Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 10th, 2024

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

Thank you.

First of all, thank you to each of you for your service to our country and for your testimony today.

I'll start with you, Mr. Blois.

There are a lot of issues that veterans deal with when it comes to the bureaucratic nightmare that's Veterans Affairs. The government often downplays those issues. It says it's trying really hard and that the issues are complicated. Even if we give some leeway and say that in fact some of these issues are complicated, there are still a lot of friction points that veterans deal with when dealing with Veterans Affairs. There are still a lot of delays. There are a lot of issues.

Aside from that, it seems like there's this inability for Veterans Affairs to be able to get just the simple things right—things like commemoration and things like recognition. All three of you mentioned these things a little in your opening statements. For you, as an Afghanistan veteran, there is this monument situation that just seems to never get resolved.

When Veterans Affairs gets these commemoration, recognition and respect pieces wrong—frankly, respect is the most important part—and when it misses them, how does that make you feel as a veteran?

[Michael Blois]

I'm not trying to overstate it, but it is like a knife in the heart.

When you join, you join with the understanding that when you sign up, you could put your life on the line, and there is at least a belief and a tacit understanding that the government will be there for you for the same thing.

Commemoration should be the easiest thing we do. As Sean said, putting Afghanistan on cenotaphs is a no-brainer. Getting a monument for a war that is in our recent collective memory, for which the average veteran ranges from their late thirties to their early sixties, should be a no-brainer and it should be done.

When these things aren't done, it feels like somebody is at best ignorant of how you feel and at worst indifferent to what went on and what we did. The horrors of war and the impacts of war don't change from generation to generation. Watching somebody die in front of you or having to take a life doesn't change, and the impact of that doesn't change, so the commemoration shouldn't be any different, and it should be done easily. When it's not, it hurts twice as much.

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

You said that very eloquently. It's a disgrace, in my opinion, that we're in that situation.

On top of that, getting services, getting benefits and getting claims dealt with are challenges. That's the other aspect, as Mr. Bruyea said in his opening remarks. There are two sides to this, and it seems like we have a government getting them both wrong.

You mentioned in your opening remarks being involved in this class action lawsuit that's currently being dealt with. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about that.

First of all, how does it make you feel when, as a veteran, you are now working with other veterans and you have to represent other veterans when the government is opposing you in court, rather than trying to find a way to help?

I know you tried all other avenues to raise these concerns outside of court before going there. How does it make you feel when you have to actually go to court because you can't get the assistance that veterans need without doing so?

[Michael Blois]

It feels like the Shakespearean quote, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends”. That's the way it feels. It feels like we're going back to war and back into battle. Instead of fighting a foreign entity, we're fighting the government.

In a way, during those arguments in court, as sad as it is, I'm glad that no other veterans came to witness them. If they'd had to hear the arguments of the government, it would have been enraging for them, because the delay in benefits is a joke. It's astonishing that veterans have to wait 50 weeks or 60 weeks.

When the government sets a timetable for veterans and says, “This is the time frame. When you complete your application, in 16 weeks we'll give you a decision,” veterans are okay with that. They get that it takes time. However, when you set the goalposts, you should meet them or at least get close, and the government is not even doing that.

It's very disheartening. Really, the reason I became a lawyer.... I never wanted to be a lawyer in my whole life. I wanted to be in the infantry my whole life. I never wanted to be a lawyer. I became a lawyer because I wanted to do what I'm doing. This class action lawsuit was the motivating factor for me, because I knew the government wasn't going to change its tune and wasn't going to do anything, despite our trying our best to get them to.

We had to take them to court. They continue to fight us tooth and nail every step of the way.

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

I hear that.

Thankfully, people like you are out there, ready to fight. You became a lawyer to do it, but the fact that you had to and the fact that you felt that it was necessary just makes me absolutely sad.

I'll offer you the opportunity, if there's anything else you'd like to tell us, to share about the lawsuit and the basis behind it. The idea that people are waiting 50 or 60 weeks is ridiculous.

Are there any other comments you want to make on the lawsuit?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Mr. Blois, you have only 15 seconds left to respond to that.

[Michael Blois]

The math used by the government to calculate its ability to meet its deadlines is.... If the Canadian population could hear what the government has said, they would be disgusted. It meets the deadline in only 46% of the cases, but it ignores 20% of the most complex cases.

However, the government doesn't know which cases in the application process are in that 20%, so that 46% figure of meeting the deadline is complete fiction. The government has no idea of how many people meet that deadline.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much.

Now let's go to Mr. Randeep Sarai for six minutes, please.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

I want to welcome the class that's here from Kanata.

I'll go to you, Mr. Bruyea. You've brought a group of students with you to watch the testimony here at our committee meeting today. I think a key aspect of commemoration is ensuring that young people and students have the opportunity to learn about Canadian history and the veterans who have served Canada in the past and all the way up to this day. Would you agree with that statement?

As a follow-up, do you have thoughts on other ways to encourage commemoration opportunities or learning materials that can help in this regard?

[Sean Bruyea]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Sarai. I think that's a bigger question than maybe I would originally have anticipated.

I'm very grateful that the students are here. One of the differences we've heard in some testimony between World War II and current operations is about the knowledge of the public around them. It provides a degree of social support that people can validate that service. They can understand the struggles that people are going through, because many families were dealing with veterans who were suffering at the time. We know from research that the lack of social support is one of the number one predictors that people will develop post-traumatic stress disorder. It has very real and tangible damage when we don't socially support our veterans.

I think research is also starting to show that when people develop PTSD, they fail to seek out social supports for obvious reasons—isolation, fear, anxiety, super-low self-esteem. It's a vicious circle that really needs to be interrupted at a national level, and not just once a year. It's an awareness that all Canadians need to have in order to understand what's being sacrificed on their behalf.

That's why I submitted to the committee the table that was developed in hand with Veterans Affairs. It's to show that the cost of war is more than just the official statistics of deceased in theatre or wounded in theatre; we're talking about casualties that develop years later. They are casualties of war that are not reported. I think the public needs to learn about that. I think getting the students involved at this level of democracy also helps them to participate and understand that we all have a right to speak our mind. We all have a right to bring our issues forward.

I would also say that one component, if you don't mind my adding one more thing, is that we put enormous efforts into bringing a Canadian citizen into the military and training them not just physically to do the tasks but also mentally. It is the most powerful, legally sanctioned indoctrination that's allowed in our nation, yet we expect that those veterans, when they finish their term of service.... Most of them finish before 20 years and have a second career ahead of them. They are severely handicapped because they have not been de-indoctrinated. We go to boot camp to indoctrinate them, and they've spent years in their careers thinking like the military. The civilian world doesn't work that way. To succeed in this in the civilian world, among the social supports we need is a comprehensive program to de-indoctrinate them.

Community leaders could join in this, and business leaders. We could have a boot camp for de-indoctrination to make them feel welcome. Maybe it could be run on weekends or maybe it could be run full time. It could be a system that allows these veterans to feel that they belong to the nation for which they sacrificed.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Banks, would you like to add to that?

[Christopher Banks]

I would say that the military is probably the most complex beast in the federal government, if not all of Canada. As a culture, we're vastly different from pretty much every other culture in Canada. We're the only one that's geared toward lethality. On that note alone, we are very cryptic and very hard for outsiders to read.

While I can acknowledge that the government does a lot of good work in offering up commemoration around Remembrance Day and the materials that the schools will get for educational purposes, it's limited to remembrance season and Veterans' Week, but we as veterans exist every single day of the year.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you—and rightly so.

Mr. Blois, did you want to add to that?

[Michael Blois]

I think Sean had some really great points there.

When it comes to the mental component of being in the military and the conditioning that is put on soldiers to meet deadlines, to meet obligations, being told “You're going to be on the line of departure at this time, and you're going to go here, and you're going to do that” were the kinds of orders I received in Afghanistan. It was “You're going to get to this line, and you're going to move from this location to this location, and you're going to kill the enemy in between”, and there's no exception. There's no minute off. You're there.

When you have that level of expectation put on you, veterans naturally assume that those who are putting those expectations on them are going to hold themselves to the same standard. We know that they don't even come close.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Sarai.

I would like to welcome one of our colleagues, Mr. Dan Muys, to the committee.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Luc Desilets for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hello, colleagues.

Welcome to the students from the Kanata Montessori school. I used to be a school principal. I am very pleased to see young people in attendance today.

Mr. Bruyea, my first question is for you.

You mentioned a figure earlier. We have nearly finished our study and that is the first time that I, in any case, have heard a figure quantifying what making adjustments means. You said $18 billion.

Is that correct?

[Sean Bruyea]

That's correct.

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

Okay.

Can you tell us exactly where that figure comes from? Who came out with it and who conducted that study?

[Sean Bruyea]

The Parliamentary Budget Officer—I do not know at whose behest—in 2019, when the pension for life was announced, decided to compare the regimes of benefits pre-2006, which was under the Pension Act; post-2006 to 2019, up to the pension for life, which was called the new veterans charter; and then the pension for life afterwards.

In those three cohorts, he looked at the veterans who were anticipated to apply for benefits between 2019 and 2024. He then did the costing, principally focused upon the disability, pain and suffering compensation, because the income loss is the same for all veterans. The veterans who came before 2006 are on the income loss program, as they are up until 2019 and afterwards. They would all have received benefits from improvements to income loss.

The big difference was—we're talking about apples and oranges—income loss versus pain and suffering payments. The courts recognize that distinction. Focusing on the pain and suffering payments, he looked at that cohort of veterans, and he found that over their lifetimes, were they to be paid under the Pension Act, it would cost around $50 billion to pay for their benefits. However, under the 2006 program, if I'm not mistaken, he anticipated that the present clients.... I'm sorry: It was both present clients and the future cohort that would be $50 billion.

Under scenario two, which was the new veterans charter or the Veterans Well-being Act, it would be $29 billion, and the pension for life would be $32 billion.

That's an $18-billion differential between pension for life and if they were covered under Pension Act payments. It's quite significant.

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

What conclusion do you draw from that?

It is a large amount though, there's no question about it. Is that amount the reason for the lack of equity between the regimes?

[Sean Bruyea]

I think that's the number one reason that there's not equity. We have other issues, such as the recognition component, the social support component and the re-establishment benefits after World War II, but in terms of that number, that's a lightning rod. The pain and suffering component has been a lightning rod since the lump sum was first created in 2006.

In the words of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, “From the perspective of the veteran, virtually all clients would be better off if they were to receive the benefits of the Pension Act”.

What was most notable about the transition from the Veterans Well-Being Act to the pension for life—it's still called the Veterans Well-being Act—was that in the 2019 stage, they eliminated new applicants from receiving the critical impairment allowance supplement. Only 200 veterans receive that right now, because new applicants were prevented from applying, but this is the allowance that goes to the most disabled. The most disabled veterans were going to be less well off under pension for life to the tune of $300,000 each, over their lifetimes.

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

What happened to you is interesting, but unfortunate.

Did you suffer physically or psychologically when you left the army?

[Sean Bruyea]

Yes, I did.

Quite importantly, the 1990s was called the “dark decade” for a reason. I remember returning from the Gulf War; I was sent back early due to combat stress reaction. I showed up in front of the psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist said to me, “By the way, everything that you say to me I will report to your commanding officer”, so being an astute little young ambitious officer, I kept my mouth shut, and he put in a diagnosis of jet lag.

I kept that diagnosis of jet lag for many years until I realized that I truly had PTSD, but it wasn't until after I was released. I wasn't medically released because as I sat with the medical doctor with over 13 physical and psychological ailments on my medical release file, he came in jokingly and said, “Is that all? You're good to go.” That was my support when I left the military.

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

Thank you for your candour.

In your opinion, should special consideration be given to persons who have been deployed, whether to Afghanistan or during the Gulf War, for instance, or should we just say, rather foolishly, that war is war?