Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 24th, 2022

[Steven Harris]

As far as the collective agreement goes, I don't have an example. I've been in this position for about two and a half years and I don't know of any similar cases. On a day-to-day basis, managers work closely with their case managers to ensure that any relationships case managers have with the veterans they are handling are appropriate. Building a good relationship with the veteran may require the case manager to offer advice beyond the normal scope or to speak to the veteran in a more personal manner than is necessary.

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

Okay. Case managers report to a manager, right?

[Steven Harris]

Yes.

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

Are managers generally aware of what's going on in the cases handled by their case managers?

[Steven Harris]

I would say they are.

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

They must occasionally report.

[Steven Harris]

As part of the annual performance assessment, managers do talk to their employees, in this case, the case managers, about the cases of the veterans they are handling.

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

Was this employee's manager aware of how to work with his case manager?

[Steven Harris]

First of all, I'd like to clarify that he was not a case manager, he was a veterans service agent. He was not aware of the information on file regarding medical assistance in dying.

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

Perfect.

Thank you very much, Mr. Harris and Mr. Ledwell.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

To close this panel, I'd like to invite Ms. Rachel Blaney for two and a half minutes.

Please go ahead.

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

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Harris, I really appreciated your answers last time around, so I think I'll come back to you for a second.

For my first question, is it possible for you to table with the committee the system of performance review—absolutely not details, but just what the methodology looks like—so that we can better understand it?

[Steven Harris]

Sure.

The system of performance review is guided by the Treasury Board Secretariat for all public servants, not only in Veterans Affairs. We can certainly make sure that becomes available to you.

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

Thank you.

When these performance reviews are done, are veterans ever a source of the performance reviews? What does that process look like, if that is so?

[Steven Harris]

Veterans aren't consulted directly. However, sometimes veterans are included in terms of case notes that are referenced.

There could be veterans who have escalated issues. If the veterans service agent or the case manager they are directly dealing with hasn't responded effectively to their needs, as Mr. Ledwell pointed out before, there are measures for escalation.

Feedback from veterans and the support that's being offered to them does get taken into account in terms of the performance review process.

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

If a veteran has a case manager and feels concerned about something, do they have a clear process? Could what that process looks like and how that complaint is followed up also be shared? That would be extremely helpful for the committee.

[Steven Harris]

There are a variety of ways of escalation. Sometimes that includes reaching out to somebody in the office directly. Sometimes that's a phone call into our client contact centre. Sometimes that's a message to someone like myself as a senior official. There are a number of ways to do that.

We can certainly try to collect a few of them for you and share methods of escalation for veterans who may have questions or concerns about the service they're receiving.

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

Thank you. That's really helpful.

For me, what's really important is that we don't want this to happen again. The best way to do that, of course, is to see systems become stronger, so I think that would be very helpful for the committee.

The last question I have is just a repeat from last time, which I didn't get answered.

If a veteran asks for a conversation to be recorded, is there any method of doing that?

[Steven Harris]

There's no method of doing it on the Veterans Affairs side.

Often veterans have indicated that they're recording conversations that they may be having with a Veterans Affairs representative. In some cases, they will note to us that they are actually recording the conversation. In other cases they won't tell us, but at future points they may come back and indicate that they have this recorded and that's what was said last time or what have you.

We don't have a method of just clicking a button and starting to record a conversation if requested.

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

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much. That concludes our panel.

I would like to say thank you to our witnesses.

Our guests today were Deputy Minister Paul Ledwell, and Assistant Deputy Minister, Service Delivery Branch, Steven Harris. Once again, I thank them for participating in our study.

I'd like to remind committee members that, in light of the motion introduced by Mr. Richards, we will continue our study survivor pension benefits next Monday in camera.

As everyone knows, several people have worked very hard to organize today's meeting. We thank our clerk, who is joined by Ms. Burke and our analyst.

I also want to thank the interpretation team and the technical team for all their efforts.

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adjourn the meeting?

I see that no one objects.

The meeting is adjourned.