Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 12th, 2024

[Jane Hicks]

No, the telemedicine is not designed to fill out forms for disability benefits and things like that. It's really for primary, acute health care.

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

Mr. Harris, as you know, homelessness is a major concern for the committee and society in general. We know that there's unfortunately a high rate of homelessness among people who leave the armed forces, for many reasons. One of those reasons, which we've discovered in recent years and have explored a little more, is the difficulty involved in obtaining the compensation to which those veterans are entitled. Here I'm going back to the applications processing backlog. It's a long process for these veterans, and, after a while, they give up.

Can you tell us where the backlog currently stands? I'm particularly interested in the differences between men and women and between English and French applications.

[Steven Harris]

I can definitely provide the committee with the exact details. As for files that are backlogged more than 16 weeks, there are approximately 5,000. That’s a significant reduction from the 23,000 files we had three years ago.

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

How old are those figures?

[Steven Harris]

They're from the last quarter, which ended in December.

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

What about the difference in processing times between English and French files?

[Steven Harris]

They're absolutely the same, and the same is true of men's and women's files. There may be minor differences of a week or two in processing times between the two groups, depending on the quarter, but, generally speaking, they're exactly the same.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

I now turn the floor over to Ms. McPherson.

You have six minutes, please.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here. I'm a new person to this committee, so please forgive me if my questions are not as clear as they need to be.

I am a granddaughter of a veteran. Of course, I have many family members who have been in the service. We're all very proud of them. I also have many constituents who are veterans of our armed forces. In fact, I'm thinking today about one of my constituents, Charles Scott, who really struggled when he left the military. He continued to struggle for a very long time within Veterans Affairs with PTSD and other health issues. He did not feel there was a good transition for him.

I'm happy that we're doing this study. Of course, I always wonder when we do study after study whether any action follows through with those recommendations, but it is good to see this.

Commander Bouchard, I have some questions for you. One of the challenges that Mr. Scott told me about was the idea that ongoing staff changes, understaffing and under-resourcing meant that he was constantly feeling like he was bounced around to different program officers and different experts. In fact, some of his documentation was lost. It was a very bad situation for somebody who was already struggling with mental health challenges.

I know that you said a transition adviser is assigned to somebody who is transitioning. What steps are put in place to make sure that this is adequate and that there is not a bouncing around of people and veterans from person to person, which makes them feel a little bit like they're not being cherished or not being valued?

[Cmdre Daniel Bouchard]

Thank you very much for the question.

The results from the lack of personnel were recognized. That's why a significant investment was made in the Canadian Armed Forces transition group as it was stood up. For members who have been identified as having complex transition requirements or longer transition periods, we've established an interdisciplinary team that has developed an integrated transition plan. We have representation from a service manager. The CAF nurse case manager will also participate. A personnel selection officer is made available in that dynamic. As was referred to earlier, the long-term disability vocational rehab counsellor participates, as do members from Veterans Affairs Canada, chain of command and even the family liaison officer.

This forms the genesis of the committee to make sure that the needs of the individuals and their families are met. That also is the location where they make a recommendation on a date of release to make sure that the individual is ready for release.

Out of our 27 transition centres, 24 are in full operational capability. The three remaining will be done by April 1. The training will be in place. The individuals have been identified. They're ready to operate to make sure there are no gaps like the one you were mentioning.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you. I think that's important.

You talked about the idea of complex transitions and what that might look like. One of the issues that I know my colleague Rachel Blaney has worked on in this committee has to do with military sexual trauma, or MST. How are you addressing that?

Perhaps you could talk a little bit as well about the differences that women face with regard to transition. Women often have child care needs that are different from those of men. They have different transition needs. Then, of course, when we have gender-based violence occurring in the military, how are you managing that transition and making sure you're meeting the needs of those veterans?

[Cmdre Daniel Bouchard]

Thank you very much for the question.

To meet the needs of an individual dealing with an operational stress injury, we also have, post-release or while serving, OSISS, which is peers with lived experience. If you're suffering from military sexual trauma, there are limitations on what that group can facilitate. We're working very closely with the SMSRC, the sexual misconduct support and resource centre, and also with our partners at Veterans Affairs. There's a peer support program being developed that will specifically look at these needs for those affected by military sexual trauma.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you. That's good. Certainly, I would hope that you would listen to those veterans who have lived experience with MST.

I would also love your perspective on how we are supporting women who have other needs, perhaps, aside from MST. What are those other ways in which the transition centres are addressing needs that would be unique to women veterans?

[Cmdre Daniel Bouchard]

Thank you very much for the question.

First and foremost is placing the individual at the centre of that transition process, so it's working with them to develop a personalized plan depending on their needs and their challenges. Working with Veterans Affairs Canada at the strategic level, we have a joint steering committee that is looking at different priorities. One of them is women's diversity and health, which will be focusing on what we can do even more for women who are transitioning while in service and also after they transition.

We also have a total health and wellness strategy that has specific programs tailored for women's health. There are a number of initiatives that are being closely worked on with the Canadian Forces health services. The surgeon general has the majority of those programs around welfare services.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I'm out of time, but I'm wondering if you could submit some of those programs in writing to the analysts so they can include that in their research.

[Cmdre Daniel Bouchard]

Yes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. McPherson.

We're going to start the second round of questions for 25 minutes. We are happy to have the witnesses until 12:30, so members are going to have a third round of questions.

Let's start this round with Mr. Richards for five minutes, please.

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

Thanks.

Maybe, Commodore Bouchard, I'll start with you.

Could you provide the number of CAF members who have been released from the armed forces since the inception of the transition centres? You can provide it by year or as an overall number.

[Cmdre Daniel Bouchard]

Thank you very much for the question.

We use a 10-year average at this time with Veterans Affairs Canada, because the COVID era impacted our numbers quite a bit from that perspective. On average, 8,200 members over the past 10 years have been releasing on a yearly basis.

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

Okay. Can you tell us how many veterans have utilized the transition centres, and what percentage that would be of those releasing members since the centres were created?

[Cmdre Daniel Bouchard]

Thank you very much for the question.

As we are still in the process of launching the military-to-civilian transition, not all of my transition centres are at full operational capability. I do not have that number with me, but I can commit to return that answer.

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

You do have that number; you just don't have it with you.

[Cmdre Daniel Bouchard]

Yes.

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

Okay. If you could provide that in writing to the committee, please, that would be appreciated and very helpful. I think this is a great initiative, frankly, but we have to have those kinds of metrics to be able to know how successful it is. Can you maybe give us some sense of the metrics you would be utilizing to determine the success?

I know there's only been a limited period of time, and they're not fully set up. However, obviously it would be good to get some sense as to what their success has been in terms of something that would give us concrete numbers or metrics.