Veterans Affairs Committee on May 5th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Up next we have MP Desilets for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to all our witnesses for joining us and particularly, in a number of cases, for the loyal service they have provided to the country.

I am impressed by the quality of your testimony to this point.

My first question goes to Mr. Soulière.

What you said struck me and has stayed with me for a number of minutes. You talked about recognizing women, about the disrespect they are shown, and about the fact that many women do not see themselves as part of this community.

Mr. Soulière, can you provide some specific thoughts, please?

[Jean-Guy Soulière]

I can, but I will ask Ms. Montague to fill out my answer, because she has a deeper knowledge of the matter.

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

That will be great.

[Jean-Guy Soulière]

We cannot deal with the matter in its entirety. Therefore, we have decided as an association to focus on women in the Canadian Armed Forces and in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. That is why we created this committee with a group of other concerned women.

Ms. Montague, do you want to continue?

[Sayward Montague, Director, Advocacy, National Association of Federal Retirees]

Thank you, Jean-Guy.

I think I'll respond by noting the statistic that we shared in the U.S. context. We know there's U.S. research that focuses on how women identify as veterans, and it's a different cultural context and lens, certainly.

There is work that needs to be done in the Canadian context so that we better understand Canadian military and veteran women. VAC has made strides in that regard, but there is certainly a way to go, and there is a way to go in terms of the gender and other lenses we apply to commemoration activities and to the study of our history in the military context.

I would leave it at that with reference back to our pre-budget submissions and other testimony we've given to this committee with regard to the study on the backlog.

You know, when it comes to very fundamental transactions with the organizations, with the departments that one depends on for very essential, very necessary benefits, and when those are difficult to access, when veterans are waiting several years for decisions and adjudication on the basis of their gender, that lack of respect becomes quite pronounced. It becomes a factor that alienates you from the culture, camaraderie and the connection, the community, that you had that is so unique to the military. It's unfortunate when that happens, but it's, again, a very fundamental issue that can be fixed with some attention to detail, frankly.

I would leave it at that and encourage, again, the focus on research and better data.

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

Let's continue with what you have just said.

In your opinion, are there major differences between the unresolved backlog for women and for men?

[Sayward Montague]

From the evidence that we have seen in terms of the reporting that's come out of Veterans Affairs just on the backlog, we know there are longer wait times for women. I can pull those statistics up. There are differences as well, and you're familiar with them, MP Desilets, on anglophone and francophone applications.

Veterans Affairs Canada has, to their credit, put some interesting solutions in place to really focus on reducing that backlog once they've identified that there were some structural or systemic issues that were creating the backlog.

The same thing could well be done for female clients. As of 2018, 42% of female clients waited over 40 weeks for a decision, while only 26% of male clients waited that long. We're aware of cases that have been left pending for 104 weeks, more than two years. Less is known about the experience of RCMP veteran women in claims processing, but that's what we're aware of, and we have asked for attention to that.

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

We all want the backlog to disappear. We are aware of a major difference between the treatment of francophones and anglophones and between women and men. You are confirming that once more.

What recommendations would you have to get us out of that vicious circle?

[Sayward Montague]

As a simple start, investing in the GBA+ strategy and ensuring that the work at the department is carried out retroactively and prospectively, I think, is the most critical thing, as is ensuring that the dollars we put into research on women veterans' and military women's service issues are allocated according to SAGER principles, sex and gender equity in research. It comes down to understanding better data and ensuring that the things that are expressed in GBA+ plans, departmental plans and mandate letters are reported on and delivered on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

Up next, for six minutes, we have MP Blaney, please.

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

Thank you so much.

First of all, I acknowledge and thank all of you who have served for your service. Thank you for talking about things that are sometimes very hard to talk about. I really appreciate that.

I thank the folks here who are civilians, who know these stories are so important that you're doing that important support work of amplifying them and finding opportunities to make sure that the voices that are often not heard are heard.

I acknowledge and thank all of you for your presentations.

I'll go first to Mr. Soulière and Ms. Montague.

You said in your opening remarks that it's very hard for our veterans and military people to feel connected to commemoration if they're feeling neglected by the supports and services they're getting. I think when we talk about commemoration that is something we need to always connect with, think about and challenge ourselves to do better.

To follow up on what Mr. Desilets said earlier, you talked about the gaps for diversity and the need to put that GBA+ process also into reviewing commemoration. Could you talk to us about what those gaps are? Have you heard from folks what those gaps are? What could we do differently? What could VAC do differently, to start to address that in terms of commemoration?

I'll leave it to either of you to answer.

[Jean-Guy Soulière]

I'll leave that for Sayward because she has been working with the group that has come out with all this information.

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

Thank you.

[Sayward Montague]

Thank you, MP Blaney, and thank you, Jean-Guy.

In terms of plans for commemoration, we're aware of the 10-year strategic plan for commemoration that has come from VAC. That was informed by one of the advisory groups that one of our colleagues, Dr. Harris, is involved with.

What we noted in reviewing the terms of reference and the records of discussion of the advisory group was that no discussion had come up about equity or about gender-based analysis in commemoration. The department has identified the need for GBA+ in commemoration, but there's nothing specific about what that exactly means. Therefore, how that's going to be achieved is another question we have, and the understanding of what that's going to mean is certainly a gap.

Again, it comes back to that gender-based analysis and applying that lens through all the work that's being done. Good work is being done by Veterans Affairs Canada and the organizations that are around the table supporting them.

That's one of the major gaps. The other gap comes to research, which is a difficult question. We quoted some U.S. understanding of how women are less likely to identify as veterans. There may be any number of factors or reasons that underlie it, but understanding that is really critical in terms of identifying why it happens. It's an unfortunate and damaging factor in and of itself, but it can also mean that women veterans are not accessing or able to access the benefits, services and supports that they need so the inequitable outcomes are snowballing from there. We need to ensure that the research effort and dollars are focused on where the gaps are so we can understand this group a lot better and then we can commemorate them a lot better.

The final thing I would add is that there are opportunities for VAC to connect with the women veterans community. They have stood up the office of women and LGBTQ2. It has been two to three years now. It was announced a year ago in March, but it has been operational a little longer than that. Continuing on with that work is incredibly important. So is the women veterans forum, which the minister had committed to as an annual event. I believe there have been two now. Ensuring that forum continues and that commemoration is perhaps a stream in there would be critical.

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

Thank you for that.

Mr. Gregory, you talked about some of the work that's being done. I'm very interested in the Walk for Remembrance and Peace. I'm writing notes very quickly, so if I've missed anything, I apologize.

Could you outline how that works? Is that walk something we're engaging Canadians to do in remembrance as well? I know it's important to have it there.

You talked a lot about youth. This is something that, of course, I'm very passionate about. How do we make sure youth remember? We only do things when we remember what the past is. This is so important.

[Steve Gregory]

I couldn't agree with you more.

I have a deep concern that for our children, our youth, their world is getting smaller and smaller. To the extent that we can help them understand what makes peace possible and the role of our profession of arms, our soldiers, men and women, in making that peace possible, I think they'd have a different appreciation of the need for commemoration.

We're framing our communication to youth not about our military and not about remembrance for the sake of remembering soldiers; that's a difficult sell to high schools. It's the truth. As a matter of fact, in Bloomberg, Max Hastings wrote about the decline of education on military history in U.S. universities. It's catastrophic. In fact, in Canada, there are very few provincial curricula that include military history. The way to get to youth from our perspective is to pursue a conversation about what makes peace and productive, prosperous democratic societies possible, and what role the military does have in them.

It's hoped the Walk for Remembrance and Peace will be an economic engine that engages civilians in Canada as well as in Italy. It has had a lot of success. The governor of Sicily signed an MOU with the Italian military to dedicate all landing sites as heritage sites. That means funding is going to go to those sites for the purpose of establishing more communication with, obviously, the allies. For them, it's tourism.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Sorry, Mr. Gregory, I have to jump in there.

Up next for five minutes, we have MP Brassard, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, all, for being here.

It's good to see a couple of you again. I think you were here, if I recall, on the benefits. No, it wasn't benefits. It was another subject that we were dealing with, but Sayward and Mr. Soulière, good to see you again.

Mr. Gregory, I want to pick up on what Ms. Blaney was talking about in terms of youth outreach. You talked a lot about the why. In previous panels that we've had we've heard about youth outreach and how important it's going to be for commemoration going forward. I'm wondering if you could speak to the how. Maybe a couple of others could weigh in on this too. How do we best reach youth in order to ensure that the type of commemoration issues that you're talking about are sustained for future generations?

Mr. Gregory.

[Steve Gregory]

Thank you, sir.

We've had limited experience. We're at the beginning of a process. We ran the first International Forum on Peace, Security and Prosperity in 2019, and our last one was this past February. We had 831 participants, 23 countries, 22 military colleges. Ambassador Rae from the UN spoke to the kids as did Senator Loffreda. It was by all accounts a success.

We believe we can create the biggest peace conference in the world. That's our goal. We can do so by just grassroots knocking on doors. Just imagine some of the largest organizations with outreach to high schools. Their database of teachers is less than a thousand. There are 200,000 high school teachers in this country. In fact, that number is a little shy.

We have a lot of work to do with respect to creating a database of teachers in social science, in history, in ethics and in being a better citizen. Just to reach out to these individuals, we funded an ad that's going into Canadian Teacher Magazine. We're building a database through a number of collaborations. It's our expectation that it's going to be a ton of hard work calling on individual schools.

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

There are a lot of individual schools that take that on, on their own. Where I am in Barrie just north of Toronto, Simcoe County District School Board, for example, really engages with youth. There were a couple of thousand who went to Vimy 100, for example. If I hear you correctly then, it's just a matter of funnelling all of those resources into a one-stop shop where we can get that information out to those schools to help them participate. Is that correct?

[Steve Gregory]

I'm not sure about the one-stop shop. I think there's an opportunity for VAC to coordinate and orchestrate the civilian resources. Just in Ontario and Quebec, for instance, we collaborate with 13 of 22 different civilian organizations that were trying to get themselves engaged in commemorations, and that's not including veterans associations or regimental associations. There are a huge number of civilians who would like to be pointed at this. I think VAC can bring these organizations together in some way to help them stimulate collaboration.

I'll give you one perfect example.

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

Make it brief, if you don't mind, because I do have another question.

[Steve Gregory]

When VAC funds an initiative for outreach, those organizations that can demonstrate collaboration should be preferred with respect to funding. We're collaborating with seven different organizations to stretch every dollar. I think VAC could encourage that.

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

Thank you.

The other thing we've been hearing about is the impact that COVID has had on commemorations and the adjustment that's had to be made by various organizations, like Legions, to move to a more virtual setting. They have found that they've been able to expand their reach.

I don't know who to direct this to. Perhaps it should be Sayward or Jean-Guy. Do you see virtual commemorations or a hybrid of such becoming the reality of the future? Even when COVID is gone, is this the kind of thing we are going to be doing on a more permanent basis?