Yes. Thank you and good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members.
As the chair just introduced me, my name is Sara Lantz. I'm the acting assistant deputy minister, chief financial officer and corporate services at Veterans Affairs Canada. It's a pleasure to be with you here today to discuss the 2021-22 main estimates for Veterans Affairs Canada and to answer any questions you may have.
Before I speak directly to the main estimates for the new year, I would like to take a moment to reflect on the past year. As has been highlighted many times before, this has been a difficult period of time for all Canadians. The pandemic has impacted all of us in different ways, and yet I'm very proud of how Veterans Affairs Canada staff have worked together over the past year to manage all of the different and complex challenges, which has allowed Veterans Affairs Canada to maintain our services and supports across the country when they have needed us most.
Through our work and achievements prior to the pandemic to become a more digital organization, we were able to quickly and efficiently equip our employees across the country to work remotely. This ensured that there was no disruption in the services provided to our veterans and their families.
In that first month of April, we provided over $350 million worth of benefits and services. Over 12 months, we provided $4.3 billion in benefits and services for fiscal year 2020-2021.
In addition, in response to the pandemic, Veterans Affairs Canada was able to increase the budgets for the veterans emergency fund and the veteran and family well-being fund and to secure an additional $20 million in new funding to provide emergency COVID-19 relief to veterans organizations hard hit by the pandemic, such as some of our Royal Canadian Legions.
Also, in 2020, as we have previously communicated to this committee, we were able to secure an additional $192 million in funding over two years in support of improving our turnaround times for decisions on disability benefits. The department moved quickly to retain, recruit and train over 700 employees, and now we are starting to realize the positive impacts of this increased departmental capacity.
That said, while our service levels were maintained, as a result of the public health and safety measures implemented across the country, we did experience some lower than projected use of in-person services such as home care, dental services, massage therapy or other similar services. Collectively, this resulted in expenditures of 10% less than the amount originally projected before the pandemic.
Now, as we start a new fiscal year, assuming some level of return to normal in 2021-22 due to vaccinations, and taking into account our increased capacity for disability adjudication, you will note that the 2021-22 main estimates provide Veteran Affairs Canada an opening budget of $6.3 billion, which represents an increase of $1 billion, or 20%, compared to last year's main estimates.
We're currently forecasting that approximately $870 million of this $1 billion increase is primarily attributable to the increased capacity and improved turnaround times for disability decisions.
These estimates also include key increases for our income replacement benefit, our health purchase services and veterans independence programs to ensure sufficient funding is available to meet growing demand for these programs.
Lastly, it's always worthwhile to note that over 90% of Veterans Affairs Canada's budget goes towards providing payments and services to our veterans and their families. This funding goes directly to critical programs such as disability benefits, income replacement, rehabilitation, caregiver recognition benefits, education and training, and more.
Mr. Chair, I thank you for the opportunity to provide these opening comments.
I and my colleagues with me here today will be pleased to address any questions that you or other committees may have about these 2021-22 main estimates.
Thank you.