Mr. Speaker, on February 8, I posed a question to the government on behalf of Warrant Officer Roger Perreault, a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, regarding his eligibility for the critical injury benefit.
Warrant Officer Perreault is an Afghanistan veteran who has served his country honourably. In addition to serving in Afghanistan, Warrant Officer Perreault served twice in Bosnia and in three special duty areas over a span of 27 years.
Warrant Officer Perreault enlisted at the age of 19 and is a combat engineer. He is due to be medically released from the military later this year. He was injured in 2006 in a blast from an improvised explosive device, IED, while serving in Afghanistan. He has had three back surgeries, two hip replacements, and other complications.
Now in the process of being released from the military, Warrant Officer Perreault is being denied the critical injury benefit by Veterans Affairs, being told that at age 46, his injuries are the result of just his body wearing out, as opposed to the injury he received in the IED blast.
Rejected by the Department of Veterans Affairs for the critical injury benefit in March 2016, Warrant Officer Perreault appealed that decision to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. On January 24 of this year, Warrant Officer Perreault was denied his appeal by the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, which upheld the decision by Veterans Affairs to refuse him the critical injury benefit that he had applied for on the basis of the injuries he received from an lED blast in Afghanistan.
The critical injury benefit provides a tax-free lump sum award for Canadian Armed Forces members and veterans who, after March 31, 2006, sustained a service-related severe and traumatic injury or developed an acute disease caused by a sudden and single incident which resulted in an immediate and severe impairment and interference in quality of life.
On the evening of October 7, 2006 while on mission in Afghanistan, Warrant Officer Perreault was on a routine patrol in a LAV Ill. He had stopped behind another LAV III, and dismounted when a large explosion ripped the left side of the LAV, throwing him to the ground.
In shock from the explosion, Warrant Officer Perreault prepared for an ambush attack. Once he had rested from the shock of the explosion, he started to experience pain through his body. Eventually he was medevaced by helicopter to Kandahar, and later was repatriated to Canada.
I hope the Minister of Veterans Affairs agrees that getting blown up by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan is a sudden and single incident that is service related. Since being medically repatriated back to Canada, Warrant Officer Perreault has undergone numerous urgent surgeries from the time of the explosion.
For the record, I now quote from the letter that Warrant Officer Perreault's military doctor wrote on his behalf to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, “Warrant Officer Perreault's clinical course has been complicated by numerous hospital admissions, recurrent DVTs, numerous hip surgeries, including a total right hip replacement, radicular neck pain, chronic intractable pain, a large meniscal tear, PTSD and major depression. And this is only a partial list of his medical history. In summary, Warrant Officer Perreault has had extensive physical and mental injuries directly related to the IED blast in Afghanistan in 2006. In my opinion, he qualifies for the critical injury benefit.”
I also note for the record, Warrant Officer Perreault's military medical doctor provided pages and pages of supporting documentation that were included with his supporting letter to Veterans Affairs.
Contrast the doctor's professional medical opinion to that of the appeal board, which claimed that the best they could read from the doctor's report, was that Warrant Perreault sustained, and I quote the appeal board, “a back injury, which had some pre-existing elements,” and that their definition of “complex treatments that are related to the incident in 2006,” had not been met, claiming that the opinion of the attending military medical doctor was not credible.