Evidence of meeting #13 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 question.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
Well, of course in terms of what we are going to try to do, and I'll let the deputy elaborate on this, is that first you're going to look at this at the committee.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
You're going to bring witnesses forward. You're going to have recommendations. We need that. We look forward to your recommendations and we look forward to putting the standards in place. We want to see national standards. We have to look at the best way of achieving that.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Thank you, Minister.
I just want to again assure that these will be done at arm's length without intervention directly from service dog providers.
I will concede my time to my colleague.
Liberal
Conservative
Fraser Tolmie Conservative Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK
I can talk fast. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister, for your presentation earlier on.
Reading through some notes here, your department is receiving significantly less in this year's main estimates compared with last year. Is that because Veterans Affairs didn't spend everything it was allotted last year? If so, do you think the unspent money could have gone towards addressing the backlog and addressing the imbalance in services offered between men, women, anglophones and francophones, or any number of issues this committee has raised over the last several months?
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
It's a good question, and one I'm asked every time I come. I think we understand that these are estimates. As I indicated previously in a response, there has been, for example, $140 million allocated since the estimates in order to make sure we hire more people. Of course, when they start approving applications, that's going to mean more dollars still.
In the end, I can assure you, my good colleague, there will always be the dollars there. Whatever remuneration is allocated to a veteran, there will always be the dollars there to make sure that it's done. I would say there will always be dollars that will be refunded back to treasury from that particular program, because you can't estimate to the dollar. You have to make sure you have money there, and we always will, I can assure you of that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you, Minister MacAulay.
For the last intervention for five minutes, I'd like to invite the PS for VAC, Mr. Darrell Samson, to please go ahead.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for being with us today. We heard some really good stories about the work you people have done in your visits in Europe, of course, at Juno Beach. Thank you for that work.
There are a couple of very important things that I want to lay out.
One is to thank you for the hard work in getting monies through the budget for Veterans Affairs. I think people sometimes forget the role that ministers play. We needed $140 million to keep the employees in place so that we could make headway on the wait times, and we needed $140 million to help veterans with mental health. As you know, that program announced on April 1 is so important, and it's immediate.
Can you talk to us a bit about those two major investments?
Liberal
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
You have to be careful of the chair.
On the $140 million for mental health, I know that all colleagues around the table fully support that.
Also, the $140 million for staff is vitally important. It means we will be approving more applications. Of course, I can go on at length and say that we have no control about the applications. We have no control on what comes in. We just have to deal with everything that comes in.
On the mental health side, I want to be sure, and I'm sure everybody at the table understands too, when you apply for certain mental health programs, immediately you have access to funding. This is so vitally important. We know about the problems surrounding mental health. This, I felt, was pretty important, and I'm sure the committee fully agrees with me that this type of funding is so important so that people can get help.
We know what happens so many times. There are so many horrible stories about what takes place with mental health. This money is allocated. They can access it. They can start receiving, hopefully, some treatment right away. That is what's vitally important.
I thank you for that. I should have mentioned that, too, but I forgot.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Minister, thank you. It was nice seeing the large number of people, including MPs, you and the Minister of DND, at the Sam Sharpe reception for mental health on Tuesday morning for breakfast.
I have a quick question on the veterans employment strategy. I think this is really important for those veterans who leave the forces, the CAF. On leaving the forces, that strategy is important. Can you talk to us about your vision around that?
I've talked to Irving Shipbuilding in Halifax. They have a cohort and they're looking at hiring more veterans. We need to do more to help veterans in the transition. Can you talk a bit about what you see in the veterans employment strategy that's in your mandate letter?
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
The veterans employment strategy is a vitally important thing, not only, of course, for the veteran, but also for society and industry in general.
What I find is that so many things.... I think I mentioned it once: the education program. Many people are not accessing that. That's there for people to upgrade themselves to be more valuable. Every walk of life is in the military. Every walk of life wants to do things—or most everybody does—and this gives them the opportunity to upgrade.
I haven't...well, virtually I have, but really, these career fair programs that we have, that's a prime example of what industry is looking for in the veteran field. It also gives an opportunity for, I think it would be fair to say, Veterans Affairs Canada, the committee and anybody else on what in fact we actually need to be doing to get these people back into a meaningful job.
The education program.... I'm a bit older. Well, I wasn't around then, but after the Second World War, these things were put in place. For people who had no chance at all to become engineers, doctors, lawyers and all this, what it does is it gives those people a chance to be valuable to society. That's why these programs are so vitally important. That's why the career fairs are important: to fully understand what is required. We're doing our best to understand that, but again, we're open to the committee for recommendations. We just want to do better.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Thank you, Minister.
I think I might have a few seconds, but just—I don't, the chair says—to finish off on the education and training, I spoke to a couple of universities in Nova Scotia. We need to try to get communication between our department and the universities across Canada to try to give more information and to get those opportunities for as many veterans as we can who want to do education and training.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
It's not overly complicated: six years, $40,000; 12 years, $80,000. It's available for upgrading your skills. It's so important that this [get used—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Yes, Minister MacAulay, I have no choice. Now I'd like to thank you so much for being here in the committee and answering all the questions.
I also want to tell you, Minister, that this committee is yours. Don't hesitate to come back to see us. The chair isn't evil, he just has to monitor the time to give all members of the committee the chance to speak.
I'd like to invite Mr. Ledwell to stay with us.
I know you're going to leave, Mr. MacAulay, so on behalf of the committee, I once again thank you for your appearance today.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
It was kind of fun with you, Mr. Chair. Take care. I appreciate it so much. You certainly keep a firm hand on things, and that's good. Thank you to everybody for their help.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you so much.
Members of the committee, I'm going to suspend for a few minutes to permit the other witnesses to be here at the meeting. The committee is suspended.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
We will now reconvene the meeting.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses.
When you are ready to speak, you can click on your microphone to activate your mike.
As a reminder, all comments should be be addressed through the chair.
The interpretation services offered for this videoconference are about the same as for ordinary meetings of the committee. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of floor, English or French.
When you speak, speak slowly and clearly. When it is not your turn to speak, put your microphone on mute.
I would now like to welcome the witnesses.
From the Department of Veterans Affairs, we have Mr. Steven Harris, assistant deputy minister, service delivery branch; Ms. Sara Lantz, acting assistant deputy minister, chief financial officer and corporate services branch; and Ms. Amy Meunier, assistant deputy minister, strategic policy and commemoration.
I don't think there will be any opening remarks, so we will go to the question period.
I would ask committee members to address their questions to one of the three witnesses who are with us.
Mr. Caputo, the floor is yours for five minutes.
Conservative
Frank Caputo Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's a pleasure to see all of our witnesses here today. I was on a phone call with them yesterday and had the pleasure and honour of travelling with two of them. It's wonderful to see them again.
I'm going to pick up on a question that I asked the minister. This would likely be for the deputy minister and the assistant deputy minister, whoever feels free to answer it.
It's with respect to the $139 million to deal with the backlog and the staff. That money was spread over two years. Has the money that was earmarked for 2022 been distributed, as in have all the contracts that needed to be renewed to address the backlog been renewed?
Deputy Minister, Department of Veterans Affairs
Mr. Chair, I'll start off, if that's okay.