Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 7th, 2024

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

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Mr. Desilets, thank you very much. I'm sorry, but your two and a half minutes are up.

Let's go back to Ms. Blaney for two and a half minutes.

Please go ahead.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to come back to National Defence.

I heard your response to my question. It's a little bit confusing, but a bill was passed in 1985, I believe. It encompassed the three wars. I think that orders in council made changes in the interim. If I got any of that wrong, can we make sure that's clarified?

Then I heard that in modern times, it's the Minister of National Defence who decides what type of service it is, and a committee decides the amount of benefits. Did I get that right?

If so, can you tell the committee a little bit more about who is on the committee, who's in charge and how they determine the benefit amounts? Who are they appointed by?

[MGen Erick Simoneau]

I will answer the first portion of your question, and I'll pass it over to General Girouard for the second portion.

It is correct that the Pension Act was passed in 1985. At that time, they were trying to provide the best compensation benefits to veterans and service members, and we had three wars' worth of people to support at that time.

On April 1, 2006, the second piece of legislation came into force. They are two different pieces of legislation; they're akin, but they're different. Every claim that was put in and every type of recognition, compensation and benefit for serving members came under that umbrella. The Veterans Well-being Act is the umbrella for everything after 2006, so that's correct, in that sense.

I'll pass it over to General Girouard.

[BGen Luc Girouard]

Thank you very much.

I can speak to the composition of the departmental hardship and risk committee. It is chaired by a member of the strategic joint staff, Brigadier-General Huet, the director general of operations. On the committee there are also members representing the RCMP, one member representing our joint operations command, and the committee secretary. There are obviously other members on the committee. The deputy chair is also a member of the strategic joint staff. There are advisers who represent our health services community and our intelligence community, as well as a list of ex officio members on the committee itself.

Within that committee is a subcommittee with similar representation. It's meant to do more in-depth examinations on specific questions that the committee might be dealing with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Dowdall, you have five minutes, please.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the guests for being here today. I also want to thank them for their service.

This has been an interesting study thus far. Really, what I've gotten out of it since it began are two things, quite frankly. One is the recognition issue, which I think you must hear quite regularly. The second is that perhaps there's a financial implication to it.

I know that you're bound by policy, Mr. Tessier, in that you have to follow the latest Veterans Well-being Act. You kind of sound like a mortgage broker or an insurance agent, just giving me all the paperwork. Is that perhaps flawed, in some ways?

[Pierre Tessier]

I'd go back to the premise of the legislation that we have: No specific legislation currently would allow us to—

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Yes, that I understand, but do you not think, as a professional in that industry, who I imagine would get...?

I want to read this email, just to get your response. This is what I get regularly. I just got this response in the committee:

Hello. I have served as an air staff officer in Canada's joint headquarters in Bahrain from October 1990 until March 1991. I was sent on two days' notice a few months after I got married, with zero idea of what I was getting into and absolutely no idea when or if I would be coming back.

The Canadian government has been unfair to those of us who have proudly worn the Canadian flag in the Persian Gulf, not recognizing us as war veterans when we're in fact involved in a war.

If the government actually cared, which they clearly don't, they would understand that this service we so freely gave in the face of unknown circumstances was due to our devotion to service and our willingness to go for Canadian values.

He's calling for us to fix it.

What would be your answer to an individual giving me that email or phone call? What would you say?

[Pierre Tessier]

From a departmental perspective, currently we continue to work within the bounds of our legislation to provide the best services we can to our veterans, and—

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Then the legislation is probably flawed, to some degree, because there are a lot of these individuals. That's what I'm trying to say.

Basically, what I'm trying to understand is that we're here, we have individuals who have been lobbying for this since I believe 2017, and really nothing's happened. Has there been a study on this? I think the financial part might be an equation. Has anyone in the policy department looked at it and said that if we did happen to change this, if we did go through the legislation—because we have been asked for seven or eight years—what would be the issue and what would we have to deal with?

[Pierre Tessier]

I would actually go back to the Veterans Well-being Act, which has been updated a number of times since 2016 to add a number of benefits.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

But what I'm saying is that for the Persian Gulf veterans who are here, for what they've been asking for in terms of the differences between the two acts....

I understand that you're definitely bound by policy and that it's not your issue, but has there ever been a study by the departments, or by any department at all, to say that if we did happen to change things, this is what it could possibly cost us to do that? I think the other side of it, the recognition, is probably not as hard to deal with.

[Pierre Tessier]

The Pension Act has been in place since 2006, so it's been a number of years. The approach that I've seen—I've been at Veterans Affairs for two years—is to continue to build off the Veterans Well-being Act and improve it. There have been changes—

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Has there ever been a study to bring some of the issues into that act for Persian Gulf vets?

[Pierre Tessier]

I'm sorry...?

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

In all of these meetings we've had, they've asked for things. Has anything been studied from a financial perspective? I think you can deal with the recognition part. The financial part is the part I'm interested in.

[Pierre Tessier]

All I will say, because I don't want to premise what the government or others....

[Amy Meunier]

Contextually, I can say that the last large study would have been prior to 2019, with the implementation of pension for life, which was part of the Veterans Well-being Act. It was a fairly substantial study that took into account feedback from veterans.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

It was five years ago, but not for the Persian.... You haven't put any of their information into the program to see what some of the things they're asking for would cost.

[Amy Meunier]

There would have been information coming from all veterans who served post Korea. It's not just for the Persian Gulf.

I understand why you're asking that question specifically and why we're here. However, it's considering all the missions and all the veterans who have served since Korea. All of that was factored into the analysis in 2019 for those changes.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

When is the next update?

[Pierre Tessier]

Currently, there are no planned changes to legislation that I know of at this time.

If there are changes to designations and associated risks, we will work to develop options and work with counterparts to update legislation. This would be the approach that would happen. We talked a lot in this committee about barriers. That would be the path to updating legislation, if it were to happen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

I would now like to welcome Ms. Lianne Rood to the committee.

I invite Ms. Hepfner to ask questions for five minutes.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to switch gears a little.

We are in Women's History Month. I would like to thank not only all who are serving but also veteran members for their service. I will also point out and thank all women veterans and the servicewomen serving this day.

Assistant Deputy Minister, you mentioned briefly, earlier in your testimony, a woman who served in the Persian Gulf. I wrote down “Bettina”, but I didn't get her full name.

Could you tell us more about the role of women in that particular conflict, and also about the evolution of women's participation in the armed forces?

Maybe I'll start with you, then move over to.... I know we have a historian on the panel today as well.