Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 17th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Julian. I'm sorry, but your time is up.

Before we go to the next round, I will say that in order to finish this panel at 4:30, I'm going to have to cut two minutes from the two last interventions. We're going to have five minutes with the Conservatives, five minutes with the Liberals. It will be 2.5 and 2.5 for both of you, and we're going to finish with two minutes for the Conservatives and two minutes, because we have another panel.

Right now I'd like to invite Mr. John Brassard for five minutes. Go ahead, please.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's good to see you again, Virginia.

I'm curious. I haven't been on this file in a while. How many of the Veterans Affairs offices that were ceremoniously reopened by this government across the country are actually functioning at 100% capacity right now and are fully open? Are you aware of that?

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

None of the offices are fully open. We do have staff going into offices based on a hybrid model, but there are still staffing shortages in a bunch of the offices. However, the department will say that there are no vacant positions currently.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

They're not functioning at 100% capacity.

Fifty-four responses represent roughly 9% of the caseworkers. Can you give me some indication as to why there weren't more responses to that survey that Mr. Casey was referring to?

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

We're not sure exactly who the department sent the survey out to and whether or not it was to some of the working group's subcommittees. That's still something that I haven't been able to confirm.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

One of the things the minister has talked about often in the House of Commons and in media reports is additional staffing that they said they were going to hire. It would have been roughly 380 more caseworkers. I'm throwing the number out there. I might be wrong. Have you seen an actual hiring of caseworkers, to the number the minister has indicated, in order to deal with the backlog in caseloads?

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

No. To give you a little bit of history, in March of 2020 we had 34 term case managers and 455 indeterminate case managers. As of August 30 of this year, we have 53 term and 441 indeterminate, which means that there have been 14 indeterminate positions lost there.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

I believe you mentioned that in your comments as well.

The fact is that we haven't seen the type of hiring that the minister and this government have promised in order to deal with the cases in the backlog situation, have we?

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

No.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Okay.

Here we are facing a situation in which we're going to outsource. Let me ask you something: In your contract with unionized employees, do you have a contracting-out clause?

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

There is stuff being worked on currently in the collective bargaining process, but not specific to this, no.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

There is no existing contracting-out clause.

One of the things you mentioned earlier was that the cost associated with outsourcing to this company could in fact work out to a 25% increase in cost. The contract, I note, is for five years and $565 million, which is about $100 million a year.

Realistically, what would it take, if this contract were not to happen, to deal with the current crisis within the case management system within VAC—$100 million, $30 million, $50 million? Would it be less than what this contract will be?

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

It would absolutely be less than what this contract is costing the Canadian public, absolutely.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Has the association done any calculation on that? I am going to ask questions of department officials, but I'm just wondering whether you have done any analysis on that.

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

We haven't done a full analysis. I have done some. In terms of looking at the promise of the 25 to one ratio, we would need at least 700 case managers to meet the 25 to one ratio that's been promised since 2015.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

This contract will, in fact, cost more money in order to administer the backlog of cases in the case management system within Veterans Affairs than it would take with what currently exists if they took some of that money and applied it to that.

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

Yes.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

Are you aware, through any of your contacts, of how many veterans are actually working for this new company who can help and guide veterans through the process of rehabilitation?

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

No. We've seen a lot of their posters and so on go out. We've also had a couple of the providers reach out to case managers to try to bring them over to the new outsource—

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

I bet they have.

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

—but no.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

That's one of the things that I know Mr. Richards talked about. Curiously, the job description for this outsource company is the same job description that already exists within Veterans Affairs, yet it will potentially cost taxpayers—and I don't like to look at it in terms of taxpayers, because that somehow implies that we're not taking into account the needs of those veterans—more money. Is that correct?

[Virginia Vaillancourt]

Yes.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Okay.

I want to get into the relationship between the case managers and the veterans. I know that in many cases, it's a very personal one. Sometimes it can be acrimonious, but for the most part case managers do develop those relationships, which are important for the treatment and rehabilitation of veterans and their families who are dealing with things like this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much, Mr. Brassard.

Now I'd like to invite Mr. Wilson Miao for five minutes. Please go ahead.