Veterans Affairs Committee on March 20th, 2018

[Michel Doiron]

No, I'm not privy to give you the number. Sorry.

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

Perhaps we could request that, Mr. Chair.

[Michel Doiron]

I can't provide that number. That's for a discussion with Treasury Board.

We did ask for more. We got the number we got, and we are extremely pleased we got money from the government to do this. We are going to do everything in our power to make as much progress as possible with this money.

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

I really believe that. I do have concerns.

When we had the minister here and we were trying to get an idea of where they came up with this number, the question I asked the minister was, what analysis did they put on the service delivery to come up with this number? There's no analysis.

That amazes me. This is a lot of money. We have a huge backlog, and to not have a number....

I talked earlier about getting to 25:1. In the last budget, it was mentioned all throughout the budget. Now, it's not mentioned once. Is the department abandoning that promise? It seems to me that it is. People just want to know.

[Michel Doiron]

I'll keep it very short. No, sir, we're not.

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

Thank you.

There's a new veteran and family well-being fund that starts on April 1. It's a small amount of money—$3 million—to develop new and innovative ways to support veterans and their families by conducting research and implementing initiatives and projects. We know that the States—and Mr. Chair, you talked about it as well—emphasizes the hiring of vets as caseworkers. In the States, I think 30% of front-line caseworkers are veterans.

Under the veterans hiring initiative and Veterans Hiring Act—and most departments aren't really utilizing the act to the extent that we'd like to see—does the department have a target for rehiring vets like the States has done? The U.S. is at 30%. I know that Pacific Coast University, a school in British Columbia that is an institute for workplace health, hiring people, and training them for return to work, has put forward a proposal, but there's a gap. There's not a lot of money there for this, and I think it's really important. Does the department understand the significance of it? We know that vets often need a person they can trust, someone they've served with. Maybe you can speak to that.

[RAdm Elizabeth Stuart]

The hiring of veterans is absolutely at the fore in the program at Veterans Affairs Canada. One side of the program focuses on the hiring of veterans in private industry. There's an area within my own branch called the veterans in the public service unit, and it was created together with the Public Service Commission and Public Services and Procurement Canada. There has been a pledge by several ministers and deputies to increase the number of veterans in the public service. It is undertaking a pilot at this moment. It's gaining traction. In fact, we had a job fair at the Invictus Games last year that was very successful. The next phase will be to reach out to regions across the country and make more efforts in that regard.

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

Ms. Stuart—and I really appreciate it—is the government looking at setting targets, though? I think that when we set targets, we have an opportunity to try to meet those targets. I know that Pacific Coast University applied for a pilot project proposal to work with VAC to try to move this forward. It was denied and directed to this fund, which is really a start-up fund, if you can call it that. Three million dollars isn't a lot of money to do many things with.

Is the government looking at setting clear targets so that it can get there? What would the number be that the department would like to see?

[RAdm Elizabeth Stuart]

I can't speak to that number. I can tell you that the linkages with the universities are something that we are engaged with. I wouldn't wish to speculate, but I can say that we do have percentage targets within the federal public service.

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

Oh, you do. Can you get those numbers to us so that we have numbers of what we're looking at so that we can monitor that?

[RAdm Elizabeth Stuart]

Yes. If I may add, it's centred primarily on the statutory hiring requirement of medically released vets, and also on the regulatory aspect and all other vets. We take the Veterans Hiring Act very seriously in that regard.

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

Great. We have a lot of veterans who are becoming homeless because of the housing crisis—and certainly on Vancouver Island. I have a veteran in the Comox Valley, William Webb. He has a family, and he's looking at hitting the street. There's a veteran emergency fund that you talked about. Can you elaborate on that fund? We're challenged in finding out more about it.

[Michel Doiron]

Thank you for the information.

The veteran emergency fund allows us.... In the 2017 budget—and I think I've told this committee before—this was the one that really got me excited. When you talk about billions of dollars, and all at once you talk about $1 million a year, why would that catch my attention? It's because that will actually allow us to do stuff directly on the ground.

As the deputy minister mentioned earlier, when a veteran comes to the office.... We have new programs starting April 1, but prior to that, all of our programming was based on a service relationship, so we had to adjudicate. We had to figure out if the injury was service-related before we could help the individual. It's not to say that we wouldn't work with the Legion and everybody else. However, with this fund, it doesn't matter. Now if somebody knocks on the door and says, “I'm homeless; I don't know where to go”, we can actually use this money. Working with our partners, we can put them in the Holman Grand in Charlottetown, which is where we often put people up, or in other hotels when we need to, or get them a meal, or help them immediately.

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

We look forward to hearing more about it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mr. Eyolfson, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for coming.

I don't know who can best answer this, but as you know, the Veterans Affairs offices have been opened across the country. Has that improved the ability to provide services to veterans? Has there been value added to this?

[Michel Doiron]

Absolutely it has improved services. People can now go to a local office and get the services locally instead of having to travel. I was quite happy to open them, and we added one, and they're doing great.

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

Thank you.

What would be the total expected payout? This may have been answered. I'm getting numbers mixed up when they're coming around. I apologize if this has been answered.

For the pension for life, annually, for 2019-2020, do we have an estimate of how much Veterans Affairs would have to pay for that, what that amount will be?

[Michel Doiron]

We do. Our chief financial officer will get the number.

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

While we're waiting for that answer, I'll ask you about the previous career impact allowance. That was a taxable benefit. The new additional pain-and-suffering compensation is going to be tax-free. Is there an estimate as to what that price difference will be, as in how much potential revenue it would cost the government to do that?

[RAdm Elizabeth Stuart]

I'm sorry, but I'm still focused on your first question on the pension for life.

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

If you have that, it would be good.

[RAdm Elizabeth Stuart]

I can't discuss cash yet, but the public amount in the investment for budget 2018 is approximately $3.6 billion.

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

Thank you.

With regard to the other question, the old event was taxable. This new event is not taxable. Does anyone know what kind of figure that would be, the amount of tax that would have been paid under the old system that's just not being paid now?

[RAdm Elizabeth Stuart]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We do work with CRA and the Department of Finance on all the costings that go into the pension-for-life calculations. We do have those amounts identified.