Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 8th, 2026

[Jill McKnight, Liberal, Delta, BC]

As I said, that lives under a different minister in a different department, but I would turn to our department officials to see if there is information they can share to answer that question.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Minister, Veterans Affairs operating spending is falling by more than $225 million, while your department is projecting nearly 530 fewer employees than in 2024-25. How many of these positions are frontline jobs serving veterans? Why should veterans believe that these cuts won't mean longer wait times or poorer service?

[Jill McKnight, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I think there are a number of things coming together here, and it's perhaps overlapping two different items. I would turn to our officials on the finance side to speak to that.

There remain no cuts to services and benefits for veterans. We are investing in delivering services and benefits in a timely fashion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

You have 10 seconds. Do you want the response in hour two, with the officials?

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Yes.

You're saying no cuts.

[Jill McKnight, Liberal, Delta, BC]

There have been no cuts to the services and benefits available to veterans.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much, Minister.

Now to complete our second round, we'll have Mr. Clark for five minutes.

[Braedon Clark, Liberal, Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Minister and officials, thank you so much for being here this morning.

Last week, when we were all back in our constituencies, I had a chance to visit one of the local Legions in my riding, branch 95 in Bedford, Nova Scotia. When I was talking to the veterans there, one of the things they raised with me, which I'm sure is common across the board, is that they're looking to attract and retain more young people at the Legion. It's a challenge for them, and I'm sure it's a challenge in many places.

It got me thinking about my own experience of veterans in service. My grandfather served. His brother was injured during the war. My dad, in the fifties and sixties, would have grown up when all of his neighbours, his teacher and the local police officer were veterans who had served. That was kind of central to the community. In the following generation, I was growing up in the early nineties. In school at Remembrance Day ceremonies, lots of mostly elderly gentlemen would come. They were still living in the neighbourhood. It might have been the retired guy down the street. There was a tangible connection.

Now I have kids of my own. They're nine and six, and for them, it's more distant. That's just a function of time, but it's something that I think we should be concerned about. Legions are seeing this on the front line. It's an important year for the Legion, obviously. It's their 100th anniversary.

Minister, perhaps you could give us your thoughts on how we as a committee and as a country can make sure that younger people in particular are aware, are involved and respect the service of veterans? How can we make sure they see it as tangibly as possible?

[Jill McKnight, Liberal, Delta, BC]

First off, to our colleague, thank you very much for sharing the story of your visit to your local Legion branch. Again, those conversations are incredibly important.

As we discussed earlier, for 100 years, the Royal Canadian Legion has played an important part in the support of veterans by bringing them together and offering shared camaraderie and the acknowledgement of service and of storytelling through Remembrance Day ceremonies in many communities.

I had the opportunity to attend their Dominion Convention earlier in August, where I found that much of what you just mentioned is the focus of the Royal Canadian Legion right now as they look to what the next century looks like, how they connect with modern-day veterans and how they transition their services on the commemoration side to tell the story for the next generation.

This past week, I had the opportunity to visit three different schools across Canada—speaking to your point about how we tell the story for the next generation and make those connections—where we were able to talk with children in grades 3 to 5 about who a veteran is, about how we might recognize a veteran and about veterans very much being individuals among us in our communities, to speak to the other point you mentioned. We were engaging with youth, with tangible interactions, to say what they can do and to give them calls to action that they can undertake at a young level.

At the end of our visits, we talked about three things that they could do. They could wear a poppy on Remembrance Day and could attend a ceremony, but the third thing I said to them, as a way of starting this conversation and of moving it forward with the next generation, is that they could go home and tell one person about the conversation we had that day. It can start that simply, because that is how we tell the stories.

One of the things that I found really interesting with the school visits is how many of the children—and I can think of three in one particular classroom—when they heard what the topic was going to be, used that as an opportunity to bring in mementoes from their family's history to share with their friends. That is how the organic storytelling and commemoration can continue.

Two of those individuals were sharing about their great-grandfathers, because that's how many generations it was. For one of the individuals, it was about their father, who had served and is now a veteran. It opened up the conversation that we could have about the idea that when they're on the playground and they see this child's father, they're seeing a veteran and they're engaging with a veteran.

It's about telling the story in a way that lands for them. That is one of the focuses that we have with our commemoration side of things right now: It's how we move this conversation forward so that it can be accessible for the next generation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much, Mr. Clark.

Minister McKnight, thank you for your visit with us.

We will suspend briefly to say goodbye, and then we will welcome more officially our officials for hour number two.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

I call the meeting back to order.

Good morning once again. We're continuing our study on the subject of the supplementary estimates (A) 2026-27.

We will now start our second round of questions with our witnesses from the Department of Veterans Affairs. We have Mr. Jonathan Adams, Mr. Mitch Freeman and Mr. Doug Wentzell attending.

Our first round will start with six minutes for Mr. Barrett.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To our officials here today, how long should veterans have to wait to receive their disability benefits, from the time of application to receipt of benefits?

[Doug Wentzell]

The department obviously works to make sure that we process benefits and make decisions in the most timely way we possibly can. As of the end of the first quarter of 2026-27, I can report that on average we're able to process benefits for first applications within a little less than 17 weeks.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Is 17 weeks the ceiling or the floor?

[Doug Wentzell]

That is simply the current processing time on average. As I noted earlier, my team works to ensure that we process benefits as quickly as we possibly can for veterans.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Currently, how many applications are there that have exceeded the service standard? How many are in the queue right now?

[Doug Wentzell]

As of the end of June, we have 9,675.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Is that acceptable?

[Doug Wentzell]

To my earlier point, that's the current number exceeding the service standard. The department and my team from coast to coast to coast work to minimize that to the extent possible. We will always do that.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

That answer isn't good enough, with all due respect. I don't discount the fact that the public servants charged with this responsibility are working hard. That's not an accusation that's been levelled. The fact that's been certified is that nearly 10,000 veterans are languishing, waiting to receive the entitlements—and I'm very specifically using the word “entitlements”—they have applied to receive.

When the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces sign up, they receive world-class training, they learn a wide array of things depending on their specific trade and then they serve with unlimited liability. The least we can do for them is provide them in a timely way with the benefits they are entitled to. This isn't something they should be making a case to receive; this is their entitlement. The government has said that these are benefits that are available to them.

In my words—you didn't say it—this is an unacceptable number and an unacceptable amount of time. I appreciate that there are edge cases all the time, but we're talking 10,000 people.

By what date will that number be zero, the number of veterans who are waiting past the service standard? What's the department's objective? By what date will that number be zero?

[Doug Wentzell]

The department is taking significant steps to make sure our processing times are as low as they possibly can be. Budget 2025 invests, as the minister noted earlier, $184.9 million, in addition to $40 million ongoing. That's an investment in our capacity to help stabilize our ability to process as quickly as possible.

In addition to that, we're working to modernize our systems and employ technology such as the claim summary tool to help give our decision-makers as much information as they can to make decisions on behalf of veterans in the most timely way possible.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

The term you've used a few times, Mr. Wentzell, is that the times should be “as low as they possibly can be”. Well, the lowest they can be is zero weeks. That's the lowest they possibly can be.

You've talked about the funding that's included in the budget this year. We've talked about the departmental plan. Is this a question of not having enough money to do the job, or not having enough people to do the job, in what is an acceptable amount of time?

[Doug Wentzell]

As our officials work to process claims for disability benefits, there is a process that our officials, up to and including our claims adjudicators, go through. There are a couple of steps in that process.

I want to be really clear with the committee that I've met a number of individuals over the past week in my team who come to work every single day to minimize those timelines to the extent possible.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

With all due respect, sir, that's not an answer to my question. The question is, what's the limiting factor here? I appreciate that you have a standard—your department has a standard—and you're not meeting your own standard. You have 10,000 cases of that.

You're saying that everyone is doing a great job. That's great. Do you just need more people to do a great job? Do you need more money to get those people to do an even greater job? What's the limiting factor here? If it's exceeding your standard—

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you, Mr. Barrett. I apologize sincerely. Your time has run out.