Veterans Affairs Committee on April 12th, 2021

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

I would be very grateful. That's nice of you.

I have one last question for Mr. Natynczyk.

Earlier, I shared with the minister the case of a nurse from Quebec, who had retired from the military and who answered the call to work as a nurse during the pandemic. From March to June, she worked in the midst of the pandemic and exceeded the $20,000 income replacement benefit limit by $6,000. Now your department is asking her for that money.

I want to know how many veterans are in the same situation and are being forced to pay back that money for their service. Are you planning to change this $20,000 cap rule so that veterans can give us a hand during the pandemic?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

That's it for your time, General, but I'll give you an opportunity to answer briefly.

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

Thank you.

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

I really appreciate the information. This is for veterans who are on the income replacement benefit. They're allowed to make $20,000, as an incentive to find purpose. I'm thrilled to hear that people are using it to its best advantage.

This is the first I've heard of a case of this nature. Again, generally under the regulation and legislation, we're allowed to give them that first $20,000 without any clawback. I appreciate this information, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you, General.

MP Blaney, go ahead for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to come back to the marriage after 60 clause. I think we all know that it was put into law in 1901. It was nicknamed the “gold-digger clause” because the idea at the time, of course, was that young women were marrying men when they were older and getting their pensions. I'm very frustrated that the sexism in place in those days—and hopefully we think we are doing a bit better now—certainly continues today.

The minister has said that research is happening to help identify these spouses. I want to be really clear that a lot of these spouses have reached out to our office and asked about this, especially once they heard about the 2019 budget announcement. They wanted to sign up. Now it is over two years later and the study is just starting. My office has been asking again and again for information and really has nothing to tell people.

Could there be a process that people could apply to? I'm sure that many of these people, largely women, can self-identify quite clearly. This is something that, in my opinion, they desperately need and deserve. That's one question. How is this process going to unfold? How are people going to be able to access the supports that they desperately need?

As for the second question, when is this clause going to be removed? This is an old clause that has nothing to do with what's happening today. It's been over 100 years. It needs to be gone. I'm wondering when it will actually be removed. When will we start treating people who marry our military veterans respectfully? These people are loving them. This is a beautiful thing, and we should not be punishing people for falling in love at 60.

[Gen (Ret'd) Walter Natynczyk]

The marriage after 60 clause is a really challenging policy. Again, it is directly linked to the superannuation of the Canadian Armed Forces. What the department has been given through the budget process is the creation of the veterans survivor benefit, which is, I believe, as you've indicated before, $150 million.

The challenge we had that came out of the budget was to fully understand the depth, the gap and the needs across the board. That's why we went to the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research and Statistics Canada to have them assist us in developing the evidence base upon which to build the policy. In the case of CIMVHR, the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, they went to the University of British Columbia to do the research. That research was impacted significantly by COVID, and thus we only received the information more recently.

I'll now ask Rick Christopher to weigh in and indicate how we're moving forward with a policy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Very briefly, please.

[Rick Christopher, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Commemoration, Department of Veterans Affairs]

I'll be brief.

Thank you, Deputy.

Mr. Chair, we finally got the information. As the deputy said, there was delay due to the pandemic. We're compiling that information, and we will be developing recommendations for the minister on how to proceed with a policy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

We do need to wrap up. We have some votes in front of us.

On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank the witnesses for their appearance, and more importantly for their service to our country in these incredibly challenging and difficult times.

We appreciate the work that you're doing. We see the momentum. I think we can all agree there's a lot more work to do, but I extend a heartfelt thank you from us.

I will invite you to log off now, as we have some votes before us.

Pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), the committee will now consider the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022.

There are two options here. We can either put the question of the credits together in one motion or dispose of the credits individually. My preference is to do it all at once.

Is there unanimous consent to dispose of the credits together?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Excellent. I see heads nodding.

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$1,302,127,308

Vote 5—Grants and Contributions..........$4,944,822,846

(Votes 1 and 5 agreed to on division)

VETERANS REVIEW AND APPEAL BOARD

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$9,884,732

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Shall I report these votes to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Excellent. Thank you.

I'll just double-check with the clerk that I haven't missed a critical step here.

All right. Seeing no other business before us, do we have consent to adjourn today's meeting?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much. It was good to see everybody.

We have some votes on Wednesday, so we'll be delayed a little bit, but we'll see you at our next meeting.

The meeting is adjourned.