Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2017

[Gary Walbourne]

On the universality of service, General Vance has said they're going to start looking at ways to retain these soldiers who become ill or injured.

Is there an opportunity for these members who we've spent a lot of time, money, and effort training and developing to be contributing members of the Canadian Armed Forces but in a different role? I think the general is headed that way. I think this is absolutely revolutionary for where we are.

I do believe there is a saturation point. As time goes on, if I have 1,600 medically releasing members every year, there will come a point where an ability to hold will become a question. Again, the chief of defence staff has said they're going to look at the occupations and which ones may afford that opportunity to an ill or injured member.

This is absolutely wonderful news. I think this is the right way to go. I'll leave it to the chief of defence staff to determine what his levels are going to have to be, because he stills needs to have a fighting force at the end of the day.

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

I understand that balance.

I don't have any more time. Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mr. Fraser.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Walbourne and Ms. Hynes for being here. We always appreciate having you before our committee.

Currently this committee is looking at a comparative study of services to veterans as it relates to other jurisdictions, comparing what we have and whether we can learn or take better practices from other jurisdictions and make recommendations to the government.

You talked about the term “reasonably” being used as far as attribution to service, and talked about the distinction between having two kinds of hoops to jump through. There are ailments or injury attributed to service by the Canadian Forces, and then there's jumping through the other hoop when you are dealing with Veterans Affairs.

I'm wondering if you're aware of how this is determined in any other jurisdiction, whether there are best practices that you're aware of in other jurisdictions and how we could possibly improve upon that in our situation.

[Gary Walbourne]

There are a lot of best practices around the world.

There are militaries in the world, the Dutch, Austrians, Australians, who have a duty to accommodate, so it's heading towards an easing of the universality of service. I think we're already headed there. When we look at Australian Defence, they have simplified their whole process by saying that all regular forces members—reserves, cadets, anyone inside of the Australian Defence Force—are considered as a member and covered under one insurance program.

It makes their processes very simplified. Instead of determining what type of soldier I am, A, B, or C, reg force, reserve force, or Canadian Ranger, it's one program that takes care of everybody. There's a good example of reducing complexity, reducing legislation.

How the Department of Defense in the United States transfers files from DOD over to the Veterans Affairs is much more simplified attribution of service.

There are many best practices. We usually look at the Five Eyes when we do a systemic review. We'll look at what type of program or practice they're using to see if there's any application or benefit to applying that to our systemic reviews. We'll sometimes base our recommendations on best practices that we've seen around the world.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Following up on that, can you point to anything in reports you have done recently that actually compares directly to other jurisdictions we can draw upon?

[Gary Walbourne]

This is where I'm going to get my director general of operations involved.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Okay. Sure.

[Robyn Hynes, Director General, Operations, National Defence and Canadian Forces Ombudsman]

As the ombudsman mentioned, we do look at other jurisdictions when we're doing our systemic reports. That being said, there are times when I think we really need a Canadian-made solution. Some things we take into account when we look at other like-minded countries is that the set-up of their system is a bit different. There are some countries, such as the U.S., that have a very different relationship between the defence department and their veterans department. They are much more closely linked in terms of the way they share information.

If you look at Ireland, for example, you see Ireland does service attribution because they have a type of duty to accommodate. If the illness or injury is a direct result of service, then they do what they can to accommodate the member. If it's not related to service, then they go into a different stream.

While we do look at it when we're looking at other reports, it really depends on the set-up of the system itself. When we did our report on cadets, for example, we did talk about Australia, as the ombudsman had mentioned, which has the same insurance plan regardless of what type of member you are. But we do always try to be cognizant of the differences between the countries as well in the way they are set up.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

If I could follow up on Ms. Mathyssen's point on the universality of service, from the U.S. witnesses we talked to, they had indicated there is more flexibility, obviously, than in our system, and I know we're moving in that direction, but in some cases they allow a limited duty status.

Are you familiar with the U.S. model of universality of service? Do you think this is something we should be moving towards, or are we moving towards it? What's your take on that?

[Gary Walbourne]

When the chief of defence staff says they're going to look, I think he's talking about it this way. I think they are going to look at best practices across the spectrum. I think the general said they have to get this right for Canada.

They will look across at all our allies for sure and other like-minded countries to see what the best practices are.

I don't know if we know what the end state looks like. I think we'll find there will be an evolution to this as we move forward. Once the careers have been determined and which ones could be an option, we'll start to look at how that is actually going to roll out, but I do believe we're headed that way in some shape or form.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you.

Those are my questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mr. Eyolfson.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's always a pleasure to have you back. It's nice to see you again.

Earlier in your remarks you talked about how we're moving towards getting all the services in place, but you're still seeing veterans who have been released before the services.

What would you describe as the incidence of that? What proportion of veterans are coming forward having said they were released but the services weren't in place?

[Gary Walbourne]

The veterans' complaints, if they happen after the member has been released, usually all fall to my colleague Mr. Parent, who you will talk to in a few moments. I deal with the serving members, and the deal is that there will be no member released until all benefits and services are in place.

I have members who have received a release message, who are leaving in a couple of weeks, and have no notification on pension, no idea where their medical care is coming from. Let's open the kimono. The numbers have dropped off dramatically since the pensions have been transferred to PSPC. They have done a tremendous job in turning that around so that issue is coming off the table fairly quickly.

Again, we still have members who are releasing and are not sure where their next medical appointment is coming from, or what their compensation looks like, so those are still happening, at fewer numbers, but still happening.

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

Good. The last part of that was a perfect segue to my next question.

In regard to the health care, the general population has a universal single-payer system. The Canadian Armed Forces have their own medical system.

Can you think of any recommendations on how we can close that seam in particular? As you said, people in the general population will often have trouble finding a family doctor even in the large urban centres, let alone the rural centres. There are a lot of small towns where the one family doctor in town retires, and everyone's in that boat.

Can you come up with any recommendations? Is there a way to make sure the medical care is in place and they have things set up before they are released from the military medical care system?

[Gary Walbourne]

This is where one of the chafing points is going to present itself. We're going to retain these members. Have we thought through, after three years of this, when we have a couple thousand members, who's going to supply the medical care for these?

We know right now that the latest numbers were 40 or 50 medical officers short inside the Canadian Armed Forces. Then we add the suicide prevention strategy that was announced. You talk about the number of health workers they're going to hire through that process.

I had the same question. Where are these people coming from? If a member is retiring to Gander, Newfoundland—there you go, I can use that one honestly—and can't find a family doctor, what happens? Is the medical officer still responsible for this member? These are going to be some chafing points. As you say, this is not restricted to the Canadian Armed Forces. This is a societal issue.

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

Absolutely. Thank you.

I know we've been doing this to death now. I'll be the third person to ask about this, but I'll ask a fairly specific question about it. We talked of course about universality of service. I appreciate your remarks about how we might reach saturation. We can't have too many members who are not able to be universally deployed, but in the service.

Is there an opportunity for a model of, say, a temporary modified duty? If someone is injured either with a mental illness or a physical injury, he or she is put into a job, works at that job, and would be trained in it, be proficient at it, still in the services, and then be released. Even if it's a military-associated job, say, in a base office, or something like that, so that they are well entrenched in that position and securely employed, and only then released as veterans, is that a possibility as a compromise between our current universality of service and completely getting rid of universality of service?

[Gary Walbourne]

I think it's a compromise. I just want to go back to one thing you said earlier. You said there were too many members left in the system. I think it's going to have to be looked at from two different perspectives. Not too many occupations can support, so which occupations can support? From that point in time we'll determine the number of members.

Yes, I believe it's a compromise. As I said, I don't believe anyone has the answer of where this is going at the end of the day. I'm extremely encouraged that we're having the conversation. It's not so very long ago, a couple or three years ago, if anyone had mentioned universality of service you would have been run out of town.

There's been a dynamic shift in what's happening. Yes, I think there are compromises, but what it's going to look like at the end of the day, I don't think any of us have a clear vision of that yet.

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

Okay.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Thank you for giving me that minute back. We've just trimmed everybody by a minute here to get the next gentleman on board.

Ms. Wagantall.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I really appreciate your being here this morning. I want to focus on the whole question of eligibility that you spoken about.

We have a quote from Bernard Butler, assistant deputy minister at Veterans Affairs. It says, “The financial, physical, and mental well-being of eligible veterans and their families is our goal and the strategic outcome to which many of the programs and services of Veterans Affairs Canada contribute.”

You talked today as well about determining eligibility, and simply checking a box should allow Veterans Affairs to immediately accept that decision. That really is the role of the Canadian Armed Forces as they're serving. This eligibility is a huge issue to so many. They fight so hard to be recognized as eligible. A lot of times it seems to be very subjective.

I'm just wondering how you see this issue. It is so important to our armed service members as they're transitioning to be able to be trusted, first of all, and second, to have that information available the way it should be available to them.

[Gary Walbourne]

I think you're getting very close to the core of some of the issues we have when we talk about eligibility: who's in and who's out of the club. Look, this country handles billions and billions of dollars from the taxpayer every year on trust. You file your income tax. We send you a refund cheque or you send us a cheque, and there may be an audit at some point in time.

What if we took the same type of philosophy and applied it veterans? You're in. You got ill or injured? You're in, but remember the government holds the right to audit. I think we could do away with the noise on the front. I'm sure there are malingerers in every system and every part of society. There will be those who'll try to work the system, but by building a system to catch those, we're locking out all the people who legitimately deserve access to these benefits and services.

For the soldiers who we trust the most, why couldn't we have a CRA program? You file your application. You get your benefits and services. The government holds the right to audit at any point in time. There is trust.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Thank you very much.

You also mentioned that in relation to the Veterans Hiring Act, there's a 16-week standard and we're only at a 26% response rate. You say that more accountability needs to be demanded from senior leadership. I would like you to expand on that a bit.

[Gary Walbourne]

I've spent many years in the private sector also. I knew what my deliverables were, and if they weren't delivered, I knew my paycheques were going to be numbered in the future. If I have a public service standard that I've committed to meeting, and I'm consistently not doing it, there should be some questions. Why aren't we meeting this goal? Is this goal important? Is this the one we should be chasing? These questions, I think, are part of day-to-day business. They should be continuously answered, not addressed at a committee or in a report. These are things that everyone should be addressing every day.

If I'm not meeting 80% and I'm at 26%, what's the problem and what do I need to do to get there? No one is asking that question. I haven't seen any push or agitation in the system at all about the 26%. It seems to have flown under the radar.