Veterans Affairs Committee on May 20th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Caputo.

I would now like to invite Mr. Lauzon to take the floor for five minutes.

Members of the committee may also share their time.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Once again, it's a pleasure to participate in the discussion and ask questions. I'd like to go back to the topic that was already discussed with Ms. Garrett‑Baird.

The question I asked you earlier was about your responsibilities for the new pension plan. In the current model, the three pension funds have been amalgamated into one.

What are the benefits of this pension model for veterans?

Can you describe some of these benefits?

[Crystal Garrett-Baird]

Thank you.

If you are referring to the Pension Act, the new veterans charter and pension for life, the advantage of pension for life—and the new Veterans Charter, which was the precursor to pension for life—is that we now have a suite of benefits and services that can be provided to veterans and their families. It includes areas such as rehabilitation and financial support, whether it's the income replacement benefit or the Canadian Forces income support benefit. Those are areas that we did not have pre-2006. We only had the monthly disability pension and supports such as the attendance allowance and exceptional incapacity allowance for veterans who had very serious injuries.

We were able to step back and realize that this model was not enough for our modern-day veterans. They were in need of rehabilitation and support such as career transition services. Move forward to 2019 when we identified gaps in education and training, so we launched the education and training benefit. We also put in place supports such as the caregiver recognition benefit for family members or caregivers of the most seriously disabled veterans, to ensure they are getting what they need.

That whole suite of benefits is encompassed by a very strong case management system and other supports such as the VAC assistance line. We are working with our Canadian Armed Forces colleagues on the veteran family program to ensure that there is a seamless transition once a member is released and comes over to VAC for support. We are always looking at ensuring that Canadian Armed Forces members, veterans and their families are getting the supports and services they need.

As mentioned, where we have identified gaps in areas such as education, training and the caregiver recognition benefit, those supports have been put in place. Even if we step back again, since 2016 over $11 billion has been provided for veterans through our budgets. Most recently, in budget 2022, there was additional funding of over $201 million to continue to reduce wait times and address veterans' homelessness.

We continue to evolve to ensure that our programming is supporting the needs of those we serve, which is the most important thing—their well-being and their health.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you very much.

Do the numbers you have given us also take into account all the programs that help veterans?

Have you done an analysis of the programs we offer, such as psychological help, family support, support for veterans' spouses, as well as all the rehabilitation therapies?

Have you considered the costs of all these programs in place for veterans?

[Crystal Garrett-Baird]

When we're developing these programs and services, there is costing done, along with a forecasting of how many veterans and family members that we know will benefit from it.

For example, in budget 2021, a new mental health benefit was announced, which launched on April 1, 2022. That is targeted to veterans who are applying for disability benefits related to a mental health condition such as PTSD, anxiety and depressive disorders. There was $140 million put forward for that benefit over five years, and then ongoing support. It is in place to ensure that individuals or veterans coming forward with mental health conditions can access treatment immediately upon application while they're waiting for their disability benefit to be processed.

I see that my time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Yes, exactly.

Thank you, Mr. Lauzon. Your time is up.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

You're welcome.

I now invite Mr. Luc Desilets to take the floor for two and a half minutes.

Mr. Desilets, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My first question is for Mr. Li.

Mr. Li, I respect the work you do at the University of British Columbia. You have a doctorate and you have done important work in the past.

Here's what concerns me. The sample for your study was small and nothing happened the way you wanted it to. This is not your fault. People, legions and others did not respond, which is a great shame.

Do you believe, as an academic, that your study meets the high standards of research quality and that we can really consider investing millions of dollars in light of your three recommendations?

[Dr. Eric Ping Hung Li]

Thank you for your question.

I would say that the small sample size is the reality of that, but I think that in the quality of the conversations we had with the veterans and the survivors, we covered some of the ground that we wanted to in going back to identifying the reasons and what would be their financial well-being.

We had qualitative researchers trained in anthropology backgrounds as well. We had a smaller sample size, but that is sometimes good in the calibre and quality of the information we are getting. I think we captured quite a lot of the voices. Are we going to be saturated in some ways in terms of the themes...? I can see that more samples would be good and more of a time frame spent with veterans and survivors would be helpful with that.

But I think that in this exercise we did our very best in the pandemic times to collect those voices to present to you. I would say that we did pass along good qualitative research.

Thank you.

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

I am fully aware of that, Mr. Li. I do not question your work.

However, the result being what it is, do you think, yes or no, that we should absolutely take this into account when considering the investment of millions of dollars?

[Dr. Eric Ping Hung Li]

That is a very good question.

For that, I shared it in my report and my recommendations. That recommendation, or that insight, was from the veterans I talked to and from the survivors I talked to for this. I'll leave it to the standing committee to make those decisions. As a researcher, I think I'd just like to do a fair job in reporting the voices I collect.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Li.

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

I'd like to invite Ms. Rachel Blaney to take her two and a half minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much.

If I could ask a question through you, Chair, of Ms. Tattersall, my question is this: Is she aware that REGS, another committee in this place, has requested that the minister attend to explain the government's intentions regarding eliminating this clause on after 60...? That's question one.

The second one is this: Has she been called on to provide briefing notes about this clause to anyone in National Defence and, if so, who?

[BGen Virginia Tattersall]

Mr. Chair, to the first question, no, I am not aware of an appearance of Minister Anand before any other committee, but then I don't tend to go through all of the information of the various committee appearances on a daily basis.

To the second question, if I have prepared any briefing notes, I think there may have been a briefing note that was passed to me to outline what the challenges are with marriage after 60. That was approximately three and a half years ago.

Thank you.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you. That's extremely helpful.

I will come now to Mr. Crabtree.

I know that the Treasury Board sometimes provides recommendations, so I'm wondering if the Treasury Board has a policy specifically on this clause. Does the Treasury Board support the elimination of the clause? Why or why not?

[Simon Crabtree]

Essentially, right now the current government has yet to respond in Parliament to Bill C-221 and, as such, I wouldn't be able to comment on the government's position in this respect.

That being said, I understand that similar private member's bills and petitions have been introduced in previous Parliaments that may be part of the public record, so that may give you an indication. That being said, at the same time, we can't confirm whether the government's position would be the same as previous responses.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

I will come back to Ms. Garrett-Baird.

Could I just get clarity if VAC has responsibility for RCMP veterans? I am very clear that this is the case, but I just want to clarify if there's a misunderstanding.

[Crystal Garrett-Baird]

The department has a memorandum of understanding with the RCMP to administer disability pensions on their behalf under the RCMP Superannuation Act, so we do provide that support.

The RCMP are not eligible for some of the other supports I mentioned today such as the income replacement benefit and areas like that, because that is outside of the department's mandate. What we do is support those RCMP members who have service-related injuries or illnesses who come forward for disability pensions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

I would like to invite Ms. Wagantall or Mr. Tolmie to speak for the next five minutes.

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

That's fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Go ahead, Mrs. Wagantall.

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

They're having trouble tracking who's doing what at this point in the day, I think. That's fair enough.

I just have one question for Ms. Garrett-Baird.

In regard to Statistics Canada, the data tables requested by Veterans Affairs Canada were to provide a broad and general understanding of the financial situation and occurrence of low income among spouses of veterans who entered into a new relationship at age 60 and after. I believe that you clarified that this is what was asked and provided by them to VAC.

However, according to Statistics Canada, it has never been asked by Veterans Affairs Canada to do any specific analysis on the impact of the marriage after 60 clause or the veterans survivors fund. I just wonder, in light of all the information that is needed to be able to deal with this as quickly as possible to come up with decisions around that fund, why was that the case? Why were they not asked to do that additional work?

[Crystal Garrett-Baird]

Starting, as I mentioned earlier, when budget 2019 was announced, we engaged Statistics Canada to explore how to identify veterans who marry after the age of 60, and in the coming months that work was.... We really launched what we needed to look at here, while working with DND and the Canadian Armed Forces.

In May 2019, Statistics Canada proposed a method for obtaining that information, and then in June of 2019, VAC asked Statistics Canada that the work be undertaken to identify survivors. Fast-forward to September of 2019, and Statistics Canada was able to confirm that they could locate the appropriate data and that they would be able to provide us with data tables, because that is what Statistics Canada does. They are able to pull the data together and provide it to us so that we can look at it and determine where those gaps are.

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

Okay.