I'd like to report back on a couple of items that were raised and also to provide a clarification to this committee. After reviewing the transcript, and I refer particularly to an exchange, Mr. Chair, that you and I had towards the end of the meeting, I'd like to clarify. There seemed to be some question around reports and observation papers and such things. I would like to put on the record a clarification.
First of all, as I noted in response to your question, the ombudsman contacted me in the vicinity of the late summer or fall, and that was via telephone. During the fall months, the department was working on an analysis, or what one might call a decision/policy paper, with respect to homelessness. At that time, the communication between me and the ombudsman was by phone. As things developed, there were ongoing discussions between the ombudsman's staff, as I understand, and staff of the department. In fact, it was in February 2009 that the ombudsman submitted a paper to the department through the policy arm of the department, and the department provided a response to the ombudsman in March.
I want to clarify, just for greater certainty, that among the numbers of papers we have received from the ombudsman we received a paper with respect to exceptional incapacity, the SISIP, occupational stress injuries, and homelessness, and a report that the ombudsman has referred to on funerals and burials. When you posed the questions to me, I was responding on the basis of when I became involved and of what had been submitted to me. I wanted to clarify with respect to that.
With respect to the issue of the number of calls being handed off to the department, I went back to my staff. It's very difficult to give any number—I don't want to mislead the committee, Mr. Chairman—because there are no statistics kept. These calls are ongoing on what I would call a rather informal basis. The ombudsman's staff have the phone directory of the staff. They have the names of the particular experts.
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I went back to my staff and asked whether we could come up with some estimate of the number of calls that might be transferred, i.e., of hot calls from the ombudsman.
It's virtually impossible to give a number, because the ombudsman's staff, as I testified, has complete access to the telephone directory of the department and of the experts. I can confirm the number of 375 calls that we know we responded to in a more official capacity, but if I were to give a number here, it would be no more than a guesstimate. I think that's probably not particularly useful to members.
These are occurring on an ongoing basis. That was the whole premise, that the ombudsman has access to the full staff of the department. To put it in perspective, we have about 125 agents who operate through our national call centre alone and about another 75 people who work in our operations and approval. It wouldn't be a good number, and I'd rather say I don't have a statistic than provide a number that in fact may be off-base.
With respect to the issue of “no fixed address”, I went back and we had a discussion about it. It's not specifically coded. To determine how many we have, we would have to manually go through the 220,000 on the database. The triggers are such things as that various addresses are known to the area counsellors to be, for example, missions and/or residences. In that regard, I can tell you that in some cases, because of the exceptional circumstances of some veterans, their cheques.... We try to send them through direct deposit, but in a very small number of cases, the cheques are delivered to the district office, and the client will come in to the district office to pick them up. We usually try to do that as we're helping to bridge them. In some cases, because of their circumstances, they're not able to open an account in a bank, as you and I would know it.
I wanted, Mr. Chairman, first, to provide a clarification so that the sequence of events was clear, and second, to provide the statistics that had been requested at the last meeting.
Thank you.
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Mr. Chair, I know I speak for my colleagues here today when I thank you for the opportunity to discuss Veterans Affairs Canada's strategic direction over the next few years.
Members of this committee have spent a great deal of time with our staff, both here in committee meetings and in Charlottetown, to learn about our department, the challenges we face, and the services we offer. I think it has been valuable for both you and our department as we work towards a common goal of providing the best possible programs and services to the men and women who have served our country.
Today we'll discuss those challenges and how we plan to meet them with programs and services that respond to the changing needs of our veterans today and into the future. We'll talk about our key priorities and our plan of action. I hope to keep my remarks fairly brief so that we have plenty of time to respond to any questions you may have.
I consider myself very fortunate, Mr. Chair, to work for a department with a truly noble raison d'être. Simply put, Veterans Affairs Canada exists to repay the nation's debt of gratitude to those whose legacy is the peace and security we continue to enjoy as Canadians. It is a clear, compelling mandate for the 4,000-plus employees who serve our portfolio.
[Translation]
VAC extends programs and services to traditional veterans as well as to modern veterans, wherever and whenever they need them, at every stage of their lives.
[English]
From the recent-serving CF member taking the difficult transition to civilian life after gruelling deployments in Afghanistan, or the injured reservist needing rehabilitation and support, to the Second World War veteran who needs residential care, or the surviving elderly spouse who needs assistance to remain at home, VAC has developed programs that are as diverse as the clientele we serve. The department continues to evolve to meet the new challenges faced by our returning veterans and their families.
Mr. Chair, Canadians have deep respect for the role that Canada's veterans have played in forging our nation and for the contributions of our men and women who serve today. Veterans Affairs Canada works with veterans' organizations, community groups, and citizens to remember our country's heroes through remembrance ceremonies and commemorative events both in Canada and on the world stage.
In 2007-08, Veterans Affairs Canada broadcast a remembrance vignette during Veterans' Week. Again this year, as part of a whole-of-government approach to the 2009 remembrance campaign, the department will lead the Government of Canada in calling Canadians to action, remembering and honouring the sacrifices and contributions of our traditional and modern-day veterans.
[Translation]
Our employees are our greatest strength. These people are committed to their work, they are proud of it and they have respect for all Canadian veterans. I know that over the past months, committee members met some of our employees and they can bear witness to the commitment with which we carry out Canada's obligations toward our veterans.
[English]
Mr. Chair, Veterans Affairs Canada is at a crossroads. Along with the decline in the number of traditional veterans requiring care, there are increasing numbers of modern-day veterans with varied care and support needs. As we work to provide effective programs and services for our veterans, RCMP, and other clients, we find ourselves straddling the past and the future.
Our traditional veterans face new challenges with age. Our residential care and our in-home assistance and health care programs are helping provide veterans and their families with the care they need to live out their lives with respect, comfort, dignity, and honour.
Our modern-day veterans have access to programs that focus on injury rehabilitation, job placement, help with occupational stress, and benefits and services that provide the support they need. Through the new veterans charter, we will continue to find new ways to help these heroes return to their homes, communities, and civilian life with care and recognition tailored to their unique needs.
Our department continues to support families. Families are encouraged to participate along with the CF member in a transition interview. Individual family counselling is available through the VAC assistance line, one of eight operational stress injury clinics we currently have open, or the operational stress injury social support program.
In addition to group health insurance, families may qualify for the suite of new veterans charter programs, including vocational assistance and protection from earnings loss, if the CF member is unable to participate.
Mr. Chair, I'll stop here and ask whether you would like me to take you through the deck—I know members have the deck—or you would like to just move to questions.
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I will put my other question to Mr. Herbert and I hope that he will be the one who answers it.
Regarding the mission of Veterans Affairs Canada, it is written that it is “to keep the memory of their achievements and sacrifices alive for all Canadians”.
We have Remembrance Day on November 11th, there is also D-Day, and from time to time, we travel to Vimy in April. But apart from this, what are you doing to keep memories alive?
In my riding, the only ceremonies to take place in a year are those of November 11. That is right. We have the Legion, and veterans are received by the Legion. However, it seems to me that when I was young, there were more commemorations and ceremonies. Sometimes, when I travelled to Europe—I think that you have been there also—it seems to me that the French whom I met, as well as the Belgians, had a different attitude than we do with regard to memorials and ceremonies.
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The question was put to me.
[English]
I'd like to respond in a couple of ways.
First of all, you made note of the various ceremonies around November 11, and of course, like the ones here in the national capital region, it's actually organized by the Royal Canadian Legion. It is their event.
As we look at moving forward, we are doing a number of things around youth outreach. We work with schools across the country and we send material to about 16,000 schools from coast to coast in the country, materials for the teachers to use. We've certainly been investing in the Web technology in order to reach out to modern-day people. Also, we have people in Europe this weekend in terms of Normandy, for the sixty-fifth anniversary of Normandy. Also, of course there will be a ceremony, Mr. Chair, at the National War Memorial this Saturday, which will be commemorating the sixty-fifth anniversary of Normandy.
In addition to that, what we are doing, as is noted there in our report, is trying to change our approach a little bit, so rather than bringing Canadians to commemoration, our focus is to bring commemoration to Canadians. Essentially, some of the things we're doing involve looking at the new media. I can tell you that if you were to go on YouTube today, you will see the vignette of the sixty-fifth anniversary that we put together. Also, last year, for the first time in the history of the department, for Veterans' Week the vignette was again posted to YouTube, and we're looking at other issues around social media.
One of our key goals is to try to get greater engagement of youth, and greater awareness of youth, in commemoration, and we feel that one of the tools to do this, when you look at how youth communicate today, is to get out there into those media.
We are also looking at various opportunities for partnership with both the private and public sectors in terms of trying to get that sector more engaged. I'll use an example. A case in point is that last year we were able to have a partnership with the Canadian Football League. For those of you who may have seen the final games, you will have noticed that all the players had Canada Remembers logos on their helmets, and the Canada Remembers logos were on the field. We also had a remembrance service before the start of each game. In fact, there were remembrance services, and poppies, and Canada Remembers pins were given to all participants.
Also, because the Grey Cup game was in Montreal, the commissioner of the CFL and the players from the teams actually took the Grey Cup to L'Hôpital Sainte-Anne and went into the hospital and went out onto the floors and into the wards and talked to the veterans and brought the cup in there.
So we're trying to be very active. Compared to when we were young, we're looking at very different youth today, and so we're really trying to do more with the electronic media, not to take away from the ceremonies that we have in Canada and abroad, which are very important. And I don't have a list with me, but I understand this weekend there will be about 34 different ceremonies, that I'm aware of, in Canadian cities across the country with respect to the sixty-fifth anniversary.
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Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I apologize. We've been handing off the baton today. Our regular Veterans Affairs critic, Peter Stoffer, is not available.
What interests me when I look at the strategic outcomes is this. I can perhaps understand that veterans' compensation and financial support is less through 2011-12 than it is in 2009-10 because of the unfortunate loss of many of our veterans, but what I don't understand is that we see a reduction in veterans' health care costs as well. There is strategic outcome number one. In real terms, even for Canada Remembers, essentially there is a loss of expenditure ability or expenses on those programs over the three-year period. The Veterans Review and Appeal Board, also in real terms...because if we have a fixed amount, of course, over three years inflation erodes that same amount. For the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman there is also an erosion in real terms, and then for the Internal Services as well we see a reduction both in absolute and in real terms.
So I see the five strategic outcomes, and in every single case there are fewer funds available two years from now than in fiscal year 2009-10. That's a matter of some concern. Obviously Canadians support our veterans. We're concerned about services to our veterans, and yet there's a cutback in every sector.
Is that something you've already explained, and could you explain it to me?
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No, it's not something we explained to this point.
Programs that are direct benefits to clients are indexed every year at 3%. So the numbers you see here, although they may look as if they've flatlined--for instance, health care and the re-establishments--have been indexed, and if it weren't for that indexing, they would be lower. And they would be lower because of the decline in the veteran population.
So the number of veterans is going down. We're losing roughly 20,000 veterans per year of the World War II and Korean War veterans. So we're losing them at a very fast pace, but because the numbers had been indexed, the program costs are indexed, the actual expenditures are staying relatively constant.
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I can speak to that. There are actually a number of things I think are important to get on the table there, because another member has raised the question.
As the program owner of Canada Remembers, I can assure you there has been no reduction in those services. The discussion that went on earlier at this committee was really around what I will call accounting entries. You would have capital projects like Vimy; we were moving money around to base the project. We had the Vimy ceremony, etc. But in real terms, there has been no reduction in the number of people we have working in Canada Remembers programs from coast to coast in this country.
In fact, as we look forward to the future, some of the areas where we see a saving are in really getting out of the paper business and getting into the electronic business. We feel that, as we become electronic, there are savings to be had by basically developing everything for an Internet-based format, so that everything is available on the web. Those people who want the material can download it, or if they don't want to download it, they can call our 1-800 number and we'd be happy to send them a copy of the material that's on the site.
We are basically not reducing the program, but we're looking at—as my colleague has mentioned—what I would call a smarter delivery and also changing to the reality of our client out there, who is much more electronic-media-centric as opposed to paper-centric.
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Thank you again, gentlemen, for coming here today and being patient with our getting here.
Certainly I commend you on your fiscal management, and in fact, as a fiscal conservative and business owner for my whole life, I know there are always better ways to do things, and you can improve at all times. The thinking that just because you add more money means you provide more is totally not in my vocabulary of how you operate efficiently and effectively. So thank you for doing a fine job in dealing with this and also delivering—as we saw when we were in Charlottetown—the superb service to our veterans, making sure no one falls between the cracks and everyone gets the level of service you're committed to.
My question really revolves around the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman, because as you know, we've talked about this in past meetings recently. I just want to know what effects the creation of the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman may have in terms of the goals as you have outlined them. Has that office had any effect on these objectives?
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for being here. It's certainly great, and I'm even happier to have Ron Herbert here, because he tells me he has Miramichi roots and that means a lot to me.
First of all, I want to reiterate what you said about schools. Because of the great service you guys provide, I know, as a former teacher, that schools are enjoying the opportunity to get material and that children are becoming more and more aware and more involved. They're really focused on this, and I appreciate that. On behalf of the teachers back home, I certainly have to say thank you for all of what you have put into this.
The other thing is that my constituency includes quite a lot of rural areas. I'm wondering what plans or current arrangements VAC has to facilitate access to services by rural veterans. I feel they're getting good service, but are there special things being done for them?
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Canada is a vast country, and providing services to what one might call rural veterans is a challenge. I would just like to highlight a number of things.
First of all, we have our national call centres to provide services in both official languages. We have our 24-hour hotline for those who are in distress, manned by professional counsellors. We also have our website. As we move forward, we would like to enhance that website to be able to move to a more transactional-based website, so that Canadians, wherever they may live, will have equal access.
Also, of course, many of our area counsellors visit. They don't stay in their offices, but they're actually out there. So when we are working in various communities, we work through the various veterans organizations so that veterans know we're in the area. So if somebody wants to make an appointment, then we're quite happy to see them when we're in a particular geographical area.
But other than that, the only areas where we're actually making some changes, if I might say, are in what has been previously announced by the government, jointly by Minister and our minister, with regards to the integrated personnel support centres on Canadian Forces bases. And of course we are moving aggressively in that area. There are no plans to create more offices across the country, but rather to try other means, such as electronic ones.
Finally, I might say we are working with some provinces in terms of telemedicine in order to be able to do diagnoses from a distance by the Internet.
One thing I want to stress to you, which I didn't make note of earlier, is that the number is not indexed as you see it here, but salaries are about 70% to 75% of our operating cost of the department. If there are increases in salaries, the department automatically receives those numbers. So that portion of our operating costs are indexed to inflation, although it doesn't reflect that here. It's at time-of-negotiation settlement.
In terms of the reduction that's here, small reductions based on probably...to be honest with you, I can't answer the question. It's very small. It's $82.5 million to $82.1 million, so we're talking about $400,000, roughly.
If you'd like, I can respond to that in writing.