Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 27th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Mr. Desilets, you have two and a half minutes.

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

I'm going to fire off two or three questions.

How do you explain the fact that women wait longer for decisions? I understand why francophones might have to wait longer, but why does it take longer to process women's claims?

[Michel Doiron]

There are a few reasons that might explain it.

First, the situations are more complex. In the past, we didn't fully understand the consequences that wearing the equipment could have on a woman's body, for example.

I began my career in customs, and I wore a bulletproof vest, which fit me quite well, even though I'm a fairly big guy. My wife works in customs as well, and I can tell you that her experience wearing the bulletproof vest isn't the same as mine. It may seem like a trivial thing, but it can cause injuries, which may not have been recognized before.

Oftentimes, the cases are more complex. I won't go through all of them, but I'll give you one example. Last week, I was at a briefing, and it came as a surprise to hear that there were cases involving impacts on reproductive organs. Men can experience those problems as well. For instance, it's pretty clear how post-traumatic stress syndrome could lead to impotence. Women, however, are affected differently, and those effects aren't well known.

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

There's a shortage of staff. The issue is pretty clear. It seems to be a bit worse in Quebec, as far as case managers go. Despite the context, do you have a plan to deal with the shortage?

[Michel Doiron]

Absolutely.

In Quebec right now, we aren't having too much trouble on the recruiting side, for one reason or another. Finding candidates doesn't pose a challenge, but we do have a plan. We are always recruiting.

As the deputy minister mentioned, the reality is we lose 12% of our case managers annually. We are able to fill vacant positions every year, but new employees aren't operational for another year. That's how long it takes to train them. At any given point in the year, we are short basically 20% of our staff. Either new employees are in training, or we are trying to recruit people.

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

They're in training.

[Michel Doiron]

That's right. They are in training. We are always recruiting, and we always have people in training.

In Alberta, we used to have trouble keeping people. We also had trouble filling certain positions, but Dr. Courchesne worked incredibly hard to fix that. At one time, we were having trouble recruiting physicians, and now, they come knocking on our door because the culture has changed. Medical officers aren't the only ones coming to us; other doctors are as well. I'm generalizing, but we have a lot less trouble recruiting them now. Recruitment and training do take time, though.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

MP Blaney, you have two and a half minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I want to say thank you, Walt, for mentioning the amazing folks at 19 Wing. It's a great honour for me to represent them, and I enjoy my time with both squadrons 407 and 442. They've taken me out on some really interesting trips that included my being hoisted up in the air. I really enjoyed it. The depth of admiration that I have for their skill set is tremendous. I am so grateful they are there, but I can't imagine the harm to their bodies, especially for squadron 442.

We've talked about the FTEs. Are you planning to increase that, or are you happy where you are? I understand maintenance of that. I've been an employer before. I understand that people cycle through the system. Is this where you're planning to stay or is there a desire to have more?

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

We are collecting the data in terms of the growth of demand, also recognizing that the solutions are not only about getting additional folks, figuring out what we need to do to digitize and what we need to re-engineer our process and what we need in terms of not only dealing with attrition but to project forward four or five years, because it takes that long through the pipeline of training to get the right workforce re-engineering digitization. We are putting that case together in order to work with other departments and ask how we move forward.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I want to take a moment to follow up on the complexity of women's claims. I appreciate the answer that you gave my colleague, but is there research going into this, and is that something that you could give to this committee at some point?

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

I can start off by saying we had a summit last year, working with our allies. We've actually created an office of women veterans and LGBTQ2 veterans. We stood up that office, which reports to Steven.

[Steven Harris]

I think that's the nexus point for us in terms of being able to connect with our stakeholders to better understand issues that may arise for women veterans and to make changes to our processes.

Michel and Rick have talked about how they found there are challenges with some of the ways in which we may adjudicate disability claims, for example. That might be based on the fact that 90% of the business is uniquely male in terms of the issues and challenges there. What we've done by setting up the office, led by a former military member herself, who's out and consulting broadly with the women's stakeholders organizations, is to get a sense from them of where the challenges might be. We are also working internally with all of our areas, including my policy area, to make sure that, as we go forward with new policies, new programs and changes, that we can integrate that lens and viewpoint. As you know, there's a gender-based analysis process for all Government of Canada programs. It's not unique to Veterans Affairs Canada, but this is a special lens we're trying to bring to this for those individuals specifically.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

It's an important one, because when you look at the military side, in Canada we're still having challenges getting enough women. In my family, the majority of the people serving at this point are women, so our family is doing well, but women as a whole are not represented well. I'm wondering if there's any impact when they're hearing that the other side of it has some struggles. I'm hoping that gets cleared up so that it's more welcoming.

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

I'm very pleased that we have Lieutenant-Colonel (Retired) Christina Hutchins leading the charge. She was the first female logistics officer of the airborne regiment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

That brings us to the end of a very quick three rounds.

We have some time left. I know there's some desire for questions. We have about 14 minutes left, so each party could receive maybe two and a half to three minutes, enough time for one quick question and one quick response.

We'll start with MP Wagantall.

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

Thank you. I have one more question.

You have set up some advisory groups to assist you from within the veterans community. I know the one on service excellence met recently. These backlogs are a huge issue. I'm wondering, since the election, when have you met with the other groups and what feedback have you received from them.

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

I really enjoyed my time talking to the service excellence advisory group, SEAG, the other day. The co-chair of that committee is right over here, Rick Christopher. Steven co-chairs the policy one.

Maybe, Steven, you could run down when the one on commemoration and all the others have come back together.

[Steven Harris]

Sure.

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

I'd like to know especially about the ones in relation to the backlog, so those that are meeting. The mental health advisory group, the care and support advisory group, and the group on families are the ones I think would be most impacted by what we're hearing about and seeing as the largest concern.

[Steven Harris]

I'm engaged with the policy group and the commemoration group.

I'll stick just to the policy group. They're not so focused on the backlog. They're looking at questions of how programs and policies work and the interaction between those. Ultimately, that does come down to how often and how long it might take for somebody to get access to programs and get access to benefits from us.

In terms of the families and others, I'll turn it over to my colleagues to try to talk about those to the extent that they know about them. I know the policy group met in December, after the election.

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

When have you met since the election?

[Steven Harris]

For policy, it was in December.

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

Was that your group, the commemoration group?

[Steven Harris]

Yes.