Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 8th, 2026

[Jonathan Adams, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Services, Department of Veterans Affairs]

Good morning.

In response to the question, there are a couple of key context points.

First and foremost, this year's budget of $8.2 billion actually represents a $340-million increase from last year's opening budget overall. When we talk about operating changes in terms of where things were last year to this year, the majority of those budget changes are related to two different things. They're not linked to the number of staff and capacity. They're linked to the decisions made around cannabis reimbursement and changing the administrative rate for the disbursement of that, and they're related to a one-time special project related to a litigation file that is now complete. That was the decrease of the $225 million.

In terms of the staffing that you touched on and the resources, the snapshot is actually a point in time of approved resources. As we all know, there was the identified $184.9 million of funding over four years, plus $40 million ongoing for disability adjudication resources. Those have been approved, but at the time of the report you're referencing, they were not yet secured and with the department. That's why they're demonstrating right now a temporary decrease in the report in what was available at the time. As that funding has now been approved by a Treasury Board submission, it will be reflected in the next update in terms of FTEs for the department.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Moving on to another issue, the spending on pain and suffering compensation and related benefits is increasing by about $340 million, yet the number of recipients has fallen by roughly 20% since 2022-23. Why is the government spending substantially more while fewer veterans are receiving the benefit, and where's the extra money going?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Mr. Adams, I have about six seconds left for Mr. Diotte.

I need a clarification from Mr. Diotte. If I allow Mr. Adams to answer, it will remove some time from Mr. Gill.

[Kerry Diotte, Conservative, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Go ahead.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

That's perfect.

[Jonathan Adams]

Thank you.

This reflects the options that veterans have available to them with the pain and suffering compensation. They have a choice, when a decision is made, to receive either a monthly payment for a lifetime or a lump sum payment. The increase in spending, as you highlight, reflects the fact that with more disability application decisions being processed by the department, more individuals have the opportunity to choose a one-time lump sum payment for their disability compensation. That is a big aspect of the increase in the annual spending.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much, Mr. Adams.

Now, for two minutes, we'll go to Mr. Gill.

[Sukhman Gill, Conservative, Abbotsford—South Langley, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Wentzell, I'll be questioning you.

I want to basically go off of what Mr. Barrett was asking you earlier. I know you didn't get a chance to answer his question because the time ran out. My colleague asked a very important question, because there are nearly 10,000 people waiting to receive entitlements that they're entitled to receive.

We left off at the point that we know you have a great team. You guys are trying to do what you can. Where are the barriers? Where do we see the delays here? Do you need more team members? Do we need more funding? Can you give me more detail?

[Doug Wentzell]

When it comes to disability benefit processing, there are a number of factors that drive the volumes. Over the last 10 years, we've seen more than a 90% increase in volumes. For sure, we want to make sure that we're as efficient as we can be in terms of our capacity and the tools we use, and we've been working to reduce our processing times. I think they've decreased by about 57%, but we also have almost a doubling of volume, so we're—

[Sukhman Gill, Conservative, Abbotsford—South Langley, BC]

Thank you, sir, but the question here is this. If you see that you have more on your plate, to put it in simple form, do you need more funds? Do you need more team members? Where is the barrier? Where is the wall that we're hitting? We understand that there are more veterans. We get that, but from your perspective of your job, where is the barrier?

[Doug Wentzell]

There are two key things that drive our service standards and our wait times. One is our overall capacity. As my colleague mentioned earlier, we're investing in staff capacity and making that investment over the coming years. We're also making sure we have the most efficient tools we can have. Those are the two key factors that we continue to focus on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much.

Now we will invite Mr. Clark. The five minutes, I understand, are being shared. That's up to you to determine, but we'll start the clock for two and a half minutes.

Mr. Clark, go ahead.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our officials for being here for two hours this morning.

Mr. Freeman, I'm not sure if this is for you or Mr. Wentzell, but we've touched a lot on service delivery and modernization today. I know the minister talked about that a bit. All sides have talked about it, and I think we all have a common agreement that it's obviously critically important. How does the department take that $185 million or so that was invested in the budget and translate it into efficiencies on the service delivery side?

I'm sure you would agree with me that the best designed program is not that useful if it's not delivered efficiently and in a timely way. How do you go from service creation and identifying the service or program that works to getting it out in an efficient manner by using some of the funds that you touched on earlier? How do we translate those two things?

[Doug Wentzell]

I highlighted some of the key inputs previously, so I won't repeat myself on that, but I will say that trying to make sure we have the most efficient tools and processes to connect with veterans as early as possible, prior to release, really helps us in meeting our service standards. The investments we make in our transition centres on bases and wings across the country are critically important, as are the investments we make in other service channels, like the My VAC account.

We talked earlier about making sure that the department has timely access to the most current earnings information from veterans in order to calculate our benefit payments. We recently introduced, earlier this year, the part of the My VAC account that allows veterans to see the information we currently hold in real time so they can make changes and notify the department when there's action needed. For all of those interfaces—whether they're online, in person or via our call centre network—we have to be in constant improvement mode to identify opportunities to improve the interfaces.

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

Mr. Wentzell, could I ask you to follow up a bit more on that point about My VAC in real time? That's something I've heard about in my riding. For some veterans—maybe they've had changes in their income or something has happened in their life—that information, that data, doesn't get shared as quickly as it could be with them, and then with the CRA. They run into problems because of that. Just touch on that piece a bit more, the real-time aspect, and how that can nip problems in the bud, if I can put it that way.

[Doug Wentzell]

I think it was in April this year that we implemented changes to the My VAC account for all veterans who are registered to use that system. They can verify all of their income information that we currently have on file and can, in fact, submit an online income verification form to make sure that we're doing the necessary updates and recalculations in real time.

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

How do you assess the success of any one of those programs? Again, the design is incredibly important, but the measurement is really important too. Do you have any sense of how regularly that's being used, or do you have any results on how that has worked so far?

[Doug Wentzell]

It's still very early, but we will be assessing that through all of our quality indicators in terms of processing and service standards and through the qualitative feedback we get from veterans. We'll be paying very close attention to that.

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

Do you know, Mr. Wentzell, when you might expect meaningful data on that to work from?

[Doug Wentzell]

I suspect that we will be getting data on that initiative over the course of this fiscal year.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

We have about three to four minutes left within the round, so we will go to Mr. Barrett for a minute and a half.

Mrs. DeBellefeuille will then have the floor for one minute and Mrs. Chatel will have one and a half minutes.

Mr. Barrett, go ahead for a minute and a half.

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

Madam Chair, thank you very much.

Mr. Wentzell, I want to give you the opportunity to offer us precision in response to a question I asked you previously. We have approximately 10,000 veterans waiting beyond the department's own service delivery standard. In one of your previous answers, you said there's an approval process that has to take place. I assume that's baked into the 16 weeks.

You talked about projections, onboarding new staff and the additional funding, so what is the date by which the department will be meeting its service delivery standard?

[Doug Wentzell]

As I mentioned earlier, a number of factors drive the performance standard—including our intakes and the complexity of claims—and are very difficult to predict. What I can commit to is that we are making the necessary investments in both people and technology, and we're obviously monitoring the service standard very closely.

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

With all due respect, you set the standard. The department set the standard with all those complexities in mind knowing the resources that it has available. You're blowing past it, and people are calling your office, my office and everyone's office every week. We need to do better for veterans. It would be super helpful if you shared with this committee, if there's not even a year by which you plan to reduce the number to zero, how many more dollars or how many more staff you need to get it to zero, because that's what our veterans deserve.