Veterans Affairs Committee on April 12th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Eyolfson.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you for coming, Minister, and again let me join the long line of people congratulating you on your post.

My background is medicine and particularly emergency medicine. Much of what I see is injury, both physical injury and mental and psychiatric injury. One of the things that we've noticed over time, and we do a lot of research into in my field, is prevention. This kind of blurs the lines between your two hats, between your Veterans Affairs work and your Defence work. many veterans present with injuries, and I don't mean the catastrophic injuries that you might get as an unfortunate consequence of combat, but repetitive strain injuries, hearing loss due to to constant exposure to loud noise, repetitive strain orthopaedic injuries in paratroopers or infantry personnel, and these sorts of things.

There may be an opportunity in evaluating the injuries that veterans have to apply this to prevention in active service. Is any thought being given to using the data you get in your veterans' injuries and applying this to injury prevention techniques in active service?

[Kent Hehr, Liberal, Calgary Centre, AB]

your background serves you well in asking it since your background is in medicine and the like. It's great to have your expertise on this panel in that regard.

I think that the Prime Minister's decision to name me the associate minister of National Defence allows us to take that information back to the work I'm going to do with Minister Sajjan and look at how we can do things better. Other jurisdictions have looked at the model that we're prescribing of having a joint ministry and allowing our veterans who are releasing from the military to get the help they need when they need it, both financial and other benefits, whether it's a return to work or education. I think this is a great suggestion of how we can take some of that knowledge.

I think one of those things we also have to remember is that many times we'll have a person who leaves the military who feels at that time that they're 100% good and then we find 15 years later, after having jumped out of 400 planes, that the person has knee problems. It's important to consider how we understand that and how we build that into our models of trying to do things better on both the DND side and how we recognize things at Veterans Affairs.

It would be remiss for me not to say that we're taking an attitude of giving veterans the benefit of the doubt. They will get the services they need when they need them, when that situation comes. You have a tough guy who's jumped out of planes but didn't really have a note on his file that said his knees were hurting. When he reappears at Veterans Affairs, we want to use some of this analysis and say that, although it's not on his medical file, we can figure out the reason why he is here and needs our help.

We're transitioning the entire department to try to take that attitude of getting the veterans the help they need when they need it.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you.

Changing gears a bit, we talked about the homeless strategy. Our experience outside of veterans was just the general population of the homeless. It's estimated that 60% of homeless people are suffering from under-treated mental illness. Is there similar data or a correlation with homeless veterans as to whether there is a link between mental illness in these veterans and their homeless state?

[Kent Hehr, Liberal, Calgary Centre, AB]

Let's remember, Veterans Affairs has never had it in its mandate to be in charge of homelessness. Yet we know that over the last 35 years homelessness has become an issue, not only in the veterans' population but in the Canadian population as well. We have moved aggressively on this. I've hired a priority secretariat to look into homelessness and other initiatives to allow us to tie into our whole-of-government approach to this issue. We're making an historic investment in housing, and how I tie my department into that is the important work we're going ahead with.

Homelessness is complex, not only among the average Canadian who finds himself homeless, but also among veterans. We're going to have to look at what has happened. We'll work with individuals through our case managers and those points of contact to try and tie them into provincial government services as well as in our whole-of-government approach.

I have every confidence that much of what you said is true. Because this problem has been identified, we as a department are taking this seriously to do a better job of helping those veterans who find themselves homeless—whether it ties back to military service or not—to find affordable housing. We're moving ahead, looking at best practices, housing first, and concepts like that. We're putting together part of an advisory team that's going to look at some of these issues and help us out, and looking at best practices and how we tie into this approach.

I look forward to your help on this file.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Kitchen.

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

Thank you for coming, Minister, we appreciate your time. Hopefully, I can get a couple of questions in here.

My father—and thank you for mentioning that—was a military attaché in Afghanistan in the seventies, and I was fortunate to live in that part of the world during those times, through two military coups. My brother also served with the Canadian Forces in the second-last rotation in Afghanistan.

What that leads me to is the question on the Afghan memorial. Can you tell us a little bit more on where it's going to be, and the costs? That was not presented in the budget and I'd like to hear that quickly, if I could.

[Kent Hehr, Liberal, Calgary Centre, AB]

I think it's very important to honour the men and women who served in our Afghan mission. It was Canada's longest mission. Of the many members who served, some gave the ultimate sacrifice. As well, many are coming back with issues. We take this job of commemoration seriously in our department. We are currently working with heritage to provide a dignified monument that respects their service. I can tell you that we mentioned it— and I don't know if you've had a chance to read our priority and planning document for the year—but that work is being done as we speak, so we're making progress.

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

Thank you.

On that note, and as you mentioned, in a quarter of our troops coming back from Afghanistan we're seeing a significant increase in mental illness. You brought up the issue of the two centres of excellence. Could you expand on that?

In the sense of centres of excellence, are we talking about doctors providing services for these people, or are we talking about researchers? I think what we need to do is to provide the service. If we're going to provide these centres of excellence, they should be important for our veterans. They should be there for services. I know we've talked about having one focused on mental illness, but we need to make certain that they have a part of research-building, while at the same time their major focus should be on providing appropriate medical services, whether with doctors, psychologists, nursing, etc.

[Kent Hehr, Liberal, Calgary Centre, AB]

I could give you a long-winded answer on this, but I won't. I've been at this job 160 days. I think we've delivered quite a bit on our mandate letter, six of the 15. The hard work now begins on the rest of the mandate letter, and that's understanding what we need and want out of the centres of excellence, how we incorporate best practices, and how we get the best bang for our buck, whether that's going to be through research or through a care facility. Also, how we're going to coordinate this in an efficient, effective manner is something we discuss within my department.

Are we on a tangible, “I can announce it tomorrow, here's exactly what we're going to do”? Absolutely not. This is a work in progress and we'll continue to go forward. It's in my mandate letter. It's important to mental health, to the men and women who served in our military, and how we use it to look at first responders and other things. This is a big task and we're going to look at doing it in the best way possible.

[Gen Walter Natynczyk]

Can I just share some of the feedback?

When the minister met with veterans associations in Ottawa on December 1 and 2, we had a discussion about these two centres of excellence, and the point goes right back to yours that you just made, sir. There's a real appreciation about research, but the veterans also want to see a facility that would actually provide services to veterans.

As we look at this issue, we recognize that there are these two demands, but we also recognize that we have a partnership with the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research. It is a network connecting the 30 universities across the country with medical faculties that do research on behalf of the surgeon general, the Canadian Armed Forces, and Veterans Affairs. It's connecting all of that research to a centre that actually would provide services to those veterans.

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

Could you possibly give us an idea of what this might consist of?

In your mandate letter, there was an issue on a veterans education benefit. There was no reference to that in the budget. Could you expand on that for us, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

We're down to about 25 seconds.

[Kent Hehr, Liberal, Calgary Centre, AB]

We have a commitment to redo that.

We're looking at a wholesale review of best practices. We've committed to that in our mandate letter, and we will continue to work towards providing that full educational benefit to veterans. Stay tuned.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'm very grateful to have an opportunity to ask some more questions.

You identified the needs of families in your remarks, and I appreciate that very much because veterans who are supported by their families are going to do so much better. One of things I did wonder about was beyond that monetary benefit that you've promised. That's fine, unless of course we have a caregiver who has to leave a job, a career. What other supports are you planning to provide for veterans' families, and particularly those acting as caregivers?

[Kent Hehr, Liberal, Calgary Centre, AB]

Well, my department offers both direct and indirect support to veterans and family members through a variety of benefits and services. Obviously, there's case management support, transition services, mental health services, rehabilitation services, as well as the family caregiver relief benefits that are provided.

How we look at supporting spouses and being able to allow them to live full lives is something that our department is going to have to explore and work through. There's no doubt, as we mentioned here, when a man or woman goes and serves in the military, the entire family goes. When an ill or injured soldier or those struggling come back, it's the family who's the front line of healing along with them rebuilding a life. We get that, and we're going to continue trying to incorporate the family into everything we do to allow for a better transition for our members.

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

I'm also concerned about the spouses, the dependants, of deceased veterans.

In the mandate letter, or at least in the election campaign, there was a promise to increase the death benefit from 50% to 70%. It wasn't in the budget.

When will that happen? It's very important for these families to be able to manage.

[Kent Hehr, Liberal, Calgary Centre, AB]

I received a mandate letter with 15 to-do lists on it.

I have every confidence that my Prime Minister is watching that I achieve these goals and get them done on a timely, pragmatic basis that fits within what we need to do for our veterans and their families. We remain committed to not only that proposal but every proposal in that mandate letter. We'll be working aggressively to implement that in the future.

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

I hope so, Minister, because that's a very pressing issue for families.

We heard from the deputy minister in the preamble about the culture—

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Sorry, we've run out of time.

Minister, on behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank you for coming today. General Natynczyk, I'd also like to thank you again, on your second time in front of us.

We will take a break for a couple of minutes. We have another set of witnesses coming up.

Again, thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

I call the meeting back to order.

I'd like to welcome the witnesses. We have Mr. Butler, the assistant deputy minister of strategic policy and commemoration, and Mr. Doiron, assistant deputy minister of the service delivery branch.

We'll now begin questions and we'll start with Mr. Clarke.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today.

I am not sure who exactly my question is for, but I will ask it anyway.

My colleagues and I would like to obtain some clarifications on the budget for veterans. We are talking about $5.6 billion over six years. An amount of $3.7 billion is allocated immediately for retroactive payments, leaving another $1.9 billion. It seems that we are losing track of $300 million.

I would also like to know whether the $5.6 billion is really over six years or over several decades, since it applies to long-term allocations.

[Bernard Butler, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Commemoration, Department of Veterans Affairs]

In the budget document, it is framed as the difference between the dollars that will actually be paid out in the next five years, the $1.6 billion, and the accrual accounting, the $5.6 billion, which takes into consideration the longer-term projections for the value of those programs.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

If I understand correctly, the $5.6 billion is not only for six years, but for a longer period.