Veterans Affairs Committee on March 20th, 2018

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

But they had to come to that conclusion themselves: they were out and then they decided, when they were ready, to come in.

It's complicated, and that's not to make excuses. We need to have the resources available and ready from when they need help, but it's not always easy.

Also, there are triggers. For a lot of veterans who are mentally ill at the time and need help, there are certain triggers for them. Finding them an environment where there are identifiable military people, where people are wearing uniforms, for instance, can make a situation go from bad to worse. In fact, I've witnessed that myself. We were in a meeting and an individual was triggered by somebody who was wearing a uniform.

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

We heard testimony that these guys are well trained to not be found if that's their choice.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mr. Kitchen, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister and General, it's good to see you again. Thank you for coming.

We're discussing interim estimates today. Like it is for a business, these are yearly projections that are based on costs and on our expectations for the next year. That said, the government has just announced that it is going to commit our soldiers to Mali. I recognize that most of the budgetary aspect of this...and I assume prudent analysis was done on this mission. I also recognize that the budgetary funding should have been—I'm assuming it will be—discussed with the National Defence estimates.

However, these soldiers—airmen, airwomen—will be our future veterans. Therefore, there should have been some planning, costing, and proactive analysis done for the increased expenses that will occur. These increases could be in health care costs, transition costs, and disability costs, and God forbid someone comes home with a death.... There are family costs and analysis all factored into this part. We are dealing with the issues of PTSD that we have learned about, and I suspect there will be concerns about anti-malarial medication issues.

We know that the UN basically pays for the personnel while they're there, but it does not pay for the transition for our veterans. These things will happen immediately. They could transpire from the moment it happens, and we could have numbers coming back the very next day. Those numbers should be factored in.

Minister, I also know—we all know—that you are an assistant deputy minister. You have also indicated to us today that you talk to the defence minister weekly, so you should have been at the table. I assume you were. As you've told us many times, you have committed to our veterans, so you would have brought up these issues at that table. The Liberals brought us into Afghanistan, and now they're taking us into Mali. I'm hoping that we learn something from that aspect of it. Where in these figures are they factored into what the numbers are, and how much are those costs? Can you tell us that information in these yearly costs, please?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I would say first that obviously our obligations to Mali, as announced yesterday, are not nearly what we did for Afghanistan.

Having said that, we have to be prepared. I would just remind members that our obligations to our veterans are statutory obligations, so we will come back at some point—

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

What are the numbers, Minister? What are the factors that are different in these grants per person per year? You're asking for pensions and benefits of $1.2 billion. How much of that are you anticipating to be paid out for our veterans who are being committed to Mali?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Kitchen, I would just say we will be ready for those who—

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

How much are those numbers? Do you know those numbers? Did you ask for those numbers? If not, why not?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I don't have those numbers handy, but we—

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

Can you get us that information?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

—will be ready for those who come back.

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

Can you get us that information, please?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

We will be ready for those who come back.

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

Can you get us that information?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I don't see any reason why we can't.

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

Okay.

Let's move on to another aspect within this budget. I'm wondering if you can give us numbers. You're not giving me any numbers on anything else, but perhaps you can give us numbers on the education and training benefit.

You're basically saying that $4.9 million is being projected for that. You've said to us today at committee that this is a grant. A grant means money up front. Assuming your numbers are correct and it's a grant of $80,000 per service member for 12 years, if you do the simple math, that amounts to 61 people who are going to get this benefit. Are those numbers correct?

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

Sir, the costing that we go through is with the Department of Finance. This also goes to your previous question. We rely on the actuaries. The actuaries in the office of the chief actuary do the costings for us based upon the best information they have at the time and the projections across the board. In addition, as the Minister indicated, whenever this comes into legislation and is approved, it becomes a statutory obligation. Basically it depends upon the uptake from veterans, whether they be drawing on the education benefit or indeed for injuries.

That's why in being able to come back on a cyclical basis through the supplementary estimates, using the quasi-statutory approach that we have with Treasury Board, we're able to revisit and get adjustments as required throughout the financial year.

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

How many people do you expect will utilize—

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Sorry, but we're out of time for now.

Mr. Johns, three minutes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, in the campaign—and this has to do with the meeting today—there was a promise that the government was going to go to 25:1, caseworker to clients. That was a promise that was made. It was sold to veterans, to employees. It was mentioned several times last year in the budget, but it's not mentioned once this year.

I'm wondering if you have decided to abandon that pledge. Right now it's my understanding that we're around 38:1 or 39:1. We're very grateful that you're reopened offices, but in some cases we're hearing it's 60:1 or 65:1.

I mean, when you have this amount, and I'm back to this $42.8 million.... Again, it's our understanding that you needed double that to get to this place where we need to get to. I don't understand why we're not hiring back the staff that we need from 2012.

Can you maybe explain if you have abandoned that promise?

I don't know, Mr. Eyolfson, if it's something that could be tested in a court of law. It's a simple question around a promise. Can you answer that, because that's important?

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

My understanding is that we are still working hard to achieve 25:1. We owe that to veterans. We owe that to our employees.

The Minister and I were in Edmonton, and I had an opportunity to talk to our staff out there. We have some case managers who are in the upper thirties, and some who are in the lower twenties.

What is terrific is that we're able to get quality social workers, psychologists, and so on, who have case management experience. I met with a whole bunch of them, put them through a boot camp, and then slowly increased their caseload in order to take cases from those who have been around for a while. When we asked for additional folks a few years ago, we had an expectation of below about 10,000 folks who would be case managed. For a whole host of reasons, we're north of 12,000 case-managed veterans.

We're out there on an active basis trying to hire the right folks, put them through a boot camp, get into the offices, and then cross-level workloads, and this is ongoing. This is tough work. Case management in this kind of business—many of you have worked in communities—is tough work. Getting the right kind of people with the right kind of skills is absolutely essential, and then retaining them.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I would add too with regard to my comment earlier and my opening comments about a push mentality, word has gotten out, so we see a much increased demand on our services. We're hoping that the $42 million will help us in some way to keep up.

I'm happy for the demand, in a way, because people are calling because they need these services, and it's our obligation to provide them. We have a challenge—you've identified a significant challenge—and that is to keep up to make sure we can provide the services.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Minister, would the government be able to come back and tell us what is needed to get us to 25:1? What is needed to get the backlog to zero, not just for the next two years but permanently, so this never happens again?

Would the Minister be able to come back with those numbers so we know what we need to do? It's the right thing to do that proper analysis and come back, so we can talk about how we're going to get there.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Johns, I have a strong suspicion that those numbers are more elusive than we think. All I can tell you is that we were bound and determined to bring it to zero.