Evidence of meeting #114 for Veterans Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was indigenous.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Richard Blackwolf  National President, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
Marie Blackburn  Executive Director, Veterans Association Food Bank
Tommy Wayne Benjamin  Store Clerk, Veterans Association Thrift Store, Veterans Association Food Bank

Noon

Liberal

Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions are going to be directed to the food bank, but first I think it's important to address that last exchange.

I know that my colleague across the way likes to place everything at the feet of the PMO, but—and I stand to be corrected on this—I'm under the impression that the Governor General's office is responsible for these particular medals. I don't want to get into a whole thing, but I think it's important to correct the record, in that the PMO, as far as I'm aware, did not determine these particular locations. I think it's important.

Very quickly, because I have a very short amount of time and most of my questions are—

Noon

National President, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association

Richard Blackwolf

[Inaudible—Editor] I had letters from the heads of those departments, and Peter Mills, who is secretary to the Governor General. They administer it, but they don't make the decisions. His letters clearly state that the federal government made the decisions. That's the list. It's final. It's closed. Our requests were to find out by whom, and why.

Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON

I'll dig into this, because I think this is an important distinction and I do think you should get a response. I think that's appropriate, but in all of my involvement for my constituents in organizing these medals, it has all been through the Governor General. It's not through the PMO at all.

I do have to move on to Ms. Blackburn.

Thank you so much to all of you for being here today. I can sense the frustration and I can sense the challenges that all of you are describing in your interventions.

Ms. Blackburn, I know you received a commendation from the Minister of Veterans Affairs in 2019 for the work that you do for veterans. It has become very evident here today why you received that commendation, not just from your testimony but from Mr. Benjamin's testimony as well. Again, thank you for being here and thank you for everything that you do for the veterans community.

As somebody who, prior to politics, was in the non-profit world, I had a lot of connections with folks in your line of work. I know that during COVID-19, many non-profit organizations and charitable organizations experienced an incredibly sudden and critical loss of fundraising revenues. I'm wondering if you could speak to that. Would that accurately describe your organization's experience through that time?

12:05 p.m.

Executive Director, Veterans Association Food Bank

Marie Blackburn

We didn't really suffer a significant loss in revenue because, on the other side of the fence, we had so many veterans who were eligible for the COVID funding. If you had that money coming in, you didn't really need to use the food bank, so we were kind of shocked when all this started happening. We thought we were going to have lineups out the door, but it was actually different: Nobody was really coming in. We weren't at a loss for money coming in because we weren't really giving out a lot of money, either.

The toughest part of COVID for our veterans was the isolation component. Again, we'd worked really hard to get them out of those four corners, and now all of a sudden we've got them jammed back into four corners. We had four suicides during that time, which was heart-wrenching, because we had worked so hard with these people and there were just no resources for anybody at the time.

Hopefully, we'll never have another COVID incident, because it's....

Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON

I certainly agree with that. I hope none of us have to go through that again.

12:05 p.m.

Executive Director, Veterans Association Food Bank

Marie Blackburn

It's not good.

Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON

I have a minute left.

Very quickly, we know that partnerships out in the community can help lead to progress, and when we work together, we can accomplish more than if we work in silos.

Can you speak to whether your organization works with other organizations, such as the Legion, to connect with the stakeholders you support? How is that working? Are there ways the federal government can help facilitate that?

12:05 p.m.

Executive Director, Veterans Association Food Bank

Marie Blackburn

Our relationship with Legion branches is amazing. We all work on the same page. Our command office isn't so lovable, but that's okay.

We work with a lot of recovery centres, treatment centres and mental health facilities. In a study we were doing one day, we found that 86% of our money comes in from individual donors, but we're now working with bigger corporations to get those kinds of funding models into place for our veterans.

Most of it is within the veteran community, so we have the mental health facilities and treatment centres. We support them and they support us, so that's been very rewarding in that way, and our Legion branches are amazing. They raise a lot of money and food for us. We can't thank them enough for all the work they do.

Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON

Thank you so much for everything that you all do.

The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg

Thank you, Mr. May.

We will now hear a brief intervention from Mr. Luc Desilets.

You have two and a half minutes, Mr. Desilets.

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

Ms. Blackburn, given everything we've heard and from your experience, do you personally believe that there are two types of veterans in terms of how the department recognizes them?

12:05 p.m.

Executive Director, Veterans Association Food Bank

Marie Blackburn

In some regards, yes, there are. We have another veteran who is a Black gentleman, and he's had many struggles in trying to navigate through that, but even if there's one, that's too many.

I have first-hand experience with Tommy and a few of our other veterans being distinctly targeted for being different from the rest of us, in their opinion. It's not drastic, but it's there, and as long as it's there, it needs to stop.

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

There are precisely 23,075 veterans across Canada.

Do you think the situation you've described is the same across Canada? Could there be any specific problems in the province where you work? I know you work elsewhere, but I'm thinking of Mr. Benjamin.

12:10 p.m.

Executive Director, Veterans Association Food Bank

Marie Blackburn

I know for a fact that it happens in every province, because we've heard the stories from other people. When you have a group of indigenous people, they all talk, and those stories eventually filter back. We get calls from people all across Canada asking if we're able to help them. They live in Newfoundland or wherever, and they outline some of the problems they've had with Veterans Affairs and not being able to get their paperwork done. It's not rampant, but it's out there.

12:10 p.m.

Store Clerk, Veterans Association Thrift Store, Veterans Association Food Bank

Tommy Wayne Benjamin

May I interject, please?

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

Yes, sir.

12:10 p.m.

Store Clerk, Veterans Association Thrift Store, Veterans Association Food Bank

Tommy Wayne Benjamin

I would have to say that there are problems with indigenous veterans across Canada as a whole; I'm not an isolated case. You hear those stories all across the country.

I also want to say that for the indigenous community, no matter who you are, it's an honour to serve our country; it's almost like carrying a badge, but at the same time, there are difficulties for veterans across Canada.

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

Thank you very much.

The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

Ms. Rachel Blaney, you have two and a half minutes.

Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC

I'd like to start by moving a motion.

I move that the committee write a letter drawing the minister's attention to the urgency of Mr. Benjamin's case, and look into his benefits.

I'm hoping that everybody will support me in that.

The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg

Did everyone hear that motion?

You can bring that forward later.

Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC

Do you want me to bring it in the second hour?

The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg

Yes, please.

Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC

I can do that. I'll work on that for you, sir.

Mr. Benjamin, I want to say that I will always carry with me two things that you said today. You said that “my mom didn't get the same person back that she sent” and that “I couldn't help him because I couldn't help myself”. Thank you for that. It will be my honour to carry those words with me.

I want to turn to you, Ms. Blackburn, and ask you a question. You testified earlier that when you spoke to a VAC worker, they actually said that indigenous people are more likely to be alcoholics—I just want to make sure I got that right and I wasn't confused—and that you've heard other things that were similar around indigenous racism.

When you hear that happen, is there any process for you to make complaints? Have you ever had anyone from VAC reach out to better understand what happened so that they could look at their service delivery practices?

12:10 p.m.

Executive Director, Veterans Association Food Bank

Marie Blackburn

As I said, with the first lady there, she absolutely didn't want to put in a complaint because she was too afraid she'd lose her benefits. I did recommend that she ask for a new caseworker who could explain it to Veterans Affairs herself.

For the second one, it was the same thing. They don't want to cause any grief between themselves and their workers, because these women have children. They have to have these incomes coming in and they don't want to lose their benefits in any regard.

I know we have called out our two caseworkers. As I said earlier, we just had a gentleman who spent 32 years without any benefits after leaving the military. We have reported her for miscommunication. We call it miscommunication, but it was inappropriate behaviour with this veteran. We have his permission to carry on and put in a complaint, so that's in the works right now.

Most of them don't want to say anything because of their fear of losing benefits. That's the biggest thing.