Mr. Speaker, with regard to (a), the benefits navigator was established in 2014.
With regard to (b), the benefits navigator was created as a result of Veterans Affairs Canada’s, VAC’s, ongoing efforts to improve veteran access to information about VAC’s benefits and services. The tool provides veterans, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, still serving Canadian Armed Forces members, spouses and survivors with information about the VAC benefits and services that they may qualify for, given their specific situation.
With regard to (c), the benefits navigator would be inaccessible through My VAC Account any time that the system was offline. This includes instances of My VAC Account being offline for maintenance, upgrades or the addition of new features. My VAC Account outages are regularly scheduled, with one maintenance outage each month and one system outage every six weeks. While unscheduled outages do occur, they are infrequent.
With regard to (d), VAC regularly enhances My VAC Account to improve its service to veterans, Canadian Armed Forces and Royal Canadian Mounted Police members, and their families. In April 2022, as part of VAC’s regular schedule of enhancements, updates were made to the benefits navigator to correct broken web page links on various results pages. Updates to the wording of various sections of the navigator were made to replace the word “Eligibility” with “Qualify” to ensure VAC’s messages to its clientele are consistent across products.
With regard to (e)(i), since the questionnaire’s inception in 2014, VAC’s programs and services have evolved, with many programs and services being introduced, retired, or changed. These updates have been reflected in the benefits navigator. As an example, in 2019, significant changes were made to the content of the navigator to reflect the program changes brought forward with the implementation of the pension for life. The features offered by the benefits navigator have remained consistent since its inception.
With regard to (e)(ii), once a program, benefit or service is no longer offered at VAC, the information is removed from the benefits navigator. For instance, with the implementation of the pension for life, any VAC programs that were retired were removed from the benefits navigator. The features offered by the benefits navigator have remained consistent since its inception.
With regard to (f), VAC has used a number of methods to engage the veteran population in using the benefits navigator. This includes, but is not limited to, promoting it at outreach events, through social media posts, using notifications through My VAC Account and embedding hyperlinks to the tool within VAC’s electronic guided application forms such as VAC2501.
With regard to (g), the benefits navigator was created to provide reference information only. It does not provide eligibility decisions, nor does it track whether a veteran who accesses the benefits navigator follows through with an application for a specific program.
With regard to (h), as noted, the benefits navigator was created for the purpose of quickly informing veterans of which VAC programs they should consider applying for, based on their situation. As an information tool, the navigator does not collect sufficient information to make a full decision on eligibility; it has never been used as a standard component for the intake process for benefits applications, and currently there are no plans to do so.