Veterans Affairs Committee on May 13th, 2022

[Kevin Sewell]

Thank you.

In my research, I contacted the U.S. military about a gold digger clause in their pensions. They went through their whole pension thing approximately 10 years ago and reviewed it totally. I was communicating with one of their senior majors who dealt with this at the time, a special adviser to the secretary of the army, and he was shocked that we still have it in place here. He said it sounds like we need to step up like they did 10 years ago and re-evaluate and redo our pension system. That's it, basically.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Thank you for clearing that up for us.

I'd like to go to Tracy.

You've been in a relationship for many years now and have had four children, as I heard earlier. What challenges do you think have to be addressed immediately in order to ensure that, moving forward in the future, you have the ability to continue supporting your children?

[Tracy Lee Evanshen]

I was in a relationship for 30 years before Kevin. Kevin and I have been together for four. I've had to go back to work in order to ensure that we have some money, to ensure that I take care of my children and my children have what they need before I look at myself and what we need. I'm taking care of my kids before I'm taking care of Kevin and me.

What I make is not much, and nothing from nothing is a whole lot of nothing. There are a lot of sleepless nights and, I'm not going to lie, a lot of tears. Sometimes I just don't know how we're going to do it.

Thank you.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Thank you for sharing.

I'd like to go back to you, Mr. Boudreau. You must have been very disappointed when you were informed that you couldn't pass your pension on to your spouse. Would you say that there was a lack of...?

When you joined your company, obviously someone didn't sit down with you and go over your HR benefits. Can I assume that this is correct?

[Patrick Boudreau]

Very much so, yes.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Would you agree that maybe what we should also be looking at is that they take the time to go over detailed benefits to all individuals?

[Patrick Boudreau]

You know, when I was 20 years old, I don't know if I would have heard that: Guess what. If you retire after 37.5 years and you've protected your pension because you've paid off your spouse, and you meet somebody after you retire, they're not entitled to your pension.

I don't think I would have heard those words.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Am I done, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Yes. It's already five minutes.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Oh, my goodness. I'm going to have to buy you a new watch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

You're doing the same thing as Mr. Tolmie, but that's okay.

I'd now like to invite Mr. Churence Rogers to open his mike.

Please go ahead and ask your questions.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm hoping that this time you can hear me.

I apologize to the witnesses. We had some technical difficulties, of course.

I want to come back to you, Kevin, on the comment you made about the U.S. system and how the gold digger clause has been cancelled, and to ask you how much you know about that particular situation in the U.S. It intrigued me. What was the result for the veterans there? What does it mean for them in terms of survivor benefits for their spouses or their future benefits going forward? Can you enlighten us a little bit as a committee?

[Kevin Sewell]

Certainly.

Basically, I reached out to this gentleman. He used to teach at West Point. As I said, he was a special adviser to the secretary of the army. We chatted about it. We didn't really get much into the mechanics of how it changed. Basically, they've removed the clause from their pension system.

He's more than willing to be a witness to this committee and give his advice to you. That may be something the committee wants to look at in the future.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Kevin.

Certainly, Mr. Chair, that might be something that we could look at as a committee.

I would certainly be very intrigued and very interested in hearing what's happening in the U.S., because we've heard references to it before from some of the other witnesses. I know that we had other witnesses, for example, who talked about giving the option to pay into a survivor benefit plan. Of course, if the veteran died before the spouse, the spouse would get absolutely nothing. That was my understanding.

Kelly, is that how you understand it?

[Kelly Vankoughnett]

That's how I understand it, yes.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

It makes absolutely no sense that somebody would pay into a plan with no guarantee of some kind of assurance of getting at least some kind of lump sum rebate if that were the case. I just wanted to confirm that, as was heard from other witnesses.

[Kelly Vankoughnett]

Yes, that's my understanding.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you very much.

When I look at the circumstances of some of the other witnesses who talked about the monthly contribution that was required, that would make it extremely financially challenging, as you've detailed.

That's not possible for you as well. Is it, Tracy?

[Tracy Lee Evanshen]

That's correct. There are some months where we're living off my credit card or my line of credit.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Obviously, then, that is not an option for you or for many others. The only solution seems to be that we go down the road that Kevin alluded to in terms of what the U.S. is doing or in terms of something like that kind of solution.

Tracy, I was just wondering if you want to comment.

[Tracy Lee Evanshen]

Yes, I think we've said it already. It's just that unfortunately in general we're going around in circles about the same thing. We give back money every year—not we as individuals, but the government. Veterans Affairs gives back hundreds of millions of dollars, yet the answer is “Let's do another study”, and they spend more millions of dollars to do a study.

Just please provide the money that the veterans and their families need. We're not asking for millions. We're just asking to be able to live comfortably.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Yes. I wanted to re-ask the questions because I'm new to this committee for this term, and I just wanted to make sure that we're hearing the same answers from people on the living experiences they're going through.

I think my time is just about up. I want to thank all of you for your contributions here today and for giving us some guidance as to how we should deal with this issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

I'd like to inform the committee that we're going to have four other interventions before we go to the next panel.

For five minutes each, we're going to have Mr. Caputo and Mr. Zuberi, and for two and a half minutes each, Luc Desilets and Madam Blaney.

Right now, Mr. Caputo, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm repeatedly touched by all of this.

I believe it was Ms. Evanshen who just spoke about a line of credit and credit cards and kind of living month to month. Is this just highlighting part of a bigger issue about funding for veterans, period? Does that makes sense?

[Tracy Lee Evanshen]

Are you asking me?