Evidence of meeting #9 for Veterans Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was laurion.
A recording is available from Parliament.
8 p.m.
Conservative
Anna Roberts Conservative King—Vaughan, ON
It takes me back to a question one of my colleagues asked about that personal touch.
Would you agree that the personal touch has a better outcome for both the veteran and the team?
8:05 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, VETS Canada
Yes, absolutely. No two veterans are the same. No two situations are the same.
We try to come up with plans for veterans based on their individual situation. There is no “one size fits all”. We listen to the veteran and we make suggestions on the things that we think could benefit them. Of course, they always have the right to self-determination, but they are just looking for somebody to guide them in the right direction.
8:05 p.m.
Conservative
Anna Roberts Conservative King—Vaughan, ON
After reading many of the stories, I would think from a personal standpoint that it would be beneficial for VAC to work closely with your area, because your response time is amazing. We heard earlier from Jean that he waited two years, and yet your organization can do it in a much more efficient way. Would you agree that if you worked with VAC, the wait times would be improved?
8:05 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, VETS Canada
We do work closely with VAC, and the benefit is that we are able to help out with the emergency situation, sometimes to hold the veteran over until their benefits from Veterans Affairs kick in. There's that collaborative effort that happens between our organization and Veterans Affairs. We do have a quick response time because we are helping just with that emergency support, and there isn't a lot of paperwork or applications for the veterans to complete to get support from our organization. Because we don't have quite as many restrictions and rules, we are able to respond very quickly. When you're dealing with government, obviously there are a lot of processes in place that do delay things.
8:05 p.m.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Thank you very much.
I didn't think my time was going to come today. I got scared for a second by Mr. Caputo's suggestion for us to shut down in 15 minutes to discuss committee business.
I want to thank you all for your presentations today and for your service, whether you've been directly involved as part of the Canadian Armed Forces, you're retired, or you are supporting veterans on the ground. It's tremendous to hear these stories. It's so important.
Mr. Laurion, you talked about your 37 years and three months of service, emphasizing those three months. It's very impressive. Thank you for your service.
Ms. Lowther, I'd like to ask you a few questions, maybe four or five, so we'll have to hustle, and then I might be able to get some more in. You talked about responding 24-7, 365. In a very short period of time, can you explain what that means, how they can contact you and how you can respond?
8:05 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, VETS Canada
We have volunteers who work around the clock. We have one national support services manager who works Monday to Friday, nine to five. Then, during the hours outside of that, we have volunteers who take the calls on a rotational basis, so we are literally 24-7.
8:05 p.m.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Can you share with the committee how many volunteers you have? Are they in Nova Scotia or right across the country?
8:05 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, VETS Canada
They're right across the country. We have hundreds. I think the number was approaching 500 the last time I checked. They are the backbone of our organization and are in every province and territory across the country.
8:05 p.m.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Would you say in the last few years you've helped veterans in every province and territory?
8:05 p.m.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
That's quite impressive.
I think I also heard you say in your presentation that you had worked with over 1,000 veterans in the last year. Is that correct? That seems like a high number.
8:05 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, VETS Canada
No, what I said was to date we've responded to thousands of requests for assistance. In the past year, we've supported probably more than 500 veterans at this point. Lots of times with those veterans, it's not just a one-time thing. Sometimes veterans will come to us and we'll get them back on their feet, but maybe later things might go a little sideways and they come back to us again. That's fine. We're there to support them again as well.
8:10 p.m.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
For simplicity's sake, let's say you've helped 500 veterans so far this year. You said 80% were referred by caseworkers at Veterans Affairs. Is that correct? Can you expand on that?
8:10 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, VETS Canada
We receive calls every day from case managers at Veterans Affairs for any number of reasons. Sometimes it could be because the veteran doesn't qualify for the veterans emergency fund, or the veterans emergency fund is going to take too long, so they will send the veteran our way. We're there to complement what the case manager can do. Yes, a lot of our calls—most of them—come from VAC case managers.
8:10 p.m.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Thank you.
You have a physical building with office headquarters in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Do you have any other physical buildings or areas where you're providing services for veterans across the country?
8:10 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, VETS Canada
Yes, we have a drop-in support centre in Ottawa.
Our headquarters is in Dartmouth and we have a drop-in support centre co-located with the headquarters. We also have a drop-in in Edmonton that we operate on behalf of the Government of Alberta.
8:10 p.m.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
I believe you also have some transition apartments in certain parts of the country. Can you expand on what “transition apartment” means?
8:10 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, VETS Canada
We have access to one transitional apartment in Vancouver in conjunction with an organization called Community Builders.
In Halifax we have two transitional apartments in partnership with The Salvation Army.
In Edmonton, we have access to 15 transitional apartments in an apartment building that was purchased by the Government of Alberta with the intent of providing support for veterans. They've tasked us with being the face of that project.
8:10 p.m.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Thank you.
I have just a quick question for the Federal Retirees.
You said you're co-chair of the women's research and.... Can you tell us a little bit about what that committee has done so far?
8:10 p.m.
Director, Advocacy, National Association of Federal Retirees
Absolutely. Thank you.
We're proud to co-chair along with professor Dr. Maya Eichler from Mount Saint Vincent University and women's veteran health advocate and physician Dr. Karen Breeck, who is also a veteran.
Our mission is to work towards equitable lifetime outcomes for all veterans in seven domains of well-being. We bring together organizations to discuss, collaborate, pool knowledge and work towards sex and gender-informed, evidence-based policies, practices and better outcomes in this field.
8:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you.
We have two rounds left. First, Mr. Luc Desilets will have two and a half minutes. He will be followed by Ms. Rachel Blaney, also for two and a half minutes.
8:10 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. Soulière or Ms. Montague. I don't know who is more comfortable answering.
In your report, you recommend more detailed data than what we currently have, disaggregated data, data broken down by gender, and so on. You mentioned data on approved and denied applications. I found that very interesting. We haven't really had a chance to talk about that here.
Could you tell me what the data on approved and denied applications represents to you?
8:10 p.m.
Director, Advocacy, National Association of Federal Retirees
I hope it is okay that I respond in English, MP Desilets.
It is definitely a fascinating area. It gets into the fact we don't know what we don't measure.
We're suggesting that Veterans Affairs Canada would be well situated to start to review, investigate and report on that area. There's also data available on that from the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, which might be useful in understanding this, although I don't have it at my fingertips.
The Office of the Veterans Ombudsman has reported on the decisions and some issues of equity coming out of that body. I understand that they're also taking steps to address those.
Again, we don't know what we don't measure and what we don't have statistics and information on.