Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 10th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 108 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motions adopted by the committee on March 9 and December 5, 2023, the committee is resuming its study of the recognition of Persian Gulf veterans and the definition of wartime service.

Today's meeting is taking place in hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders.

As you already know, all comments must be addressed through the chair.

Before we begin, I would like to welcome a few colleagues.

We have Mr. Scot Davidson, who is replacing Mr. Tolmie. Welcome.

As you can see, we have a new clerk, Grant McLaughlin, for today's meeting. Thank you for helping us.

I would also like to welcome a group of students aged 13 to 18. They are with us today from Kanata Montessori. They are here to observe the work of the committee.

Welcome.

For the first hour, we have with us, as an individual, Mr. Sean Bruyea. He is a retired captain and air force intelligence officer. We have Mr. Christopher Banks, a retired sergeant. He used to be here in every meeting we had. By video conference, we also have Mr. Michael Blois. He's a lawyer and a veteran.

Before we start, I will tell you that you will have five minutes for your opening statements. However, I have a request on Zoom from Mr. Blake Richards.

Please, Mr. Richards, go ahead.

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

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

This morning, I understand you tabled the report on our recent study on the transition to civilian life. Our party had a dissenting report. I know that at least one other party had a supplemental report that they submitted with that report. I was not given an opportunity or informed or made aware in any way that the report would be tabled this morning. That is the usual practice. Usually, if there are dissenting reports, the vice-chairs or parties involved are informed.

Being unable to table that in the House when the report was tabled is, to my mind, a breach of my privilege as a member of the committee.

I would like to ask you, Chair, what happened? Why was I not informed? My understanding is that the other party was also not informed. Can you explain why that happened and indicate what you're going to do to correct it so that we can be given the opportunity we were supposed to be given to present our dissenting and supplemental reports?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Mr. Richards, I understand your point of view.

One of the things I have in mind is this: We recently changed from one clerk to another. They asked me when I would be available to table this report, and I said today. I take it the email they sent to the committee was a little late, or something like that.

What I'm going to do is check with the clerk to see what we can do as a procedural thing that can offer you a possibility to say there is a dissenting report on the study.

Is that okay?

Mr. Luc Desilets would also like to say something. Please go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

While the clerk might not be fully apprised of this, I would like to know what happened to the motion calling for the Minister of National Defence to appear before the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I know that, on the very day that the motion was adopted, the request was sent to the minister to appear as soon as possible. We even indicated that there was a limited number of meetings.

To my knowledge, however, the committee has not received any reply in order to plan that meeting.

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

Was there an acknowledgement of receipt?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I can't tell you because I am not informed about that, but the clerk is taking the necessary steps for the minister to appear as soon as possible as part of this study.

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

Today is the last day of our study. That is really unfortunate. I think the committee would agree to extend our meetings by an hour to allow the minister to appear and to complete this study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

As you know, my role is to follow through on the wishes of committee members.

I would ask the witnesses to wait a moment longer.

The next speaker on the list is Mrs. Wagantall.

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

I just want to finish what I was saying, Mr. Chair.

I learned earlier that Mr. Tomie is away today because his mother passed away. We would like to send him our most sincere condolences.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Very well, Mr. Desilets.

The message will be forwarded to him. He is one of our colleagues, his absence is felt, and I hope he will find the strength to weather this difficult period.

Thank you.

Mrs. Wagantall is next.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Just before I make my comment, we are really pleased to have Mr. Davidson with us today. However, no one can truly replace Fraser Tolmie. I know he's listening, so that's good. We can talk later.

That said, I want to clarify something. My understanding is that before you can table a report, you have to inform the committee. Is that correct?

Just to clarify, I mean no harm to the new analyst.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Grant McLaughlin]

As you know, I'm here for today's meeting.

I'm not up to date on all of the details of ACVA, but my understanding is that when the report was adopted, among the routine motions was an instruction to the chair to present the report to the House, with no specified date associated with it. There was guidance to do so.

As for the details of what happened with the communications in this specific instance, as indicated, I don't know the answer. We need to look into it.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

That's fair enough.

In other words, there isn't anything in your orders or expectations as chair that requires you to inform the committee before a report is tabled.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

As I said, we're going to look to the House of Commons Procedure and Practice. If we can go back and table the report again with the dissenting report, I will do it.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

All right. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

The last intervention on the point of order will be from Mr. Sean Casey.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I'd actually like to speak to both points of order.

First of all, on the one raised by Mr. Richards, I actually agree with him. If there's another dissenting report and they rise in the House and seek to present their dissenting reports, we should all do our best to secure the unanimous consent of each of our parties so that they are allowed to do so. I hope everyone can agree that we can write this by unanimous consent. You can do virtually anything by unanimous consent, and in my view, that shouldn't be very hard to obtain. I would do my part to ensure that nobody from our side says no.

The second one is the point of Mr. Desilets.

From my understanding, the minister was invited to appear. I want to present a motion to extend the study. I can't do that through a point of order, but I think we will probably need two additional meetings with witnesses and an hour with the minister. I will present it formally, if necessary, when the time comes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Casey.

Next week we will be working in our respective constituencies. If the committee members wish, we can see after our break week whether we can invite the minister and another witness to appear at the same time. I think the request was for them to appear for at least an hour.

Before we move on to the witness statements, I would like to go back to what Mr. Blake Richards and Mr. Sean Casey said.

Do the committee members consent to presenting the dissenting report at some point?

You are indicating that you do. Thank you.

We will take the necessary steps to remedy that.

Thank you, Mr. Richards.

Let's go to our witnesses now.

You're going to have five minutes each for your opening statements. After that, members of the committee will ask you questions. This is the first panel, and we are here for a total of one hour.

I would like to start the meeting with the retired captain, Mr. Bruyea.

Please go ahead.

[Sean Bruyea, Retired Captain, Air Force Intelligence Officer, As an Individual]

I sincerely thank committee members for taking up this study, a study that arguably should have been initiated before we went to war in 1990, or even in 1947, when the last of one million Canadians who served during World War II ended their active service.

Why were the 600,000 Canadian Forces members who followed not granted the same entitlements as war veterans when the risks of our active service have been real and tragic?

I profoundly acknowledge Louise Richard, who began this fight for all of us post-war veterans. She co-founded the first Gulf War veterans organization, vigorously advocating and mentoring me while so many veterans suffered in silence.

I thank Harold Davis and Mike McGlennon for pushing for this study. I sincerely appreciate VAC officials who work diligently to provide the data that has, to my awareness, never been organized in the manner in which I submitted it to the committee.

Finally, I thank my son Wilfred, his classmates and the staff at Kanata Montessori for joining us in this remarkable opportunity, one month before Remembrance Day.

When a Canadian enters the military, we sign a contract to accept—unlike any other profession, including police and fire services—that we can be legally ordered into harm's way, potentially losing our lives.

Many have tragically fulfilled their end of the contract. I lost my great-grandfather in World War I and my grandfather in World War II. Others, like a number of veterans in this room, live a daily fulfillment of that contract, with debilitating and often excruciating psychological and physical sacrifices for our nation.

Government chose to change their end of the bargain while we still needed them to uphold the benefits in place at the time of our enlistment. In 2005, Parliament was pressured by war veteran organizations to pass legislation ending a 200-year commitment to lifelong pensions for disabled veterans, spouses and their children in favour of one-time lump sums that pay nothing for family members, yet these organizations enshrined protections to keep their lifelong disability pensions.

Let's be clear: There was no meaningful or widespread consultation in passing this law, and what little consultation was done was ignored in the final product. This is not recognition in any sense of the word; this was about saving money and what the architect of the program, Darragh Mogan, stated was a $1-billion wellness dividend.

In a sad trend, the 2019 pension for life changed the contract yet again, hidden in a budget omnibus bill that prevented committee studies. The Parliamentary Budget Officer studied these three disability regimes. For the cohort of veterans applying between 2019 and 2024, over their lifetime the government would save $18 billion when compared to these veterans being covered under the Pension Act.

Recognition of military service has two central components: commemoration and compensation. Missing either diminishes both. Recognition is the foundation of a debt owed by, and the gratitude of, a nation to those who serve in uniform. Recognition is the heart of valuing one's service to one's country. Entitlement in law is indispensable to recognition. Recognition requires reciprocal legal obligations. Certainly placing the Persian Gulf War on the cenotaph is a no-brainer.

However, officially labelling us as war veterans may not be accompanied by the entitlement some assume. Granting us World War II veteran benefits would be of little help now, except for the life insurance for the disabled and replacing pain and suffering compensation with a disability pension.

What futures would we have lived had we been granted updated World War II benefits like education, business start-up assistance, land, homebuilding, life insurance and low-cost mortgages, along with public awareness of our sacrifice?

How many suicides could have been prevented and how many families saved, and how many fruitful second careers would have blossomed? What is the personal and family cost of losing so much opportunity and productivity? How much money could government have earned in taxes from these dynamic futures, instead of fighting against paying billions in much-needed disability benefits? What compensation would be appropriate for our lost opportunities?

When we serve, we have the duty to give everything, including our lives. Government doesn't even have the duty to inform us of the benefits to which we're entitled, let alone a duty to care for us. I hope the committee takes up the issue of a duty to inform veterans and their families.

Our obligations to government are limitless; government's obligations to us are non-existent, or whimsical at best, and decorated with far too much well-meaning but ultimately empty rhetoric. An official apology would be a strong first step.

Initiating further original and comprehensive cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of veterans; applying the insurance principle to all military service, including the mandate to care for veterans' children in the Veterans Well-being Act; implementing a reverse onus on disability claims; and taking our rehabilitation out of the hands of for-profit contractors would be a good second step.

Belief in the cause of our sacrifice is central to our identity, rehabilitation and integration into society after military service. The world's morality and regimes may change; what cannot change is our belief that the government system and rights—for which we gave so much—truly, meaningfully and substantially value our sacrifice with more than words.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Bruyea.

Let's go to Mr. Christopher Banks for five minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Banks.

[Christopher Banks, Sergeant (Retired), As an Individual]

Thank you for welcoming me to testify once again.

For the record, my name is Christopher Banks, and I retired as a sergeant after 20 years in the Canadian army.

I joined in 2000. By 2003, I was deployed to Camp Maple Leaf in Bosnia, where I served as a peacekeeper. In 2008, I was deployed to FOB Wilson in Kandahar, where we engaged insurgents and dodged IEDs. I returned home with post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2019, I was medically released.

Since then, I have studied public policy and administration at the University of Guelph, as well as defence and security at Algonquin College. I am a stakeholder with National Defence and Veterans Affairs. I am a member of the Royal Canadian Military Institute's defence and security study committee and I write for the defence policy journal SITREP.

I joined in an era of transformation. I was able to witness our transformation from a Cold War military into a modern military. After 9/11, the military changed as it adapted to the change in warfare in Afghanistan and as it shook off the cobwebs of administering a fighting war. It continued a long process of change from a uni-capable military to a more capable and dynamic military.

The military changed not only as a result of combat operations but also socially, as did Canadian society. Social standards, training standards and even terminology changed considerably in this time. They say the only constant in life is change, and the military is no exception.

Since my return from Afghanistan, I have sought to help my fellow veterans as an advocate. I advocate in two ways.

The first is that I help veterans connect to the resources they need, whether by engaging directly with them or by speaking to veterans groups about my journey and the importance of self-care.

Second, I bring my experience and knowledge to the change-makers by engaging with legislators and policy-makers on behalf of all veterans and serving military personnel.

On the matter at hand, I want to be clear: I am not a Persian Gulf veteran. I was asked to testify because I am a combat veteran, or what is being described by some in these meetings as a “war service veteran”. I have followed the previous meetings on this subject and concluded that at the heart of what they are asking for is the same hurt and irritation that all of Canada's veterans feel. The erosion of benefits over time is no stranger to anyone who has donned a uniform, nor is the dragging of feet for projects that don't secure a re-election. This is the reality for Canada's veterans and our serving military. Those who have worn the uniform know all too well the feeling of being taken for granted.

Commemoration and recognition are important to all veterans, and we Afghan veterans have our own demands: the monument, which has become politicized; the Victoria Cross that was denied to Jess Larochelle; and the combat action badge that is teased every couple of years. Veterans of all demographics demand a reversal of the erosion of benefits and services; the follow-up study for the Partners in Canadian Veterans Rehabilitation Services, the PCVRS contract; ensuring that benefits are easy to access and in line with the ever-increasing cost of living; and hiring more case managers and adjudicators at Veterans Affairs to eliminate the devastating wait times.

I'm happy to answer any questions the committee may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Banks.

I invite Mr. Michael Blois, from the Canadian Afghanistan War Veterans Association, to address us by video conference for five minutes.

You have the floor, Mr. Blois.

[Michael Blois, Lawyer, Veteran, Canadian Afghanistan War Veterans Association]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the committee for providing me with this opportunity to speak to you this morning.

My name is Mike Blois. I served in the Canadian Forces from 2000 until 2011.

I joined the army at the age of 17 and wanted to do nothing else with my life but serve and fight for my country. I served in the Royal Canadian Regiment. I'm immensely proud of the accomplishments my regiment and my fellow Royals completed during my time in the military.

I was wounded in Afghanistan on January 29, 2007. This ushered in the end of my military career, much to my displeasure. I was medically released in 2011. I then went to law school and have become a partner at Diamond and Diamond Lawyers LLP, where I'm fortunate to be able to use my experience to help injured people put their lives back together after being injured.

I'm also afforded the opportunity with my law firm and my partners to help other veterans, on a pro bono basis, with their appeals to Veterans Affairs or other legal matters. We also put them in touch with other legal experts if their needs are outside of our scope of practice.

As you're all aware, 20,000-plus Canadians fought in the war in Afghanistan, all of whom would refer to each other as combat veterans. As such, the designation from special duty area to wartime service, outside of any implications that may come from benefits—I think the first witness outlined quite well that probably very limited, if any, changes will come in the benefits—is nothing but a semantic change. It fails to address the real issues faced by Afghan veterans today. Again, I think the second witness did a great job of outlining what those are.

The Prime Minister of this country, prior to being elected as the Prime Minister, stated that no veteran should have to sue the government for benefits that they're entitled to, but that's had to happen many times since he has become Prime Minister.

In my capacity as a lawyer, I've represented a class of Afghanistan war veterans suing Veterans Affairs Canada and the government for failing to meet their own policies and time frames. The wait times that Afghanistan veterans suffer while waiting to get benefits is unacceptable, and nothing seems to change. In this lawsuit, we were successful in obtaining certification and are now in the appeals process.

Afghanistan veterans have fought the most recent war in our nation's history and, unfortunately, have to continue to fight for the benefits that we're entitled to from the government that sent us to that war.

I'm coming before you today to discuss changes that should have been done at the outset of a war and, as Sean stated at the beginning, probably should have happened as far back as the end of the 1940s. All the problems that have flown from there are nothing but fluff on the outside of the real issues that veterans and Afghanistan veterans are facing today.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

Now we're going to start the first round of questions with six minutes each.

I invite Mr. Blake Richards to start that round.