Veterans Affairs Committee on March 4th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to the sixth meeting of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.

Pursuant to the motion adopted on February 8, 2022, the committee is meeting to begin its study entitled, Fairness in the Services Offered to Veterans: Francophones and Anglophones, Men and Women, and the LGBTQ+ Community.

Welcome to our colleagues Peter Fragiskatos and Marc Dalton.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so that you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

Today's meeting is also taking place in a webinar format. Webinars are for public committee meetings and are available only to members, their staff and witnesses. Members enter immediately as active participants. All functionalities for active participants remain the same. Staff will be non-active participants and can therefore view the meeting only in gallery view.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room, your microphone will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer. When you are speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. I will remind you that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

Regarding the speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do our best to maintain an order of speaking that is fair for all members, whether they are participating virtually or in person.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses.

We have with us, from the Department of Veterans Affairs, Stephen Harris, Assistant Deputy Minister, Service Delivery Branch, and Amy Meunier, Director General, Centralized Operations Division.

Ms. Meunier will make the opening statement.

Ms. Meunier, you have five minutes to make your presentation, starting now.

[Amy Meunier, Director General, Centralized Operations Division, Department of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Chair, Honourable Committee Members, thank you for inviting us here today.

Our Canadian Veterans deserve the best possible services and support that we can provide to them and their families. And our number one priority in serving them is reducing processing times for disability benefit applications and making quality and accurate decisions.

Over the last five to six years, we've experienced a 40% increase in disability benefit applications, including an increase of more than 75% in first applications. Despite this, between April 2020 and February of this year, the team has reduced the overall number of pending applications by 36%—in other words, from 48,000 to just over 31,000—and the number of claims beyond our 16-week service standard by 44%, from 22,000 to just over 12,000.

I want to thank the members of this committee who have quite rightly focused on timely and effective decisions for veterans, with an additional emphasis on barriers and gaps for groups such as females and francophones. We've made measurable progress in addressing the turnaround times for applications from females and francophone veterans. For example, as of December 2021, we've reduced the average turnaround time for female applicants by 6.9 weeks and the average turnaround time for francophones by 3.2 weeks.

Two years ago, I was named Director General responsible for the team that processes disability benefit applications. At that time, our team was faced with a workload of disability claims that had never been higher, and a global pandemic had just begun.

The one constant during those early months of uncertainty was the dedication and devotion of the team. They understood the importance of continuing to get decisions out the door, and their productivity steadily increased as we brought more staff in the door.

With the recent government announcement of $139 million to extend term funding for another two years, we can maintain this momentum and achieve our goal of processing applications within the service standard.

There are a few other highlights I'd like to share. We stood up a team dedicated to processing applications from women to eliminate inequalities in the turnaround times between female and male applicants. Likewise, we increased our French and bilingual capacity and are now positioned to better support our bilingual and French applicants. We have a dedicated unit that prioritized and processed over a thousand applications from military sexual trauma survivors. More than $105 million in pain and suffering compensation has been paid to them. We were able to make those decisions within 30 days on average.

We are working to automate some of the manual steps in our processes, which will alleviate repetitive tasks, improve information sharing and, most importantly, improve the client experience.

We engaged directly with Veterans. In May of last year, through our consultation platform called Let’s Talk Veterans, we consulted with Veterans about the disability benefit process. The feedback from close to one thousand Veterans was tremendous and has helped us zero in on the very specific challenges for Veterans. We are already using this information to make changes.

We are building tools for our decision-makers to connect veteran injuries to service faster and more consistently. These tools are developed with a GBA+ lens to support consistent, equitable and transparent decisions that are inclusive of sex and gender and reflect the most up-to-date medical research.

All this to say, we are really at a pivotal moment. We know there is a lot more work to do, but we have come a long way, and we are well positioned to get the work done.

Before I close, I'd like to leave you with this message that I recently received from one of our team members: “As a Veteran myself, I have said since the early days of working at Veterans Affairs Canada that I feel like I am truly at home. I get to tap into my experience in the Canadian Armed Forces and also bring to the role the skills I developed in my career. I am happy for the veterans we are serving. I know we are making a difference. I hear it on the phone and I see it in the numbers. It’s wonderful that we now get to continue to make a difference.”

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Ms. Meunier. I know you are here with Stephen Harris. We will now go to the first round of questions.

Mr. Caputo is absent, and I don't know whether Mr. Harris will be speaking first.

Instead it will be Cathay Wagantall, who has six minutes to ask Mr. Harris or Ms. Meunier her questions.

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

Thank you so much, Chair.

I'd like to thank you both for being here. It means a great deal to have this opportunity to follow up on this issue. I had the privilege and honour of being part of that study when we were looking at the backlog. It is encouraging, no question.

Either one of you can answer this, although I appreciate the brief that was shared.

I would like to know, as we go into this, how many of those temporary workers have been retained, moving forward. I know there was a step to consider removing them, and the decision was to keep them on, which I think was the right one. How many have actually been retained at this point in time?

[Amy Meunier]

They've all been retained. We received funds through budget 2021 to retain 168 positions. The remaining term positions, through the recent government announcement, have all been retained.

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

That's excellent. Thank you so much.

With that retaining, I know that a number of them had been shifted over from other areas. Have those been replaced in other areas of need within Veterans Affairs?

[Amy Meunier]

Yes, they have. Through the hiring process, when we began to hire in the summer of 2020, we worked with our partners around the department to ensure that, as we were moving experienced personnel over to support the reduction in the disability backlog, they would have sufficient time to replace anyone who had moved over to my section.

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

Okay, perfect.

You mentioned that you have increased the ability to deal with the francophone needs of our veterans, those who speak French as their first language, and there is concern about the need for individuals working with them to have that ability to communicate, especially when you're dealing with something in the medical field. You did say that they are bilingual. Can you tell me how many of those new hires to deal with this issue have French as their first language?

[Amy Meunier]

You're absolutely right. Through the process of looking into why there may have been a turnaround time difference between anglophones and francophones, we did realize that for some cases bilingual is sufficient, but we recognized, much like we have English-essential positions, that there was a strong need to ensure we had sufficient French-essential positions.

Currently on staff we have close to 200 bilingual or French-essential individuals. I can't give you the precise number, but I would say that it's around 40 to 45 French-essential positions.

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

Okay. Are any of those essential positions directly in Quebec?

[Amy Meunier]

Yes. In fact, the majority would be in Quebec: in Quebec City and Saint-Jean, as well as Montreal.

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

That's wonderful. Thank you.

Another question I had was in regard to what you shared with us. You talked about the huge load of those who were working.

I do personally want to say thank you to that team you have. They are remarkable in what they do, but they were discouraged and were finding it hard. You indicated that as you hired more people, there was an increase in productivity among the people who were already serving.

Can you talk just a bit more about the impact that having a stronger workforce made on those who were trying desperately to do their jobs well?

[Amy Meunier]

Thank you. That's a great question.

As their leader, I worked hard over the last two years to ensure that we maintained morale. Sometimes it can seem defeating when you're looking at a large volume of applications. What really helped to augment or increase our capacity is that as we onboarded new staff, they helped us to look at our work in a different way, posed questions and offered us opportunities to be more efficient in our work, and being able to share the workload across a greater number of employees really helped us get into our stride.

I would say in summary that there were two parts. More hands on deck to share the load was absolutely helpful, but it was the freshness and spirit of new folks coming onboard that really helped to bring up the morale.

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

Thank you.

We see how important it was to do those hires. The goal still is to remove the backlog, and we still have a significant way to go, yet there was that initial decision to take away those temporary positions.

There's nothing more important than getting this to where it doesn't happen again, which is perhaps unrealistic, but at the same time, to have that staff there in the long term is so key. What is the plan to move ahead to actually reduce that entire backlog?

[Amy Meunier]

Thank you.

In the operational environment, our service standard is 16 weeks 80% of the time, so it does suggest that there will be a certain number of claims that will take longer than 16 weeks. Our goal is to reduce the backlog and to be able to maintain our service standard, meaning that there would never be any greater than 20% in our pending applications beyond the service standard.

In terms of keeping staff on board, that is one part of our strategic plan. The other part is improving the way we work and augmenting our system so that we can move through the system much faster.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Meunier and Ms. Wagantall.

Right now, I'd like to invite Darrell Samson to go ahead for six minutes.

Go ahead, please, Darrell.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

I'm very pleased with the information you shared with us, Ms. Meunier. Things are looking up, but I do want to make reference to what my colleague just asked you. She made a point that I'd like to clarify with you. She said there was a decision to take some of these positions away. I suspect she was making reference to the 168. Was there any intention at any time for the department to take those positions away?

[Amy Meunier]

No, there was no intention to take those temporary positions away. I would say that as we move through the process and we continue to refine our processes, build automation, and become more efficient, we have to continually look at what types of resources we need longer term. It was more about thinking through what is actually required and it was a bit of an iterative process, but the goal was to keep the people we needed.

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

Thank you very much for that answer and that clarification. I know that the wait time has been a big issue for a number of years. You shared some numbers that were quite interesting, which I think we should look at. There's been a 40% increase in requests for applications, and 75% for first-time applications. Could you tell us where these numbers are coming from and why there are more demands and more requests for the first time? Why do we see such a big climb in applications? What caused that?

[Amy Meunier]

I can't be 100% certain, but we certainly do hear feedback. I would want to point to a few things. One, Veterans Affairs Canada and the government just recently went through an initiative to really promote our programs and services. There was a large communications effort to ensure that people knew what programs they would be available for. The implementation of pension for life brought a whole new level of applications in the door. People were more aware of what they might be entitled to.

There's the destigmatization of mental health conditions. We are seeing a notable rise in those areas. More and more individuals are feeling comfortable coming forward. Finally, I would say that injuries in service manifest over a period of time, and I think we're still seeing evidence of Afghanistan coming through, particularly related to those mental health conditions. We'll continue to see that ebb and flow. It will be important that we look at that and we monitor that so we're prepared in the future along the same lines and that we have the supports in place.

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

Thank you.

What will the new investment, which we just announced, of $139.6 million do to retain those employees to help with the backlog as we move forward?

[Amy Meunier]

Thank you.

It's going to help us achieve our goal. We are aiming to have the backlog down to 11,500 in that area by the end of this month and to have it down to about 4,000 in the early part of 2023, in the January/February time frame. From that point forward it's incumbent upon us to make sure we maintain that workload, meaning that it is always within 16 weeks but recognizing that there will still be a few folks outside of that.

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

I would like to take the opportunity, Ms. Meunier, to thank you and your leadership and your staff for the work that you are doing. It is quite impressive. I realize there is a backlog. We are hopeful there won't be any backlog when we get to the place we need to get to, but knowing that we have dropped the wait time by 50% in the last year and that we are still having such numbers as there are 40% more applications and 75% more first-time applications is just very good. I want to thank you, on behalf of veterans and our government, for the work you're doing and your staff is doing.

Thank you.

[Amy Meunier]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Samson and Ms. Meunier.

I now invite Luc Desilets, vice-chair of the committee, to take the floor for six minutes.