Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today on behalf of the citizens of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
Veterans and their families feel left behind by the government, to say the least. The veterans ombudsman, veterans advocacy groups and caseworkers from Veterans Affairs Canada have all come forward ringing alarm bells about the failures of the government when it comes to veterans. What has the government's response been on this point? It has been largely silence.
Allow me to paint a picture of Veterans Affairs Canada and the reality of its situation today. Currently, there is a backlog of tens of thousands of veterans waiting for their claims to be processed and adjudicated by the department. Some are waiting as long as two years for therapeutics or assisted-living devices. I would ask government members to imagine waiting two years for the necessities of life, such as a wheelchair and hearing aids, or compensation for injuries sustained while serving our country.
With the greatest of respect, it is shameful that we treat our veterans this way. In the two years that the backlogs have been particularly accrued, we have seen two elections from the government and a doubling of the national debt. However, none of the money seems to be going toward veterans.
How should we deal with these claims? The way to deal with them would be through case managers at Veterans Affairs Canada. The department set a target of 25 cases per manager. This would allow each case manager to get to know files quite well. Unfortunately, the reality is that there are 40 to 50 different files for each case manager. That is less than one hour per week for each person who served our country.
I recall that in my former life as a parole officer, it was the same thing. When a person doing a job does not have time to adequately address files, things will ultimately slip through the cracks. We should be supplying veterans with more resources, not less. When workloads get too high, we see burnout. Commensurate with burnout, we see stress leave and medical leave, and then work gets shifted onto peers. When work gets shifted onto peers, we see more of the same, and a vicious cycle keeps perpetuating itself.
Seventy-four per cent of caseworkers say their workload has negatively affected their health, 32% have had to take time off work, 18% sought professional help and 25% have considered leaving the department altogether. The government plans to cut 300 caseworkers in March 2022, and these are some of the people, if not all, who have been hired to alleviate the current backlog. Apparently, according to the government, veterans are asking for more than we can give them. That is straight from the Prime Minister.
The budget never balanced itself. Will the backlog of veterans also clear itself, in the government's eyes?