Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 12th, 2023

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

The minister was the one who signed off on the decision and there was no involvement of the Prime Minister's Office in the making of that decision.

[Amy Meunier]

I'm not aware of any involvement.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

You're not aware of any involvement. You're not saying there wasn't, but you're not aware of it.

[Amy Meunier]

I've not been in any meeting where I saw any odd involvement whatsoever.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

But the Prime Minister's Office was involved in meetings around that decision. Is that correct?

[Amy Meunier]

That's correct. As with any other file of consequence or importance such as this one, we would update both the Privy Council and the Prime Minister's Office.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Okay. Thank you.

I'll turn my time over to Mr. Dowdall.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you, Blake, and thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today. I was glad to see the minister here. I was actually quite happy to hear her two concerns for the veterans, and that number one is that we listen to them. That's probably the number one call I get. They don't think they're listened to, quite frankly. When they call me or email me, they don't think they're listened to. The other thing is access to services. That's the other item I get most of my calls about. The access is difficult to navigate. It's certainly not simple for people who aren't computer-literate or good at paperwork. They're frustrated with that.

I also heard this morning that the VAC website and system crashed. It was unusable. Basically, that means veterans were unable to upload forms, contact their case managers or contact VAC online. It also means that caseworkers from PCVRS and medical service providers could not upload forms or send referrals to their VAC counterparts to process veterans' claims for support.

This has happened before. I believe less than two weeks ago the site was down for a couple of days as well. We've heard that sometimes that's the case. I'm just wondering what we're doing to improve this so that it doesn't happen to veterans when they're trying to log in.

[Steven Harris, Assistant Deputy Minister, Service Delivery Branch, Department of Veterans Affairs]

Perhaps I can take that question, Mr. Chair.

We regularly do updates to systems. Generally, we schedule those for outside of normal working hours. The website for the My VAC Account that you're referring to is available 24-7, essentially, other than scheduled outages. There are occasional technical issues that require updates. Sometimes those come to us unannounced as a result of a system problem that may affect multiple systems. Veterans can continue to call the national client contact centre if the My VAC Account isn't working to get access to supports and services.

Sometimes there can be delays when a system is down for a couple of hours during the working day. That's certainly unfortunate, but part of the issue of maintaining multiple systems is making sure they're updated, functioning correctly and are secure and protected as well. A couple of incidents happened on that. I'm not aware of anything where there were two days of a lack of access to service in place, but we do work to make sure it's available as often and ultimately as frequently as possible to help support veterans who might want to access it at whatever time of day is convenient for them.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

We also heard from the Davidson Institute that it takes them over a hundred hours of work just to process the claims for one veteran to enter their program, which is really tailor-made to help veterans with trauma.

Once again, I'm just wondering about the system. We hear it constantly, and it seems that the same issues are brought up over and over again. I'm just wondering how long it will take for us to simplify the system so that maybe we won't have the backlogs we're seeing now, and we'll actually provide a better service to those who have served us.

[Sara Lantz, Assistant Deputy Minister, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Services, Department of Veterans Affairs]

Let me jump in here, Mr. Chair.

As we have hired people to work on the backlog, we have concurrently invested in our IT infrastructure as well. When we launched our pension for life programs, we introduced the newer, more modern GC case management system, and we continue to move all of our programs over to that system.

Getting on that newer infrastructure will give us the agility and ability to do more with technology to simplify and to help—

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I don't have a lot of time. I hate to be rude, but I have just one more quick comment to make.

I know that we do these studies regularly. Sometimes we do a study again. A lot of studies on transitioning have been done. There has been one every few years.

What do you do when you get the recommendations from a study? Where do those go? Do you follow up to see what recommendations are followed up on to make the service better?

[Steven Harris]

I think I can take that as it relates to transition.

Frankly, with any of the recommendations that come from the committee itself, obviously the first thing we do is a formal government response. We take the recommendations that are issued in any report that is coming from ACVA or, frankly, any of the other parliamentary committees and we look at those in detail as to where we can make improvements.

Sometimes those involve an individual department. Sometimes they are collaborative, in the case of working with our Canadian Armed Forces colleagues, RCMP or others. We respond to the report with respect to whether we accept a recommendation, and we work towards that and make improvements, frankly, based on the excellent recommendations that come in from the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Dowdall.

Now let's go to Mr. Miao for six minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the officials for being here today.

I would like to talk more about the backlog. Between 2015 and 2016, and 2022 and 2023, Veterans Affairs Canada experienced a 61% increase in the number of applications received for disability benefits.

Is the number of applications stabilizing at this time?

[Steven Harris]

The number of applications varies.

We saw some variability during the COVID period. It seems that every year since about 2015-16 it has gone up. There has been an increase in applications for a variety of programs but mostly for the disability benefits program.

As I said, there was some variability during the COVID period. It is stabilizing at this point at a consistently higher level.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you.

Since 2020, VAC has also reduced the backlog by 75%, and in the supplementary estimates there is an amount of $3.6 million to deliver service excellence to veterans by reducing backlogs and improving service standards.

Can you explain in more detail how this amount will help and what exactly it will be used for?

[Steven Harris]

This specific amount relates to some of the service standard wait times that exist at our bureau of pensions advocates in particular. It's primarily for reducing the amount of time it might take for a lawyer who works in the bureau of pensions advocates to be able to assist a veteran who may be going through an appeals process.

There's also some funding for what I would describe as program integrity. This allows for additional staff to be in place to help ensure that we have enough capacity to meet the demand by veterans who may be coming in through various programs. We've seen enormous growth. The member mentioned the growth in applications. We've seen enormous growth in applications and participation in other programs, such as the rehabilitation program, over the course of the last number of years.

That increase requires some additional staff to ensure that the program functions effectively and it's supporting veterans well, and that we have the capacity needed to respond and maintain the support that veterans require. Those are some of the other areas into which that funding is going.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Last February, the government also announced funding of $139.6 million over two years, to last until March of 2024, to extend temporary employees in order to continue to reduce the processing times for disability benefits.

Do you still expect to have significantly reduced processing times by March?

[Steven Harris]

Yes, we've been reducing the turnaround times for disability benefits applications over the course of the last number of years. As a result of the additional funding we received and the additional human resources capacity we've had on hand to address files beyond our service standard of 16 weeks, what's commonly referred to as the backlog has been reduced, as noted by the member, by about 75%.

In real terms, however, that means benefits being provided for veterans and treatment access for veterans, and it actually means reduced wait times—significantly reduced wait times. Even just a couple of years ago, we had turnaround times or wait times for applications of 40 weeks. The average times as of this current fiscal year, the first couple of quarters for this current fiscal year, are down into the early twenties. We still have work to do to make sure we're meeting our 16-week service standard, but I can add for the committee that, in the first couple of months of this year, our service standard, or our ability to meet our service standard, is up closer to 70%, which is near to the 80% service standard that we set.

Again, there is additional work that needs to be done. As we go through some of the files that have been in the queue for some time, those decisions have impacts on the turnaround times. The longer it has been waiting, when the decision is made, the more effect it has on the turnaround times, but veterans are getting decisions for their disability applications much more quickly than they were even just a couple years ago.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Harris. To you again, through the chair, what variables determine the amount needed to reduce and eventually eliminate the processing delays?

[Steven Harris]

I would say that there are three things.

The one we can't control is the number of applications that come forward to us. The department has made and has put an exceptional effort into making sure we're publicizing the benefits, services and programs that we have available. What that means is that more veterans might come forward to apply. That's a good story, but it also challenges us from a resource point of view. We can't control the amount of intake that comes in. We want to make sure that we're responding to any veteran who comes forward with that need.

The second variable would be our ability from an automation or automatic point of view to reduce the challenges in the application process to make it easier for veterans and to make it easier for service providers, health professionals and others to submit the documentation we might need.

Lastly, it's the actual capacity that we have in the department, from a human resources point of view, to be able to process these things. We've had an ability to improve or increase our number of staff on that over the last number of years, and that's been showing up in the reduction of the backlog.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Harris.

I think my time is almost up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Miao.

I now invite Mr. Desilets to take the floor for the next six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Harris, who conducted this survey on the monument?