Veterans Affairs committee  Just to clarify the word “returned”, I would point out that when we establish new benefits or make policy changes to a veterans program, we estimate the long-term obligation of meeting the needs of those programs. That estimate acts like a kind of a bank account from which we dra

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll just make one comment and then maybe Mr. Harris can step in. When we were talking about the new funding, the $140 million recently approved in budget 2022, we sometimes talked about hiring employees. The majority of those employees are being extended. Therefore, the majorit

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. Service excellence is the term that we use for the hiring of additional staff to tackle the backlog, majorly. In the previous two years, it was the 518 new employees to directly support and address the backlog. There is a small portion that we've also dedicated in previous y

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you. The deputy minister is correct. It's not reflecting the extension of our recent terms beyond fiscal year 2021-22. Currently, our FTE count is around 3,600. It's always a little bit below or above that with the service excellence complements. It was up to 599, havin

Veterans Affairs committee  No. They are absolutely safeguarded to ensure the funding is there for when the veteran comes forward and is eligible for that funding.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. Mr. Chair, actually, of the lapse of approximately $635 million, 95% of that funding was directly voted for clients' financial benefits and services, so the department has no authority whatsoever to spend those funds on operating the department. Becau

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. Thank you and good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. As the chair just introduced me, my name is Sara Lantz. I'm the acting assistant deputy minister, chief financial officer and corporate services at Veterans Affairs Canada. It's a pleasure to be with you here to

Veterans Affairs committee  Let me very clear that we don't transfer our operating budget to our quasi-stat or grants and contribution budgets on a permanent basis. This is a temporary measure. This is a common practice within the Government of Canada. Our expenditure management system for the Government of

Veterans Affairs committee  It's difficult to give a number explicitly to the backlog because we're not always exactly sure what is being applied for, what they're eligible for, what their compensation will be. We do work very closely with the office of the chief actuary and so we look at the norms to make

Veterans Affairs committee  We've looked at that recently and to understand we'll watch the piloting they're undertaking so we'll know how much more of the backlog we'll get cleaned up. That's part of it. Before we implement we must be sure we have secured the funding to cover those veterans.

Veterans Affairs committee  As of 2018-19, our full-time equivalents were close to 2,900, which is more than prior to 2014-15 when the cut was, which was about 2,300. Prior to the deficit reduction action plans they were about 2,900. We are back up to that level as of last year. We have done two years of