Veterans Affairs Committee on March 12th, 2020

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

MP Blaney, you have six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I thank all of you so much for being here with us today.

My first questions are for the Veterans Review and Appeal Board folks. Thank you for your presentation. I was really interested to hear some of the things you had to share.

I'm just asking for a little clarity. I think you said that there were about 2,000 cases last year and it has grown significantly. I'm wondering if you could give us a sort of a picture of how much it has grown.

[Christopher McNeil]

We are closing in on about 4,000 applications this year.

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

It has, then, doubled, basically.

[Christopher McNeil]

Yes.

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

Okay. Thank you.

You spoke also about being able to group together more common experiences and have people come together. I heard about the 71 cases in one day, which I think you said historically would have taken about four weeks to accomplish.

I'm wondering how you are organizing this. I am assuming people are coming from different parts of the country. I don't know how that works.

Could you just tell us a little bit about how you organize yourselves?

[Christopher McNeil]

We have the advantage of having BPA, the Bureau of Pensions Advocates, and the Legion as partners. One thing we did early in our tenure was to start to have significantly more outreach to and collaboration with both of those organizations, coordinating with them to work more collaboratively in the interests of veterans. They know the types of claims that are coming.

We set parameters, for example, on fractional entitlement cases that meet such-and-such criteria or hearing loss cases that meet such-and-such criteria. They require only simple arguments. In many cases, it's essentially a matter of saying, “That was the old system, this is the new system, and based on what we already know about the veteran, they meet these requirements.” We can thereby avoid a hearing, we can do these over written submissions and we can do them more quickly.

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

Is 71 your highest number so far, or have you done more?

[Christopher McNeil]

Well, I'm trying not to turn it into a competition.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Well, that's very impressive.

I don't know whether you have this information, but when you see folks who come through this process, do you on average have a sense of how long the veterans have been waiting through the VAC process to get this result?

[Christopher McNeil]

It varies. We have claims that are years old and we are hearing of cases that were just decided by VAC last April, which is quite remarkable. During my earliest time here, you wouldn't have seen a case that was less than a year old. We know they're getting entitlement. How long they were in the VAC system, I can't speak to.

We sometimes have to give the veteran the chance to express their frustration. We know the system is burdensome, we know it's difficult, and we know we don't always get it right, but we constantly urge veterans not to give up, to pursue their rights: “Come back, and we will do our best to get it right.”

We certainly feel their frustration, but I also hear, in panels, of veterans who are grateful for the services they get from Veterans Affairs. The problem with it is that one veteran caught in a loop is one veteran too many, from my perspective, so we are doing our best to help that along where we can.

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

Yes.

We've heard from both the department and the ombudsperson that the backlog seems to be—well, it just is—even worse for women and francophone veterans.

Are you, through your process, seeing something similar?

[Christopher McNeil]

We certainly make no distinction concerning female veterans and their timelines. I will acknowledge that we hear from female veterans and from Dr. Breeck that this is just one of the 700 unique challenges that women face in the context of both getting medical services and having people appreciate how certain conditions affect them. We don't have a distinction in service time.

Jack has already spoken to.... Right across the board we experience problems with servicing the same French claims. Now, fortunately for us the minister was supportive of our priorities to identify either “francophone” or “bilingual” as a priority category for new members, and we got some of those new members.

Yeoman work by Jack and the simplified process have helped us out there as well. We have been able to catch up. It is a constant challenge, however, to make sure we have sufficient francophone resources to ensure that those veterans are treated in the same timeline.

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

Thank you. That's really important.

I'm going to use my last bit of question time to address the Canadian Armed Forces transition group.

I'm always happy to see you here, especially in a blue uniform as the representative of 19 Wing. That's the group I am most used to spending time with.

One thing I've heard from my veterans very clearly in the riding is that the transition is still a bit of a challenge. I am glad to hear that trying to figure out how to get that health component, after being released and then going to VAC, is getting a little bit better.

Can you explain to the committee what some of the challenges are, from being released into getting over to VAC?

[MGen A.M.T. Downes]

First, I'd just like to clarify a point.

We actually are represented here by two organizations. General Misener commands the transition group and I command the health system.

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

Thank you for the clarity.

[MGen Andrew Downes]

But we work very closely together, both at the strategic level and at the base and wing levels.

[MGen A.M.T. Downes]

I'll answer on the health side and then ask General Misener to comment on the other elements.

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

Thank you.

[MGen A.M.T. Downes]

We certainly know that one of the challenges when people transition is accessing care in the provincial and territorial health systems. Many veterans retire in areas that are underserviced. Even in areas like Ottawa, some have difficulty finding physicians. That is a significant challenge on the medical side. We do have nurse case managers, who belong to our health system but work very closely with the transition group, who help to facilitate that process and help to make sure that, when people do transition out, that problem is resolved.

General Misener, would you have anything you'd like to add on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Reply very briefly, please.

[BGen Mark Misener]

I guess I would add that, first, it's a bit of a culture shock, right? When you serve in the military, you're very mission focused, very focused on doing your job. The last thing in your mind is thinking about taking your uniform off. So part of it is an awareness and education thing, getting people to think about this much earlier in their career. We've tried to do that, identifying a domain's well-being and saying these are things they need to think about and this is how they think about it.

But it's also then connecting them with the services and supports that are out there. That's why we're reinventing the transition experience. That's why we do it in partnership with Veterans Affairs and others, so that as they prepare, they get in contact with Veterans Affairs, they meet the other partners and they start to better understand their entitlements.

The last thing we're also trying to improve is simplifying the administration and access to these things. That's why we've put so many things online, on apps, in books, so that it doesn't matter who you are, or your family or your support network, anybody can access this over the Internet—again, trying to make sure the information is out there to help members better prepare and think about this earlier.

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

Thank you.