Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 7th, 2024

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

I hear what you are saying. However, the fact remains, and by cutting funding, every witness we have heard from is telling us that they do not feel recognized by their government, that they fought in the Gulf War, but they notice that it is not the same as the others and that it is not considered a real war.

That brings me to the notion of risk. You know a thing or two about that. However, to me, a war is a war. We have heard stories about the Gulf War where there was destruction all around. I do not think we need to get into the number of deaths, but the risk is clear.

I would like to add something. I may have seemed harsh during the meeting, but I understand your personal point of view a bit. You have a boss and you have to do something. I understand that you are laying some of the burden on us by saying that it takes legislative change. I heard that loud and clear, just like my colleagues, and we will very likely have something along those lines in our recommendations.

However, internal or accidental recommendations can also help. I do not know if I am being clear. Again, I understand your position, but I cannot believe that people like you are totally unaware of the fact that these people who went to the Gulf War are not getting the same recognition as the others. I cannot believe that.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

Now we will move on to Ms. Blaney for the next six minutes.

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

Thank you so much, Chair.

I think, just for the record, that I'd like to get a little bit of clarity.

To those folks from National Defence, thank you again for answering all my questions and for seemingly being able to understand what I'm asking, even though I don't have the correct words at times.

Could you explain to the committee what the criteria are for adding a foreign service medal to the Canadian honours and awards system? I think that would clarify some of the questions my friend from the Bloc was asking.

[MGen Erick Simoneau]

Mr. Chair, those are the two committee levels that I was alluding to earlier.

Number one, when we go on operations, there's the committee that meets to understand the risk factors and hardship. From that, there's the committee that I chair that looks at the proper recognition. If a foreign service medal, for example, is warranted, or if there are some gaps in recognition—and we always compare with previous operations to make sure we're well calibrated—those are the recommendations we make to our chief of the defence staff, and then onward to Rideau Hall and the government.

I'm not sure if I properly answered it, but that's how it works.

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

Okay. Thank you so much.

I want to come back to Veterans Affairs as well. We've heard really clearly, repeatedly, that the challenge is the different types of pensions that are available. I'm trying to get some clarity, because there's definitely a challenge here with the Persian Gulf veterans in terms of being recognized. Also, economically, they're concerned about the resources that they get because of the element of danger in their service.

If new legislation had not been passed in 2016 on the pension, the Veterans Well-being Act, we would have obviously stayed with the Pension Act that was in place prior. I want to get that clarified. I'm wondering about that.

The second thing that I want to get clarified is if there is frustration within the veterans realm based on a date you get this and then on another date you get that, and how that is managed. What is the process that you go through to evaluate what the two different pensions do and what that means for veterans in terms of fairness?

[Pierre Tessier]

Perfect.

I might ask my colleague Mr. Freeman to add to the second part, potentially.

You're correct. Hypothetically, if the Veterans Well-being Act was not put in place in 2006, the Pension Act would still be in place, and anyone serving in that time frame would still be eligible—hypothetically—for the same pension.

However—

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

Okay. Thank you.

[Pierre Tessier]

However, there are a number of reasons that the Veterans Well-being Act did come into effect. The acts are different. They're based on two different pieces, and they're looking at a variety of different veterans who are releasing from the Canadian Armed Forces.

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

How do you manage the differences? Perception is reality, and if veterans are feeling like this group is getting this and we're not getting that, and vice versa, I imagine there would be some tension.

I'm wondering, in terms of creating a sense of fairness, how you manage that gap.

[Pierre Tessier]

I might ask Mr. Freeman or Ms. Meunier to talk about the engagement and pieces that have occurred over the years.

The differences, as they evolved, are really meant to support.... We use the term “modern-day veterans”, but it's really the evolution of veterans. They might release at the age of 23 because they were injured coming back from a mission, and we ensure that they have the right supports in place, whether that's education and training benefits or retraining, or they might not be able to work anymore, and we ensure that they have the same level of compensation from a financial perspective in terms of the income replacement benefit.

It really is a difference from 2006. They're very different in nature and they look to serve a demographic and a group that continues to evolve and change. That's why there have been multiple changes to the Veterans Well-being Act over the years.

Mr. Freeman?

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

Thank you.

[Mitch Freeman, Director General, Policy and Research, Department of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Chair, if there's still time, I will just add a couple of thoughts.

From the hypothetical case of the Pension Act and this April 1, 2006, date, any veteran who came forward prior to April 1, 2006, was adjudicated under the Pension Act, whether they were special duty service, special duty area or a regular force member. Subsequently, after April 1, 2006, any member coming forward would be adjudicated under the Veterans Well-being Act. There are some nuances there that we'll certainly provide in our written submission around how, if a decision that was previously adjudicated under the Pension Act gets reassessed after April 1, 2006, it continues to be under the Pension Act.

If a new condition comes forward, what I would highlight from a special duty service point of view is that this really creates automatic service attribution. When a veteran comes forward and has a service-related condition, the first step in either act is to determine if that disability was caused by service. When the veteran or the member comes forward with a condition related to their deployment in a special duty area or special duty operation, that service attribution is considered automatic. The veteran need not do anything further to determine that this condition is service-related, and then the suite of benefits is available to the veteran.

The distinction that Mr. Tessier made at the very beginning is around long-term care. The Pension Act did specify certain entitlements to war service veterans from World War I and World War II, particularly around the evolution of long-term care throughout the country, remembering that this started after the Second World War when hospitals and provincial systems were quite different from what they are today. In fact, there were federal hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide that long-term care and those services. As those evolved into provincial systems, so did the long-term care services.

All veterans today who come forward have access to long-term care. The distinction is between the previously owned federal hospitals and the community facilities provided through provincial authorities. That is what I would highlight as that distinction.

Then, Ms. Blaney, around consultation, in fact, the new veterans charter, which was the name in April 1, 2006, evolved into the Veterans Well-being Act, which has evolved several times since 2006, and most recently, as Ms. Meunier noted, around the pension for life. That was the result of the analysis and the studies: to return to a monthly type of pension for life for veterans.

I wanted to highlight some of that as I listened to the testimony today, just to make the distinction that coming forward with special duty service does not necessarily mean that you get access to something that another veteran doesn't. Veterans' benefits are needs-based, so when a veteran comes forward today who has maybe an employment challenge, the Veterans Well-being Act has tools that provide for employment, be it the education and training benefit, career transition services or rehabilitation from a vocational point of view. While that veteran is going through a vocational rehabilitation process, the income replacement benefit is there to ensure the financial stability of the veteran and their family.

Those things did not exist with the Pension Act. When a veteran came forward prior to April 1, 2006, and said, “Look, I'm really okay, but I need support in finding a job,” we were limited. Now those tools are there.

As you continue your study, I'd certainly recommend that the committee think about the broad spectrum of services that are available from the Veterans Well-being Act. Of course, disability is an important component of that, but think about it in the broad aspect of ensuring that veterans still have the tools supplied by Veterans Affairs for the wealth of issues that they may be facing as they transition to the civilian world.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Freeman.

We will have two other interventions of five minutes each.

Mr. Freeman, on that note, as you know, our analyst has a lot of experience, because he's been with the committee for more than 10 years. I would invite him to make a clarification or something, and we will come back to those questions.

[Jean-Rodrigue Paré, Committee Researcher]

I have a small clarification. It's to avoid a misunderstanding about the—

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

This will be the toughest question you're going to get today.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Jean-Rodrigue Paré]

No, no, it's not a question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

No, there's no question. It's only a clarification.

[Jean-Rodrigue Paré]

I will do so in French.

Mr. Simoneau made an honest mistake and that is okay. Laws in Canada that were adopted before 1985 are all dated 1985 because the laws of Canada were consolidated that year.

The Pension Act was adopted by order during the First World War under the War Measures Act. It became the Pension Act, per se, in 1919. It underwent many changes. However, it was absolutely not adopted in 1985. I wanted to clarify that to avoid any confusion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Mr. Simoneau, do you want to respond to that before we move on?

[MGen Erick Simoneau]

I can only say thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you for that clarification, Mr. Paré.

Mr. Blake Richards, you have the floor.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I think we've covered this pretty well. I don't have a whole lot more to ask, to be honest with you, but I have one question I wouldn't mind asking, because I don't think I've heard this come up at all today.

In some of the previous testimony in this study, it was mentioned to us that other allied countries, like Australia or the U.K., for example, have a different system for categorizing wartime service. I believe we were told they have recognized their Persian Gulf veterans as having served wartime service or some kind of equivalent to that.

I'm not sure who I should best direct this to. It's probably the Veterans Affairs officials, but I'm not sure.

Could you give us an indication as to whether that's accurate? What do you know about some of our allied countries? Is there anything you think Canada could learn from those designations in other countries?

[Amy Meunier]

Perhaps I'll start from a Five Eyes perspective.

Certainly the United Kingdom and Australia would refer to it as “warlike”. As you said, it's similar to an SDA or SDO, but they would have different nomenclature. The U.S. is a little more robust in the reference to war; they played a different role in the war as well.

We do track with our Five Eyes colleagues in this regard.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Are you saying that for the most part—with the exception of the U.S.—you would consider the designations that other countries have as equivalent or similar to our special duty service? Is that what I heard you say?