of actuarial work that takes place to look at those long-term forecasts. We also have in-year cash forecasts that are more near term that we need to look at, both in tandem.

What we do is we work very closely with the office of the chief actuary and every year we update our client forecast, so there are vast amounts of data that, together with the actuarial staff, we look at and we attempt to make the best forecast possible.

I would add that the event-driven nature of our expenditures is such that our benefits and our services are in special purpose allotments. The technical term is quasi-stats, but it does indicate that they're event driven. In any given fiscal year, whether we have 10 veterans who come forward or 10,000, we assure through our forecast that every veteran receives the benefits and services to which they are entitled.

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

Thank you.

If a veteran becomes a federal employee, how do you deal with the benefits side? Because presumably—

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Excuse me, I'll have to stop you.

The bells are ringing. Do I have unanimous consent to continue the meeting?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Okay.

Mr. Bratina.

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

Thank you.

The veteran is entitled to benefits. A new employee coming into the federal government will get the federal benefits. I'm curious to know how that is dealt with because we're looking to hire more veterans. Does that create an issue? Is it a contract position?

[Michel Doiron]

It doesn't create an issue. Under the superannuation act—and I know because I used to be the DG of superannuation at one point in my career—there is a limit that you can accumulate in your pension, but not all veterans have 35 years of service. They can either opt to be in or out of the pension. We work each case individually with the veteran.

We try to hire the veterans as indeterminate staff. The majority that we are bringing in are indeterminate. There are some temporary positions, but I don't think we have many veterans in those temporary positions. We may have some, but not a lot.

The bigger challenge we have is for the veteran to understand the public service. You have an interview when you join the armed forces. As General Natynczyk is fond of saying, he's had two interviews, one when he joined and one when he became the chief of defence staff. The rest of your career is managed by the armed forces. In the public service the culture is very different. We have more issues in making sure they understand how to navigate the system of the public service, as opposed to the benefits side. I think Mr. Butler talked about it.

They're entitled to their benefits. I've been talking to a lot of the federal counsels. Just because somebody has PTSD does not mean they cannot work for the federal government. When you read the paper you get a certain segment, but a lot of veterans are very functional. There's no issue. They want to work. They can work. They are able and capable. I've been talking a lot to our federal colleagues to make sure there is no stigma attached to any of this.

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

The $5.6 million is earmarked funding to support improvements to the permanent impairment allowance, the earnings loss benefit, and the disability award. What made it necessary to increase these appropriations?

[Elizabeth Stuart]

The funding is to support improvements to the permanent impairment allowance, the earnings loss benefit, and the disability award in the supplementary estimates (B). It has to do with the funding required to implement these benefits.

As I'm sure many would understand, to implement significant changes that will become effective April 1, 2017, there's a tremendous amount of information technology system design, implementation, and user testing to ensure that on the day it comes into force, the benefits are correct. That's what those costs pertain to.

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

I see. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mr. Kitchen, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for coming.

I'm trying to clarify; you mentioned earlier the different sizes of the new offices that are being opened. We have many of them across the country. You said there's a different number of veterans in those offices. If you can't give it to us now, can we at least get a list of the numbers that are seen at each one of these offices?

[Michel Doiron]

Absolutely. I can go through them now, or I can provide them to the committee. I have them.

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

Okay. Sure, please.

[Michel Doiron]

In the case of Kelowna, there are 3,500 clients managed there. Those are not case-managed clients. That's your general client group, and there are 88 case-managed veterans in the area that the office would take. Prince George has 1,200; 64 are case managed. Saskatoon has approximately 29. I can give you precise numbers but they would fluctuate a bit. However, 71 are case managed. In the case of Surrey, which we have not opened yet, it's a brand new office that's coming with 7,441 and about 200 are case managed. Brandon has 2,400 clients, and 123 are case managed. Thunder Bay has 1,692, and 57 are case managed. Windsor has 2,776 with 126 that are case managed. Sydney has 2,181 clients, and 145 are case managed. Charlottetown has 2,100, with 100 case managed. Corner Brook has 943 clients, and 118 are case managed.

We can't forget the north. The minister and the deputy spoke about the north. We have 300 clients identified in the north. Fifteen are case managed. We actually suspect this will go up a lot because the Rangers, who patrol the north on a yearly basis for Canada, for the armed forces, although they fall into different categories, when they are on patrol they are eligible for VAC benefits if they get injured. We don't have a lot of those people, so that's the outreach we're really doing for the Ranger groups. As an example, one of my DGs was up there in April, outside of Iqaluit somewhere, and they went into a very small village and there were three veterans. One of the elders said, “You should talk to this one here; he's having issues”, and this was not somebody anywhere on our radar. We think that number will go up, but at the moment those are the numbers.

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

Thank you.

I asked a question earlier about the $773 million that is set aside for health care, rehab, and re-establishment of services. I'm trying to get an idea of what percentage—not necessarily exact figures—of that $773 million actually goes to those areas. With the new estimates, where would those factor into those three categories that were listed?

[Elizabeth Stuart]

Thank you for the question.

I don't have that breakdown, but I would be delighted to provide that to you.

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

Thank you very much; I appreciate that.

There's $1,480,000 in statutory expenditures. These are, supposedly, essentially, increased expenditures for employee benefits. Can you tell me what those benefits are and how many employees would be getting those?

[Elizabeth Stuart]

Those employee benefits pertain to the approximately 20% that is applied to account for such things as accommodation and employee general benefits to administer their employment. We do have some new hires this year, as mentioned, with our office openings, so much of that applies to the new staff to ensure that we support them completely, not just their salary but also the employee benefits.

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

Thank you.

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

Are these budgeted amounts or are they actual figures?

[Elizabeth Stuart]

They are figures that are based on our best knowledge of who we've hired and who we're going to hire.

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

Would that be what you are anticipating over the next six months?

[Elizabeth Stuart]

This year.

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

Thank you.