Evidence of meeting #91 for Veterans Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rangers.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Maryse Savoie  Acting Director General Field Operations, Service Delivery Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs
Faith McIntyre  Director General, Policy and Research Division, Strategic Policy and Commemoration, Department of Veterans Affairs
Hélène Robichaud  Director General, Commemoration Division, Strategic Policy and Commemoration, Department of Veterans Affairs
Whitney Lackenbauer  Professor, Department of History, St. Jerome's University, As an Individual
Phillip Ledoux  Vice-President, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan First Nation Veterans Association

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS

I really appreciate that. It was a learning curve. If you don't have the trust and the elders and partners on the ground in that area working with you, you're not going to be successful. That's so true.

You talked about cultural training. Can you give me a very quick picture of what it would look like?

11:30 a.m.

Acting Director General Field Operations, Service Delivery Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs

Maryse Savoie

Well, in terms of what it would look like, we're looking at options right now. What we wish to do is involve indigenous veterans themselves or indigenous elders or leaders in the development of the program. We also want to offer this program to our front-line staff, not only to the ones who are going up north, but to all our front-line staff.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS

I'll tell you, it sounds really good, and I feel good listening to that.

Can you tell me very quickly what are the two or three key needs that you feel are clear? Are we responding to them? Or do we still need more research or a centre of excellence? What key challenges are we noticing? I don't want to know about rules, but about services and how we're coming aboard to make that happen.

11:30 a.m.

Acting Director General Field Operations, Service Delivery Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs

Maryse Savoie

In terms of services, I think one of the challenges we have is the distance, so exploring new technology to reach out.... I'm not denying that meeting face-to-face is the best way, and not denying that up north there are issues with connectivity, the Internet, and so on, but I think that to be effective and to maintain the link in between visits, we need to explore the use of technology.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS

But what are their needs? If we were going to say “here are the three things that these indigenous veterans need”, what are the services? What are their real needs?

11:30 a.m.

Acting Director General Field Operations, Service Delivery Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs

Maryse Savoie

The needs are not so different from those of veterans who live outside of the north. They need support. They need mental health support. The families need support as well.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS

Is there anything with respect to the centre of excellence that can link this help? The centre of excellence is about research, data, and piloting. Is there anything we can draw from there that could even enhance our offering of services over time?

11:30 a.m.

Acting Director General Field Operations, Service Delivery Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs

Maryse Savoie

I think the enhancement comes from being more culturally sensitive to make sure that we integrate the cultural aspect of the indigenous people into all of our programs and the way we deliver services.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS

I know that my speaking time is up and so I want to thank all three of you for your presentation. I am going to listen to the answers you will provide during this meeting. I am anxious to learn more over time.

Thank you very much.

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis

Mr. Johns.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Thanks to all of you for your testimony and your hard work.

There is a question I would like to ask. I've raised this before. In the United States, I think their goal is that about 30% of their caseworkers are former veterans. I'm wondering if you can give me an idea of how many staff at VAC are indigenous and how we are reflecting that in terms of front-line caseworkers. Is there any data you can share with us?

11:35 a.m.

Acting Director General Field Operations, Service Delivery Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs

Maryse Savoie

At Veterans Affairs Canada we are really convinced of the advantage of having veterans within our service teams. Not only are we convinced of that fact, but we promote it. In fact, in the fall of 2016, our minister announced the creation of the Veterans in the Public Service Unit, or VPSU. The purpose of VPSU is really to support veterans in their integration into the public service and to promote the employability of veterans within the public service. VPSU will seek and create employment opportunities for veterans, and help them in a very practical way, for instance in preparing their CV, in preparing for interviews, and so on. So this is a very concrete way of including veterans in our service teams.

At VAC, our objective is that 10% of our workforce will be made up of veterans by July 1, 2020. At this time, we have reached 6%. This means that 144 veterans are working at Veterans Affairs Canada.

With regard to direct services and activities in the region, under my direction, 49 veterans have been integrated. We see a real advantage to the presence of these veterans in our offices, where they can really share their military culture and their experience and help us to better understand military reality.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

I really appreciate that. It's nice to know that there are some targets, because I didn't get that number until today. I've asked for this a lot.

What about indigenous veterans? Can you give me a number on indigenous veterans? If the goal is 10% by 2020—

11:35 a.m.

Acting Director General Field Operations, Service Delivery Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs

Maryse Savoie

I don't have that specific data.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Okay. It would be great to hear if the department could go in that direction in articulating this. When 2.8% of the people serving in the military are indigenous, it would be nice to see that reflected in terms of the caseworkers.

You've cited the fact that you're doing culturally sensitive training. I really appreciate that. I think it's really important to have caseworkers who are also culturally sensitive in understanding indigenous needs. Indigenous people who have served would certainly be able to fulfill that.

11:35 a.m.

Acting Director General Field Operations, Service Delivery Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs

Maryse Savoie

Perhaps I can add to that.

Indigenous people are included in the four employment equity groups. In this case also, we have targets to reach. At VAC, the target, subject to market availability, is 2.3%. Four per cent of our employees are of indigenous ancestry. We may assume that this includes some veterans, although we do not have the refined data to support that assumption.

I also want to mention that the figures are probably an underestimation, because for a veteran or an indigenous person to be identified as such, he or she must self-identify.

Not all veterans wish to self-declare themselves as such, so there might be a bit of under-representation in terms of the data.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Right.

Specifically, how does VAC measure if staff are competent in dealing with return-to-work cases? I know that a proposal has come in from Pacific Coast University for Workplace Health Sciences to train 25 disabled veterans as disability management return-to-work coordinators. Is there a plan or a strategy on how to train return-to-work coordinators? The Province of B.C. has even identified that there's a lack of professional competence in its rehabilitation and return-to-work staff.

Ms. McIntyre, I think this might be directed toward you.

11:35 a.m.

Director General, Policy and Research Division, Strategic Policy and Commemoration, Department of Veterans Affairs

Faith McIntyre

Thank you very much for the question. Indeed, we have spoken about it before. I will be meeting with Wolfgang Zimmermann later this week further to the contact that you had provided to us. As I believe I stated to you earlier, I am slightly familiar with him and the National Institute of Disability Management and Research. We have indeed received the proposal. We currently are in the process of accepting proposals under our veteran and family well-being fund. The deadline is June 29. I encourage others as well to put in any type of responses.

Return-to-work and disability management is at the heart of any case management principles, and it certainly is an important competency in terms of the education and experience background we seek when we hire and employ our case managers across the country. We certainly are working toward doing the best we can to increase that competency profile, and look forward to reviewing the request for proposal from Pacific Coast University.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

All right. Thank you.

We know that the caregiver recognition benefit will be really important, especially for people in rural communities where they can't get access to services. One thing we heard was that the key for enrolment was that it was supposed to be automatic for people who were under the old program. Can you give me some idea of the number of recipients under the old and the new programs since 2006? Probably not? Okay.

That's a concern, as are some of the questions on the application, such as whether you're able to prepare food or dress yourself. The answer to both might be “yes”, but a lot of it is not centred around mental health. We're hearing concerns from caregivers that people are getting denied, specifically people with PTSD who need support.

Is there anything you can comment on with regard to how you're going to revise that or correct that or make sure that people are getting the services?

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis

We're right out of time, so make your answer very short, please, or get back to us with that answer.

11:40 a.m.

Acting Director General Field Operations, Service Delivery Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs

Maryse Savoie

I would defer to Faith McIntyre to answer that question.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis

Faith, we're very short on time. Sorry.

11:40 a.m.

Director General, Policy and Research Division, Strategic Policy and Commemoration, Department of Veterans Affairs

Faith McIntyre

Certainly.

I will say that the caregiver recognition benefit does indeed provide for mental health as well. We can provide you with statistics for that. I don't have them in front of me. Having said that, as with any policy, as the context and the environment shifts, we certainly are well aware of the need to continue an ongoing review of all our eligibility criteria as we move forward. Thank you for the comment.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis

Thank you.

Mr. Bratina.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON

Thanks to all of you for being here.

In the journey we had across the country visiting aboriginal veterans, over and above the obvious needs of those veterans, which are similar for all veterans in terms of services and awareness, it struck me that a very big aspect was the commemoration. I remember one aboriginal veteran saying—if I can quote accurately—that, you know, we had no allegiance to the crown, but we fought for the crown anyway, and we're proud of it.

I think that separates them, in a little way, from other veterans. How do we acknowledge their services? We talked about 2005. Is there a budget? Do you have the resources to tell Canadians about the things that aboriginal veterans have done in terms of service?