Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 18th, 2020

[Scott Maxwell]

It's frustrating to know the problem, the scale, scope and size of a problem that large, and then hear words such as “temporary”. This is not a temporary problem. It has been happening for years. We need to put the resources in place. If we can do it and it can be fixed, why wouldn't we?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

Now we'll go over to MP Carrie, for five minutes, please.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair; and thank you to the witnesses.

I'd like to get right to it. I have so many questions.

First, Madame Vaillancourt, my colleague Mr. Brassard mentioned that we really do appreciate the report and your contribution, because this is about the veterans. We're looking for solutions, and hopefully we can come up with something that the government can use as a playbook to fix the backlog.

One of the things we've heard is that because of the pandemic most of the workers are now forced to be working from home and the offices are closed. Has that affected your ability to process claims?

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

At the onset of the pandemic, it absolutely slowed down the process, because not everybody had the proper equipment, desks, printers and that type of thing.

In the adjudication aspect, the files are physical, so they aren't necessarily able to be consistently transported home unless you make sure that you have all the proper equipment to be able to actually lock that up securely.

At the onset, it did, absolutely.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

How are you doing now? Are you back up to reasonable times? Do you know if it is consistent with what you were doing before, or do you have any data on it at this time?

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

I don't have specific data in that regard. We know that the output of work has increased, but no, I don't have the numbers to that.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Well, if you're able to get it, I'd be very interested in that.

I also want to come back to a point that Mr. Maxwell mentioned. We had a veteran, Mr. Thomson, at our last meeting, and frankly, I was really shocked about how the process moved. Before that, we had Mr. Walbourne say that the process was not fixable; however, we have to work within what we have.

Here we had a veteran who was medically discharged from the Canadian Armed Forces, but he had to wait months and months for the veterans' office to make sure that it was attributable and that it would go forward.

Since we are looking for solutions, one of the things that Ms. Wagantall has brought forward is, why don't we just have people who join the Armed Forces sign a form ahead of time saying, if it's required, VAC can have access to your medical records?

Madame Vaillancourt, do you see any downside to that? Would that be an efficiency that would be easily implementable?

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

Yes, I think it would be easily implementable. As to whether I think it would fully work, I'm not sure, because there has been such a battle with trying to get service medical records now and the challenge between the two departments on access versus who has the right to that access.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Yes. We're just thinking of solutions here, and we don't want government departments fighting, because this is about the veterans and getting the benefits to veterans as quickly as possible. I appreciate your comment on that because I think that's a really good suggestion by Madame Wagantall.

We also had different veterans organizations talk about pre-approval of certain conditions, especially the musculoskeletal ones, tinnitus, things that are very common.

Do you see any downside of a pre-approval type of process? Would that affect your members on the ground? Do you think it would help them be more efficient on certain cases?

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

It potentially could be, but in the brief that we provided to you, there are actually recommendations from the staff themselves in regard to looking at the potential of automatic approvals and having a type of fraud section set up to review cases after the fact, similar to CERB.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

It might have been Mr. Wagner who brought forward the mentality of our men and women in uniform. We send them into dangerous situations and just tell them to get it done.

Mr. Wagner, I think you stated same thing to the committee, which I appreciate very much. You talked about “empowering the front-line staff”.

As far as the job that you do is concerned, if there were an ability to have access to the records by people working on the form for the veteran, would that help streamline it, especially if we had permission in advance from the veteran to allow that? Would that help you on the ground?

[Chad Wagner]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Give a brief answer, please.

[Chad Wagner]

It would help us, but I think talking to the front-line staff at Veterans Affairs and using their solutions would be the best thing for all of us. They're the ones who are there.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

We have MP Lalonde, for five minutes.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be sharing my time with MP Casey.

Thank you all for being here again. For some of you, it's a reacquaintance.

I want to give a shout-out to our Legion for a great poppy season. Certainly, according to our numbers, as of today, $100,000 has been raised for our Legion Branch 632, so I want to take this opportunity to say “Bravo.”

Mr. Maxwell, I would like to focus on one aspect. You mentioned that you had about 1,000 members. Out of those 1,000 members you're providing services to, how many are women veterans?

[Scott Maxwell]

It's not the majority. I'd say it's probably about an 80:20 male-to-female ratio.

Conversely, the same on the couples or spousal programs that we have, actually it's a lot higher. It's almost predominantly women.

It's what the makeup historically has been and we're certainly seeing that on the downstream side of treatment.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

I know we're talking about the backlog at large, but I want to focus a little on the women's perspective today, about your 80:20 ratio.

Out of the 20% that you're providing services for, have you heard of longer waits than, sadly, already existing wait times for veterans having access to any benefits?

[Scott Maxwell]

Yes, it's consistent for both, either male or female. I think it just speaks to the scope and scale of the problem, that it's consistent for whoever is trying to go through this process upon release.

In terms of what we see, sometimes it feels as though 50% of what we're trying to support and treat through our programs is the injury sustained as a result of their service, and the other half of their struggle and their challenges through their operational stress injury is the treatment they feel they're receiving by their own country through their own departments.

It's a significant struggle and challenge for these folks, having to retell their stories, feeling as though they're just a number, not getting the help in a timely fashion, and of course, the downward pressure that it then places on their spouse or partner and on their kids. It can spiral out of control pretty quickly and compound what are already significant trauma-based injuries.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you very much.

I want to share my time, but I have one last question.

We had testimony and one of the recommendations of Mr. Sauvé was to “fast-track applications for clients who are medically at risk or have urgent health needs.” That was one of his recommendations that the committee should look at.

Quickly, do you have any thoughts on that?

[Raymond McInnis]

That process is already in place with Veterans Affairs. It's called the “red zone” policy. If an application is in Veterans Affairs, or if we're applying for a disability benefit, when there are unmet health needs we can request red zone treatment.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Great. Thank you very much, Mr. McInnis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Mr. Casey, you have about a minute and a half, maybe a little more.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, a couple of my colleagues have felt compelled to apologize to one of the witnesses for the manner in which I pose questions. I'm not surprised to hear it coming from Ms. Wagantall, who also advocated pulling jobs out of Charlottetown. What I can say to all of my colleagues here is that if anyone publicly advocated taking jobs out of your community, I'd be very surprised if you were to react differently.

Ms. Vaillancourt, I asked you to substantiate your position that the pool of available employees in Charlottetown is limiting. I've asked you to do that now on four occasions, and you haven't, so let's try again.

For the position of the disability adjudicator, can you tell me how many people have been screened into the hiring pool? Can you tell me what the rate of bilingualism is in Prince Edward Island, and can you tell me what the rate of unemployment is?