Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 24th, 2022

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

You asked me a question. Please, sir—

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

—is obviously overlooking things here. We already have that we're failing to deliver a service, and now we're failing to find out the true scope and nature of what's going on within the department.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

You're talking about delivering services and an investigation, which is not an investigation on delivering services. An investigation was put in place in order to find out just exactly what took place. An investigation finds out, if it's done properly—

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Then I go back to my opening statement, Minister.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

—exactly what took place, and that's what we're doing and making sure that we do find out—

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

It seems that you don't know what's going on within the department.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

You don't want me to answer. I'll answer, if you wish.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

I've not had an answer.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Please, Minister and Mr. Tolmie, for the interpreters it's important to talk one after another because of the chaos.

I have a point of order here.

Mr. Samson.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Chair, the member is asking two or three questions at once. He should allow the minister to articulate answers to each one of those questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Samson.

Let's go back to Minister MacAulay.

Please answer the question from MP Tolmie.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

I appreciate the question.

The answer is that we are working very hard to make sure that we deliver services to the veterans in a timely manner. We will do that. As I indicated, the backlog will be at the national standard by next spring or summer.

He wondered if the investigation needed to be restarted. The investigation never stopped. We find out new stuff in an investigation. That's what it's about, to get to the root cause of this and deal with it. We're going to do that.

Thank you.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

I'll circle back to how I started off. It seems that the minister doesn't know what's going on within the department.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

The five minutes are over.

Now let's go to Mr. Churence Rogers for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to the minister and to the officials.

I have a question for you, Minister, and maybe your officials might want to comment on this, as well. I'm curious because of the new updated information, of course. How many veterans have actually brought up medical assistance in dying with their veterans service agents? Does the department keep track of this information? Will the department track this in the future?

As a further question, what steps will be taken to ensure that each incident is given the attention that it needs in order to ensure that nothing inappropriate is being discussed with veterans?

Minister, you can start. If you want to ask your officials to comment as well, I'd appreciate that.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much, Churence.

The fact is that we will not be taping the information with veterans service officers. As I indicated previously, it's personal information, medical information. We do not want to.... We can't do that. It's inappropriate to do that because it's personal information.

As for making sure that, as you indicated, this does not happen again, we'll take every measure possible to make sure it does not. As the deputy has indicated, and Ms. Blaney indicated quite clearly, we have a program in place to make sure that the frontline staff are fully informed on what takes place and how to deal with issues, and to make sure, number one, on the issue at hand, that if that's brought up, it's brought to the service manager right away. They're not to discuss it. It's against policy to discuss that issue. That issue itself is to be discussed between the doctor and the patient only, not recorded, or anything else.

What we want to do is make sure here that we get to the bottom of this issue, make sure we find out. That's why we have an investigation, to find out just exactly what took place. That's why we scanned hundreds of thousands of files, to make sure we address the problem properly. To this point, we have found one employee who has not handled this issue properly. It's totally inappropriate, totally wrong. I know there's another issue that came to light today, but we have to find out. Hopefully, we would hear from this veteran and we will do everything we can to help that veteran.

That's what it's all about. I'm sure everybody around this table wants that. That's my job. That's what I'm going to continue to do.

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

Thank you, Minister.

Given that we have this updated information today and the ongoing investigation, how were these issues missed? What discussions are taking place with this employee's colleagues and managers to ensure that no one else was missed, no one else was aware of what was going on here?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Mr. Rogers, on the missed part, what we did was scan hundreds of thousands of files to find the proper word. If that had been discussed, we would have found it.

What we have also done—I've instructed the deputy and they're certainly doing it here in the department—is to make sure that all frontline employees are fully aware of what to do when this takes place. The fact is that, in this situation, when the veteran calls, the veteran can mention what he or she wishes, but, if they happen to mention MAID, that's to be brought immediately up to the manager level and not to be discussed at all with the veteran and the veterans service agent. That's what the policy is, and that's what would take place.

That's why I asked the deputy to expand the investigation and also to make sure that the information is clearly explained and that the frontline officers fully understand what they can and cannot do. It's vitally important.

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

Minister, obviously, then, this employee totally contradicted the policy that the department chose to follow by making the suggestion to the veteran in the first place.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Churence, you're absolutely right. It was totally unacceptable and a terrible situation to have happen. It was unacceptable, wrong, against policy—whatever word you wish to use—and it hurt veterans. Of course, everybody around this table understands that we're here to help veterans, not to hurt them, and it's unfortunate, but we're dealing with human beings.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Minister MacAulay.

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

We will continue with the two other witnesses. However, we will suspend for one minute while the minister disconnects.

Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, thank you for coming.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

We're suspending the meeting for a few minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

We're back in session.

We have with us Deputy Minister Paul Ledwell and Assistant Deputy Minister, Service Delivery Branch, Stephen Harris.

Committee members, I would suggest we first do a six-minute round of questions and then a second round. I would also ask that you please let us know who your question is for, Mr. Ledwell or Mr. Harris.

So, I would invite Cathay Wagantall to take the floor for six minutes.