Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 10th, 2024

[Rebecca Patterson]

That is why you have a recommendation coming. It shouldn't matter if you served in 2005 and won access to benefits, or in 2007, when we brought in the new charter. When you see one of my recommendations, it needs to be a harmonization in collaboration with a veterans round table to have a look and see what those actually mean.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much.

I now invite Ms. Lisa Hepfner to go ahead for six minutes, please.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to take a moment to thank all of you for being here with us today and for your service to Canada. Thank you as well to the other veterans I see in the room who are here in support.

Senator Patterson, we were speaking earlier in the room. We've been talking a lot at this committee about commemoration and battle honours, which we know are very important to veterans, almost equally important to the compensation they receive. I understand that on Monday you were at a ceremony with my colleague from Kingston and the Islands to present a medal to retired Captain Sean Casey—not the same Sean Casey that we have here at the table with us today.

I understand that there were some takeaways from that event. I'm hoping you can describe those for us, please.

[Rebecca Patterson]

Thank you for the question.

It was a very interesting time in history when we went to the Gulf War. It was the end of the Cold War. We were starting to digitize, I'm going to say, in the most basic ways in the military. Record systems changed. What happened is that when personnel who were tasked to go to the Persian Gulf crisis moved forward, the administrative system didn't catch up.

For someone like Sean Casey—or even me, as it turned out, which I hadn't realized—when we look at a record to see what's to be commemorated and how, it's based on the record that's input by somebody. In Sean Casey's case, it was just completely missed that he actually was on board the ship, on the Terra Nova, and was at the Persian Gulf, so he had to fight and say no, he was there. Remember, not everybody had a cellphone they could use to take a photo with a date and time-stamp. It was us with our little cameras, hoping the photo went well. He was missed, and he fought for many years to tell them that no, he was there.

It becomes very hard to prove for people who move around all the time when you're working off a paper copy and someone loses your document somewhere in transferring your information over to a digital copy. In my case, they said I didn't actually serve in Saudi Arabia, but they'd give me credit. I learned that as I was retiring 33 years later.

Why does it matter? It affects how they do calculations of everything from severance pay to your benefits, or in case you got injured. To give you an example, on my record it said I was in Germany. I got an out-of-country credit—woo-hoo—but I didn't get the special duty area credit.

You're going to find that more junior members did not know how to navigate the system. It makes it really impossible for VAC to truly calculate and for DND to figure out if you actually served in the Persian Gulf. I think one thing that can come out of this is that there needs to be special consideration given to screening through the files of people in that early nineties transition period so that we don't end up with Sean Casey being awarded his Gulf medal 33 years later.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

The period of the early nineties really doesn't seem all that long ago to me, but the technology was dramatically different. I appreciate your bringing that perspective.

I understand that you are participating in our women veterans council assessment board. As far as I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, this is a new board, the first of its kind, and it's just getting under way this month.

Tell us more about your participation and what you're hoping comes out of that whole process.

[Rebecca Patterson]

Thank you very much for the question.

What we do know is that the modern veteran, from really 1989 onward, looks different. We're representing a more diverse Canada as we move forward. As more and more women, in all their intersections of identity, have come to serve, we look at benefits and programs not just in the Canadian Armed Forces but within the veterans community that actually don't fit. What about exposure? I know that we've had some challenges from people in the Persian Gulf with reproductive challenges. The occupational health aspects for women are not the same. Unisex fits nobody, and it's the same with this.

The women's council is actually intended to advise the minister on how to move forward for both the RCMP and veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces. How do we better support women in all our intersections in terms of addressing benefits and whatever the issues may be? I think that's quite an important thing to do. There's both me and Senator Bev Busson, who is an RCMP veteran. Along with about five other people, we have gone through essentially a blind assessment process to try to create a roster of people who can well advise the minister in moving forward on women's issues.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Would you specifically be advising the veterans minister, or are there other...? I'm the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth, and I think there are a lot of parallels there too, so I hope you have that communication with other ministers as well.

[Rebecca Patterson]

Being a sitting senator and the chair of our veterans committee, I have to make sure I do not cross lines. I'm very thoughtful about conflict of interest. If I were to talk in the abstract on this, I would suggest that having that discussion with the Minister of Veterans Affairs would be of value.

I will go back to my time as a serving member in the Canadian Armed Forces and defence champion for women. I was in front of all committees, minus the veterans committee, so I think it's a good point you have.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Do you expect that the board can help us even further improve military culture so that it's even more welcoming to women and to gender-diverse people?

[Rebecca Patterson]

Again, how the Minister of Veterans Affairs shares her counsel with the Minister of National Defence will be up to her, but you have women with, as I said, intersection of identity, with broad experience levels, who could probably help the RCMP too. It's certainly.... Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Desilets, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Mr. Chair, I will start by presenting a motion, which should be fairly quick. Mr. Casey and I were on the same wavelength when I showed it to him, and my colleagues from the other parties have also been informed. I will read it out nonetheless.

For my part, I found it difficult to hear from six witnesses today in two hours or perhaps a bit less. We had a lot of topics to cover, and we could have asked a lot more questions. That is partly why we are presenting the following motion.

That the committee hold two additional meetings as part of its study on the recognition of Persian Gulf Veterans, as well as on the review of the definition of war, wartime service, special duty service and their distinctions, as well as the determination process and eligibility criteria for veterans' benefits; that these meetings include the testimonies of Sean Bruyea and Louise Richard, for a duration of one hour; and that an additional, one-hour meeting with the Minister of National Defence be requested.

I am requesting one hour for each witness. Mr. Bruyea was here today, but as I said we still have a lot of questions for him. We are suggesting two witnesses, but the other parties may suggest others, of course, since we will have four hours.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

First of all, regarding the minister, a motion has already been agreed to requesting his appearance. The clerk and I will push ahead to get him to appear for one hour.

As to the other party, I'm not sure if our colleagues require a translation of the motion. Are you ready to discuss and agree to it?

Mr. Casey, are you aware of it?

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Yes.

Yes, we will be supporting the motion. I have nothing to add.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Okay.

Blake Richards would like to say something.

Mr. Richards, go ahead, please.

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

Let me start with a question. I don't want to yield the floor, but I would like an answer to the question.

If there's a desire to have more meetings, that's one thing, but it's another when we start to get into giving this witness one hour and this witness an hour. We had some good witnesses today, and one of them wasn't listed in this motion as one we wanted to bring back.

Is there an opportunity for others to be brought back in that scenario? There might be other witnesses we'd like to bring back. Is there an ability to add new witnesses? When we submitted our witnesses, we submitted them on the basis of understanding the length of the study, and now, if the study is going to be extended, I would seek to be provided with the opportunity to add new witnesses, if that's the case. Can we get some kind of an indication of what the status of our witness list is and if we would be given an opportunity to add additional witnesses to the list as well?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Yes.

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

Can the chair or the clerk maybe give us an indication?

I don't want to yield the floor because I do have other comments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

I know that the honourable senator is aware of the procedures, but I am just telling you that we have to discuss that portion, and we will come back to you.

Mr. Desilets, can you—

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

I thought we could do this very quickly, and I would like to do that. So I would ask you to amend my motion and remove the last part, where the witness names will be provided. We will leave it up to the clerk to decide on the four witnesses who will be invited. For our part, we will forward the witness names to the clerk.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

If I understand correctly, you are leaving it up to us to hold two additional meetings with four further witnesses as part of this study, despite the part about inviting the minister.

Mr. Richards, what are your thoughts?

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

Could I still get a response to the question, Chair? Are we going to have additional meetings? What is the status of our witness list? How many witnesses have not been invited at this point, and is there an opportunity for us to suggest additional witnesses?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Mr. Richards, as with your intervention in the previous panel, because our original clerk is not here today, I can't tell you exactly—and the analyst also—how many witnesses we have left. You can leave it to the committee to look at it and try to invite them to appear. We can also ask some of the previous witnesses—such as Mr. Bruyea, for example, who was here this morning—to send us a brief or something that we can add,

I understand that you all agree to have two more meetings.

Oh, am I mistaken?

Please go ahead, Mr. Richards.

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

Chair, what I'm trying to determine is the need for the additional meetings.

If we have no additional witnesses.... I guess I'm trying to understand if we have witnesses who have not yet been invited. We don't have the answer to that. As well, no indication has been given as to whether we could offer additional witnesses to the clerk and the chair.

It's hard for me to support a motion without knowing whether there's a need. Certainly there is no doubt that there would be others we could hear from, but if we don't have witnesses on our list and we're not accepting additional witnesses, it seems a bit odd.