Veterans Affairs Committee on May 8th, 2024

[Paul Ledwell]

Mr. Chair, in answer to Mr. Richards' question, we continue to monitor and try to get the number of how many veterans are homeless across the country. We work with partners who work with homeless Canadians regularly to seek to identify how many of them are veterans. We work with partners who are on the ground, supporting veterans who may find themselves homeless.

The number I gave you the last time is the number that we still have, so it's approximately 2,300 veterans—

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

Would you say you don't think the the problem's growing, or are you just not able to find a better way to count?

[Paul Ledwell]

We can't say the problem is growing by the count, but the seriousness and the urgency of responding to the problem have not changed.

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

What sorts of new measures have been put in place to try to respond to this?

[Paul Ledwell]

We are working now to confirm and will soon be announcing a number of supports across the country.

The minister referred to rent supplements that will be provided and wraparound supports, working with partners located in places right across this country where we may find homeless veterans to provide those supports. We also have our own officials working in our field operations, who are there to support veterans and to get them the programs of support they need, including housing, and we continue that work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ledwell.

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

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In 2019, the government launched a veteran and family well-being fund, which provides funding to public, private and academic organizations to advance research projects and innovative approaches to deliver services to veterans and their families. I know many in my riding have utilized that.

In budget 2024, our government proposed to provide $6 million over three years to VAC for the veteran and family well-being fund. How is this additional investment helping the department to deliver services to veterans and their families?

[Paul Ledwell]

Thank you for the question.

This program has been really tremendous at building up capacity within the community to support veterans in various ways. It could be for veterans who are women who need particular supports, indigenous veterans or veterans who require specific care. Also, in terms of innovation with respect to both research and treatment, it's really built up a community of organizations that are very much attuned to and active in providing supports to veterans in community. These additional funds that have been committed in budget 2024 will allow us to extend that work even further.

We're going to put a particular emphasis on that, as it has been identified in the budget documents, and on diversity—supports for women veterans, indigenous veterans and racialized veterans—to ensure that those particular issues of support are considered and put in place. Again, this will be in communities both small and large.

It's a tremendous ability to build that entire community, because we understand that as a federal department, we can't respond to everything with respect to veterans. As has been indicated before in testimony, some veterans don't want to approach a federal government department, but they will approach an organization, so those partnerships are absolutely essential and critical, and the veteran family well-being fund allows us to extend that even further.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

My understanding is that it's a versatile fund, from research to non-profits that have programming and perhaps alternative ways to deliver veteran outcomes. Is that a good, accurate analysis of it?

[Paul Ledwell]

That's absolutely accurate, and they all come forward with new considerations. Many of them are working regularly with veterans already, so they are identifying what initiatives they are already seeing as having an impact on veterans, so they're bringing that forward to us. With this support, it allows them to extend that work even further, and it's shown tremendous impact to veterans, again, in communities across the country.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you.

In the 2023-24 supplementary estimates (C), I think VAC received $14 million or $14.1 million in additional program funding to provide services to eligible veterans and their families.

Can you tell us more about these programs and the services, and about how this investment gets distributed among them?

[Paul Ledwell]

As we stated earlier, one of the principles is that the funds will be there for any veteran who requires a particular area of support from Veterans Affairs Canada, that is, from the Government of Canada.

In this case, that $14.1 million was spread across 10 different programs to allow us to make sure that the funds were in place to meet the needs of the veterans who were coming forward to seek particular supports. That's just an adjustment that was made during the supplementaries to, again, make that commitment, to ensure that those funds were there and to ensure that the support was there for those veterans and their families.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

I don't know my time, but if I'm at liberty to ask, I attended the four-day forum that Mr. Desilets and the minister were at as well. I think I did about three days there. It was very effective as it covered indigenous veterans, women veterans, veterans at large, and had a whole array of stakeholders there who were able to express themselves freely and openly.

For those who might be listening, is this on an annual basis, or is this semi-annual or every two or three years? After doing that one, what's the analysis of how it will go forward?

[Paul Ledwell]

We are committed to doing this regularly, and I think the minister underlined that commitment at the close of both the summit and the forum.

The Women Veterans Forum is something that we have done, or tried to do, on an annual basis, and will continue to do so.

The summit is something that we will aim to do every other year to really convene those stakeholder groups, those veterans, as well as others who are supporting veterans together. It is a tremendous community that is coming together with a commitment towards Canada's veterans, and it was very much evident, as you saw, in both of those gatherings. We want to encourage more of that.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

Before giving the floor to Mr. Desilets, I must remind you that we absolutely must vote on the estimates before we leave today, so the next round will be limited to two and a half minutes.

Mr. Desilets, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Meunier, I know that the question of whether or not the Gulf War meets the definition of a war is contentious, but is the department still considering honouring the people who participated in the Gulf War?

[Amy Meunier]

Thank you for that question, and the answer is yes. In fact, we just recently had a ceremony at the National War Memorial to recognize the anniversary of that service.

We have recently built additional learning and educational materials and have shared that with educators across the country. Absolutely, I meet regularly with the Persian Gulf veterans association, and very much appreciate their insights into how we can continue to evolve and better share information about that service.

Yes. I think there is plenty of opportunity, and we do much of that right now.

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

Thank you.

You all know that we've just devoted 23 meetings to the largest study in 200 years on the experience of women veterans. Vétérane is the new word we're using in Quebec to describe a female veteran. Is there a special way we could pay tribute to these women, who unsettled us all in these meetings with their stories? If not, could the department at least find a way to talk about it during the usual major commemoration events?

[Amy Meunier]

There are a lot of opportunities.

First, I would say make sure that women veterans and women in service are well represented in the commemorative and recognition activities that we undertake today and to make adjustments to that programming. As the minister was saying earlier, we will soon have a women veteran council, and this will be one of the items I would like to seek a lot of feedback on about would be meaningful for that community.

Certainly at the Women Veterans Forum and through many of the conversations I've had with women service personnel and women veterans, there are many ideas on how we can improve the way we recognize women. We have put a larger effort on meeting with women veterans and recording their stories so that we can share them and profile those more so that the Canadian population and the world, in fact, are much more well aware of the very important service women have played in our military history.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much, Ms. Meunier.

I now give the floor to Ms. Blaney for two and a half minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I will stick to my time, because I'm getting a little afraid of you at this point.

I'm just going to come back, through the chair, to Mr. Ledwell.

I was fascinated by the conversation we had about trauma-informed training and services. We've heard repeatedly that this is a concern. You responded that there's work in progress. How is it being measured, and how is the measurement process being transparent for the veterans who access the services?

[Paul Ledwell]

I think the clearest measure in all of this is how we are doing in responding to their particular requests for supports and services. That is in terms of the work we're doing with disability applications and other programs and supports, and being very serious about being responsive in the overall work on what we've all called the "backlog". Making sure that we get to our service standard with respect to disability adjudication is at the core of all of it. That does have an impact on every veteran, including those veterans who find themselves in traumatic situations.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I'm going to interrupt you, because I think I had the response there, and I only have a minute and a bit.

The next and last question—I promise, Chair—is about the veteran family wellness fund. I've heard from a lot of women veteran-owned non-profits that they've applied and never been successful. When you are sending out the funds, are there measurements that include making sure that there's access for women-specific services?

[Paul Ledwell]

It's very much part of our consideration as we review all of the applications. I can tell you that, since the creation of the veteran and family well-being fund, close to $10 million has gone out to support women-led and women-focused initiatives through that fund, and we will continue to emphasize that.

I think that the budget announcement made very clear that a proportion of the funds are to be earmarked for diversity, including towards women, and we'll be very serious about that and make sure that happens.