Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 27th, 2020

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

What about the others?

[Steven Harris]

That's the only one I'm in.

[Michel Doiron]

I was the co-chair. I've turned it over. SEAG met this week. I'm not aware of the other ones. I'm not involved with them. I'm not sure—

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

The mental health group is going to meet next week.

[Michel Doiron]

Mental health is meeting next week.

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

That's great. Okay.

[Michel Doiron]

The chairs are behind us.

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

Wonderful. Thank you.

What about the one on families and the health advisory group?

[Michel Doiron]

I don't know, but we can get back to you.

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

We'll get you the dates that they're meeting.

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

I would appreciate that. Thank you.

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

I'll also say that the minister spoke to the co-chair of each of the committees and asked them to continue doing their work. That's why we met with the service excellence group this week, and the other groups are meeting, so the work continues on all six advisory groups.

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

Have they been advised, particularly with regard to the backlog, to give feedback in—

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

With regard to service excellence, a lot of the points I've made today I went through with the group, with Rick, this week.

Rick.

[Rick Christopher]

We spent almost the entire day on Tuesday talking about the backlog and various approaches, so when we talked about incomplete applications, for instance, I was looking for their advice on the best way, the most compassionate way, to deal with these.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

Darrell, we have time for a very quick question.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Since 2015 we've added seven or eight new programs. Can you give us the top three with regard to uptake?

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

I would start off with the education and training benefit. Again, it is so difficult to get folks serving in the armed forces to plan for their next life, and we know that the key to a transition is having a plan. The uptake on the the education and training benefit has been extraordinary, as it has on the career transition services.

Last year we put a call out for the veteran and family well-being fund. In the fund we have about $3 million a year. We received $182 million of ask.

We launched the veterans emergency fund , and we continually top it up because the need is so significant across the board.

I'll stop there and turn it over to my colleagues to address policy and service delivery and anything else.

[Steven Harris]

Obviously, one of the other major platform commitments was pension for life , and that was delivered starting last year. That's three new programs. There was also a reduction in the number of programs to reduce complexity and make it as simple as possible, both from an adjudication and a delivery point of view, so that it's simple for veterans to understand.

There are three programs there, including the income replacement benefit, the pain and suffering compensation, and the additional pain and suffering compensation.

[Michel Doiron]

For me, there are two game-changers. I'll stick to two because everybody mentioned the one you heard me talk about here before.

First, there's the veterans emergency fund. I think that's the one that has made the biggest difference on the ground. I can actually direct a veteran to it, and I don't have to do a disability assessment of any sort to get the veteran off the street. Maybe they're not on the street, but maybe they had a flood in their house, or something happened. Well, we can help them with minimal paperwork. We have to do some paperwork; it is the government after all. It's minimal paperwork, though, and we can help them. We were spending a lot of money from our charities, but this was a game-changer. It's a major one, and I'm very passionate about it.

Second, there's the IRB. We used to call it the EL benefit. When we went from 75% to 90%, that really changed things. In the case management ratios, our business case was premised on approximately 9,800 case-managed veterans. We blew through that. We are now up to 14,000. When you make 90% of your pre-release salary, that ensures the financial security of those individuals. That is another major program.

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

Can I just touch on the veterans emergency fund? I was up in North Bay, and I was trying to figure out why North Bay is our highest consumer of the veterans emergency fund. I'd thought it would be Halifax, but in consumption per capita, it's North Bay. They are supporting World War II veteran survivors and widows, and they don't have to do the paperwork to get dentures or hearing aids for widows. This makes me so proud of our staff.

On the income replacement benefit, it's 90%. I just heard from the service excellence advisory group the other day that the best idea we've come out with is that someone on income replacement benefit can make up to $20,000 without any clawback. This means they are actually being incentivized to find purpose. Whether they want to work at a Home Depot or any other store or they want to start a little business of fishing lures or whatever, they're finding purpose. That's why they say the best idea was that $20,000 of allowable income before clawback.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

MP Desilets, please.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, again, for being here today.

I want to ask you something that's both simple and complex. What's your biggest challenge for 2020?

[Michel Doiron]

The backlog, period.

The first issue the committee decided to tackle was the backlog. I think that's wonderful. We are open to every effort. We want to get to the bottom of the problem. We are serious about it, and we have set money aside to do just that. It remains our biggest challenge.

When I first started appearing before the veterans affairs committee, I was getting 20 problem cases a day. It was a crisis in 2014-15. I still get 20 cases a day. Nineteen of them have to do with the turnaround time for a decision.