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Mr. Chair and members of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, as the chair of Veterans Affairs Canada's special needs advisory group, it is a pleasure to appear here today, even though our time is a bit compressed, to discuss issues related to the new Veterans Charter and, more specifically, how the charter relates to special needs veterans.
Special needs veterans are those veterans with significant injuries or disabilities and who have the greatest medical rehabilitation, re-establishment, financial, and family needs. These veterans are the ones who have been assessed by Veterans Affairs Canada to be pensioned at 78% or higher. The focus of my presentation today is not on the entire veteran population. We just don't have time or space to do that, so I'm just drilling into the special needs veterans themselves.
Many of the issues you'll hear today I am sure you've heard before from the Legion, from Veterans Affairs officials, from other chairs of VAC's advisory groups, and from individual representations. So in many ways, the points I raise are a repeat of what you may have heard, except for one significant point; I, myself, am a special needs veteran, so I can speak first-hand about the challenges facing those veterans who are at a significant disadvantage in comparison to their peers.
I do some consulting work for Veterans Affairs, so I'm sure I'm going to be ripped apart by these guys later on, but I have an innate ability to figure out how things are going to go, and I can see how the new Veterans Charter can, and will, fail the special needs veteran. I say that even with the utmost respect for those who designed the charter and all the work they put into it, but there have been some unintended consequences that bear particularly on the special needs veterans. It's not on the whole population, but on the ones who need it the most.
I should preface my comments by saying I'm not an expert on the new Veterans Charter or its predecessor, the Pension Act. I've been privileged to have worked with Veterans Affairs for the last five years, looking solely at the new Veterans Charter from a special needs perspective as the chair of their special needs advisory group and identifying to the department the shortcomings and gaps in the charter.
While there are many areas we could discuss, I'm only going to be able to talk about one, and it's financial. There are other equally important issues, but unfortunately, we probably will not have time to drill into that. So here we go.
Here I'm going to piss off Veterans Affairs by saying Veterans Affairs is all about money. That's it. That's what they do, and don't let them fool you. Is anyone here from Veterans Affairs? Okay, good. I hope they hear it, because they'll probably fire me, and that's okay.
All they do is provide money to pay for programs, benefits, and services. They are the distributor of cash. So what about the money? The special needs advisory group, or its beautiful acronym, SNAG, has been beaten down by Veterans Affairs for the last five years, to the point where we rarely discuss financial issues. But it remains the single largest component of the new Veterans Charter that the younger cohort of veterans despise. I use that word “despise”--or loathe, hate, fear. VAC, in my opinion, has not demonstrated unequivocally that the new Veterans Charter is as good as, if not better than, its predecessor, the Pension Act, in terms of financial stability and security for the veteran and the veteran's family.
First, we must remember that seriously disabled veterans are, by virtue of their injuries, at a permanent financial disadvantage when compared to their uninjured peers. In particular, the charter does not take into account in a specific sense, for those specific veterans, lost career progression or lost potential earnings in the workforce, any workforce.
VAC may say there's a whole suite of programs under the charter that did not exist with the Pension Act that will assist in ensuring financial stability and opportunities for the future. I say that's smoke and mirrors. While it may be true in some instances, when you start drilling into the facts, there are a lot of holes.
VAC will say there's vocational training and job placement, but these do not work well for special needs veterans who are permanently disabled.
Let your imagination run wild, to a quadriplegic who is blind. How on God's earth is he going to get back in the workforce and have a reasonable chance of earning something? Not likely. I use that as a gross example, but there are lots like that.
Special needs veterans, by virtue of the new Veterans Charter, will be relegated to a subsistence level of quality of life, and I think that's wrong. From a special needs perspective, under the Pension Act there were a lot of financial elements that were available and provided support and stability. You'll hear from my colleagues later on because they'll be talking about similar, parallel issues. If you keep hearing it, something's wrong. If you keep taking your car back because there's a problem with it, chances are there's a problem with your car. It's the same here. If you hear about it, there's a problem.
Let me just run some quick numbers. You can look them up on the web or you can get them from your analysts. Under the Pension Act, if you were 78% or higher disabled, you would be receiving a monthly disability pension from between $1,900 and $2,300 a month, tax free for life. Other financial benefits I'll skip over because of time, but rest assured that financial stability was provided under the Pension Act. If the individual passed away--died of old age or as a result of injuries--all those benefits and allowances would accrue to the family and to the spouse for the rest of their lives, or until they turned 18, and it would be tax free.
The disability pensions and allowances have all disappeared with the new Veterans Charter---ALL, in capitals, in case you haven't got it. All of it is gone. VAC will tell you not to compare the Pension Act to the new Veterans Charter. You'll hear that. You'll hear that from them, that you cannot compare apples to asphalt. Well, there are some good elements of the charter, such as vocational training and job placement, but I would submit to you, as I mentioned candidly, that the most seriously injured and permanently disabled veterans may not be able to fully utilize those programs. So the special needs veterans are left with very little under the new Veterans Charter that helps them. The disability and family pensions and allowances are gone. I believe these financial changes were implemented under the new Veterans Charter as a cost-savings measure, and you as parliamentarians voted on that.
I think there were some unintended consequences that came out of this. The special needs disabled veteran no longer receives a disability pension, and there is no financial security for the family under the new Veterans Charter. I can't stress that enough. We're screwing the young guys.
I've provided copies of my notes. I don't know if they've been handed out or not.
The new Veterans Charter is fundamentally different from the Pension Act. The Pension Act provides a safety financial network for life for those who need it the most. The new Veterans Charter has failed to provide this safety network. The new Veterans Charter does provide a one-time disability award for pain and suffering--for pain and suffering that will last a lifetime, mind you--and some financial support and income replacement. But this income replacement ends; this ceases at age 65. It stops. At 65, the special needs veterans, who are already financially disadvantaged over their life course, will only have CPP and OAS and perhaps a small RRSP to fall back on in their golden years.
The new Veterans Charter is all up front. It's like front-end loading your RRSP. It's all up front. And SNAG foresees problems with this front-end loading down the road.
Veterans Affairs will tell you there's a permanent incapacity allowance--PIA, for short--that special needs veterans may qualify for. This is an allowance for life, but it is taxed. The main drawback is it's so restrictive in its eligibility criteria that I think to date three PIAs have been awarded. It might be five now, but it's a very small number. So it's smoke and mirrors.
Many permanently disabled special needs veterans simply will not qualify for PIA. I mentioned the disability award. It is a one-time lump sum award that recognizes a lifetime of pain and suffering. It's great that there's recognition for pain and suffering, but I would submit that that has varying degrees, and duration is an issue. This award needs to be reviewed to ascertain whether it is fair, based upon age, marital status, family circumstances, and severity of injury.
Now, let me just go off my notes for a second here and say the following. If you're a double amputee, which I am, you will receive from Veterans Affairs $276,000 as a disability award, whether you're single or married. The new Veterans Charter keeps talking about the new Veterans Charter and the families. I cannot see how the disability award can be the same, whether or not you're married, irrespective of your age, and whether or not you have kids, given all of the allowances that accrue to spouses and children, a point I skipped in my presentation.
We have a serious failing here with the new Veterans Charter. It needs to have a better award method. It should not be a one-time lump sum, because the guys are blowing it. They're blowing the money. You're going to hear that next. I'm going to read you an excerpt from an e-mail I got a couple of days ago.
But first, if I were 20 years old and someone gave me $276,000, which VAC does.... You actually get the cheque in the mail; you don't even get it by hand. So you get this award for your sacrifice, your loss, pain, and suffering, and then you're told by the same people who gave it to you, “Don't spend it. It has to last you for the rest of your life. Don't spend it.” Well, if you're 20 years old, the temptation is to get a car. You might get a house, a big house or a small house, and then you will worry about the mortgage payments later on down the road—though I come from Calgary, where you can't get a house for $276,000.
Here's the e-mail I received the other day. I took the names out to protect the innocent. It reads:
Last week Cpl X approached me somewhat distressed re the “Lump-sum” payment issue. He indicated that a number of his colleagues who had received the lump-sum payment (and spent it) were now in dire straights. And stated that it "wasn't fair that a triple amputee received the same as a double amputee"—he thought it (triple) should be more.
These things are now in the undercurrents out there in the veterans community. They're criticizing this lump sum. There's no security for them. Once it's gone, it's gone. Under the Pension Act, you may not have received such a large amount, but you got something every month that you could take to the bank. You could show your bank that you're getting five hundred bucks a month, and that was perhaps enough to cover your mortgage. You don't get that now.
The new Veterans Charter's “ethereal financial aspects”, as I call them, are very different from the tangible ones covered by the Pension Act, and very few people can tell you—or maybe three or four within Veterans Affairs can—how it all works, because it has such a complicated calculation matrix. However, for the new veteran and a special needs new veteran, they feel cheated, they feel ripped off, and they feel marginalized compared with the traditional veteran—and we have two here. They feel a huge amount of distrust for Veterans Affairs—they think the wool has been pulled over their eyes—and they feel very vulnerable about their financial security over their life course.
As mentioned, there is no financial support whatsoever for spouses and families under the new Veterans Charter compared with what was there under the Pension Act. The new Veterans Charter overuses the term “family”. It's as if the word “family” has been added every time you see the word “veteran”. But show me it; go back to the beginning and show me the money.
What is needed, in my opinion, Mr. Chair, is an independent fiduciary review of the new Veterans Charter to determine if, as a minimum, it is equal to the Pension Act in terms of financial security. No matter which way you crunch the numbers, it appears that under the new Veterans Charter the veteran is at a distinct disadvantage in terms of their financial security when compared with the veteran under the Pension Act. The veterans under the new Veterans Charter do not have a financial safety network for life. They're screwed in many ways.
Given the time available, I will restrict my comments just to the financial side, though there's so much more with the charter that could and should be discussed.
Under the new Veterans Charter, the financial security safety network for life that was previously available under the Pension Act has been removed. The argument made by Veterans Affairs for the termination of benefits at age 65 is that Canada has the CPP and OAS, which will carry on. Unfortunately, this will relegate the veterans with the greatest needs to a bare minimum standard of living, whatever OAS and CPP provides them, $1,100 or $1,200 a month for life.
What is being heard in veterans' communities, particularly among those with special needs and the highly disabled, is that Canada's veterans are being treated no differently than the average Canadian in terms of CPP and OAS. I would ask, is there some obligation on the part of Canada to ensure that our special needs veterans, those with the greatest needs, are adequately looked after, not marginalized or relegated to a subsistence-level quality of life? I would say that under the Pension Act this was not the case; they were protected and they were okay through their life course, right to the moment they died. When they died, the benefits accrued to their spouse. This is gone under the new Veterans Charter.
One can see how the special needs veterans are feeling vulnerable and marginalized, despite their service to Canada, by what is not being offered or provided by the new Veterans Charter. It is up to all of us, and I challenge all of you to ensure that special needs veterans of today, supported by the new Veterans Charter, are receiving, as a minimum, what the traditional veteran received in terms of financial security for themselves and their families, and that the support is for life.
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The chair has just said that we did not have much time so I will try to get right to the point.
Good afternoon to all committee members. Let me introduce myself. My name is Elphège Renaud and I am 78 years old. I am president of the Quebec branch of the Association du Royal 22e Régiment. I served in the Royal 22nd Regiment from 1949 to 1954 as a paratrooper. I was a volunteer in the Korean War from 1951 to 1953, when I was severely injured after stepping on a mine.
Today I am appearing before this parliamentary committee tasked with amending the veterans' charter in order to make some constructive suggestions. On the whole, the charter is not bad. Some parts of it are nearly perfect. I would especially like to focus on the way that we compensate soldiers who have been severely injured, such as those soldiers who are coming back from Afghanistan after being injured in the theatre of operations. If the government has the means to send troops to this region in order to meet its commitments to the United Nations and to fight terrorism in the world, it should also have the financial means to provide adequate compensation to injured soldiers who come back with disabilities they will have their entire life.
Let us use my example. I have been suffering from my injuries for 57 years. I did not lose my legs, but they have no feeling in them and I am in constant pain. I have been taking pain medication, morphine for 57 years. I have not had a normal life like everyone else. I have been on medication my entire life to deal with all kinds of complications from the injuries I sustained.
Following the Valcartier visit of the veteran's ombudsman, Colonel Patrick B. Stogran, who was appointed by the federal government in November 2007, and at the request of the association's Quebec branch, I have made the required presentations in order to amend the new veterans' charter.
With respect primarily to the compensation given to a soldier who has been injured or contracted an illness while on active duty in the theatre of operations, such as in Afghanistan, the current lump sum payments do not provide lifetime financial stability for veterans. A monthly payment would achieve this because of the fact that payments are made on a regular basis. A study was done on people who had won a great deal of money playing the lottery, sometimes millions of dollars, and most of them did not have any money after five years. I do understand that some winners did make mistakes, but the fact is, some of them wound up on the street, whereas a monthly payment cannot be spent until it has been received. So that provides stability and financial security.
I would like to talk about the lump sum payments. I believe—and everybody else also thinks as I do—that these lump sum payments probably came about in order to enable the government to save some money. The maximum amount is $276,000, which is far from being enough to provide a reasonable pension of between $3,000 to $4,000 per month for life, to a veteran. In addition, even if this were an adequate amount generating a reasonable monthly income, it is not safe to pay such an amount of money, in one lump sum, to a veteran who is not necessarily equipped to manage his or her finances properly, in order to ensure that he or she has lifetime financial security. The government must think for the individual. The government is responsible for the veteran as long as he or she is alive. I strongly believe—and I know what I'm talking about—that the government must pay, as it has done from the time of the Second World War to the conflict in Afghanistan, a monthly pension, for life, and not a lump sum payment as it began doing since the beginning of the conflict in Afghanistan in 2006.
I would like to draw your attention to the duties of the ombudsman, and I quote: “...will not review decisions made by the VRAB”. This quote was taken from a government document outlining the duties of the ombudsman. In documentation distributed by the Office of the Ombudsman, the opposite is said. It states: “ ...to review systematic issues related to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board”. Who is right? The government or the ombudsman?
Why does England provide a maximum of $800,000 to a disabled soldier who is 100% disabled whereas Canada pays only $276,000? Even if this maximum amount paid out by Canada were earning reasonable interest in accordance with market rates, the amount would not be enough to provide the veteran with a reasonable income after 10 years. And after that, how is he supposed to live? He is supposed to live on the small amount provided by social assistance that is given to everybody.
Since he risked his life, does he not deserve better? It is absolutely shameful for a country like Canada. I have met several veterans who were seriously injured, who lost one or both legs. The compensation they received was completely laughable, and they are just 23, 24 or 25 years old.
To show you the extent to which previous governments looked after the financial security of war veterans, I would like to talk to you about a program which does not exist anymore. It was a program included in the Veterans Land Act. Under this program, if a veteran did not want land for farming, he could choose to buy a new home, which he built himself. To protect the veteran, his downpayment was the land. The land title belonged to Veterans Affairs Canada. So Veteran Affairs Canada was the owner, and it rented out the house for 25 years to the veteran. After 25 years, sometimes earlier, if the mortgage was paid off, the title was transferred to the veteran, who took full and clear possession of the home, and who then was completely free of debt. During the 25 years, the veteran could not sell, mortgage or borrow against the house, since he was a renter and not the owner. Veterans Affairs Canada lent us $12,000, and our downpayment was the land. We paid Veteran Affairs Canada $8,000, and the balance of $4,000 was given to us because we had served our country well. This was proof positive that the government cared about the security and financial stability of its war veterans. Our monthly payment was $46.64, since there was a 3% interest charge on the $8,000. This approach really helped the war veterans in a concrete way. I benefited from the program, and the house I built is easily worth $250,000 today.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I hope the government stops compensating war veterans with lump sum payments, and goes back to the former approach, mainly a monthly pension for life, assessed every three years, which can be increased, if necessary. The government can provide compensation in two stages; first, a minimum lump sum payment, and second, a monthly pension to ensure that war veterans have a degree of financial stability. The government also needs to improve compensation for smaller claims, like those for glasses, prostheses, and so on, since Charlottetown is doing all it can to avoid making these payments, and uses the most ridiculous excuses as a pretext. We should have a booklet outlining our benefits, and then we should be able to claim them. Charlottetown has to stop doing what it is doing, mainly grasping for any excuse not to pay.
I have several other examples for you, but the worst thing is that the ombudsman cannot intervene in the VRAB's, the administrative tribunal's, decisions. For instance, I filed a claim for $350. I was reimbursed $150 for medication, and the $200 was for the fees charged by the physician who had withdrawn from the government system. I was told to seek compensation from the government, but the doctor had withdrawn from the system. So I had to pay $200 out of my own pocket, since I could not receive compensation. If we appeal, the response will be the same, as always: the ruling is upheld.
Thank you. I tried to be brief, since the chairman said we did not have much time. Perhaps I spoke too quickly, but you have my brief which you can take your time reading later on.
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My name is Claude Sylvestre. I am a veteran of the war of 1939-1945. I was wounded in Italy while I was fighting with the Royal 22nd Regiment. I will only give you an overview, but I will include some details. The rest you have in your copies. I am sorry, but at 20 cents a word, having the brief translated into English would have cost a fortune.
The Veterans Review and Appeal Board, located in Charlottetown, is one of the only organizations in the world with a mandate to deliver extremely important rulings for war veterans, and to simultaneously decide whether a decision is valid, including all of its details. In other words, the board is both judge and jury. I have included copies of the legal provisions which are always ignored under the act.
The authorities in Charlottetown seem to have carte blanche to do what they want: hire staff, give themselves promotions, prohibit us from entering district offices. The War Veterans Allowance Act does not seem to exist for them. They seem to feel they have all the evidence they need. They even managed to include restrictions on the duties of the ombudsman, and in so doing completely paralyzed his work, since a war veteran must appeal a decision, yet when a ruling is made, he is not allowed to touch it — I would invite you to read the ombudsman's duties; there are only two.
Contrary to the description which was copied and distributed to everyone at a meeting in Valcartier, people were appointed to the board in Charlottetown who seem to have been directed to settle any case which might be brought to the attention of the ombudsman in which no appeal was allowed. Therefore, they can control the ombudsman, who must do as the authorities say, which completely robs him of his independence.
When he studied my case, the ombudsman called me and assured me he would recommend to the minister that I receive compensation following surgery. Please refer to the document you were given. The ruling was upheld under the act and the regulations. It is impossible to find out which regulations were invoked, since there was no appeal.
In 2000, according to Google, there were over 37,485 public servants. But now, there are approximately 40,000 across Canada. Google cannot reveal that information; Charlottetown has seen to that. It took over the duties of district office employees and hired staff, and it has opened satellite offices — which are completely useless and must cost a fortune — favouring friends and increasing their pensions.
Incidentally, no deputy minister understands a word of French. So a lower-ranking correspondence officer writes a letter in French, which is dictated by a superior. This is what he has the deputy minister saying: “The changes to the district offices were made in the interest of freeing up staff to help you.” That is a good one, because, as it now stands, these offices are not allowed to serve Second World War veterans. We cannot get any service, we cannot even phone. I will talk about trying to call them later on.
This decision, which was taken in 2000, was catastrophic for dozens of war veterans, because until 2000, the district office employees visited the veterans in their homes, whereas the veterans who could still walk could go to the small district office. Charlottetown closed the office in 2000. Deprived of any kind of help, dozens of veterans, including some who were decorated for acts of bravery, died in total misery and penury. They never said anything, and they lived on welfare. They could not do anything because most of them were illiterate. They could not communicate in writing, and even less by phone.
I helped a fellow veteran from the Royal 22nd Regiment who was completely at a loss and whom I felt sorry for. I knew him very well, since he had been by my side on the Bren machine gun. We were being heavily bombarded, and another soldier was hit directly; his head landed in the ditch a metre away from my friend. A switch went off in my friend's head and he was never the same again. You can read his story in the file I gave you, which is entitled: “The Tragedy of a soldier of the Royal 22nd Regiment”. Six doctors tried to help him, but nothing worked.
We are extremely grateful to the , who deigned to meet with us during a meeting at Valcartier. To my knowledge, it was the first time that a minister ever visited a group of soldiers. The following Wednesday, at our weekly lunch at Place-de-la-Capitale, in Quebec, the men celebrated by drinking a better kind of coffee. It was unprecedented!
My final recommendation would be that Ms. Sheila Fraser should carry out an administrative investigation of the way in which this surprise package works. They have always been free to do whatever they want, without any supervision. We, who belong to the veterans group that participated in the 1939-1945 war, are considered as a second class group. We are completely forgotten.
The famous Colonel Charles Forbes, who spent 18 months in combat and was one of the most highly decorated Canadians, recently asked for help from the district office, but he did not get any. They are not allowed to provide help to a veteran of the 1939-1945 war or to a veteran of the Korean War. If you try to get in touch with these people by telephone, you have to go through Kirkland Lake, where you have to tell your life story.
I called them and I said that I wanted to speak to Ms. Such-and-Such, who is a nurse. The operator then asked me why I wanted to meet a nurse. Frankly, there must be a limit! She never agreed to transfer my call, even if I knew very well that the nurse was in her office. She left a message on her answering machine. From that moment on, the nurse had two days to answer us. However, she had to make a report to Kirkland Lake. In fact, all the veterans of the 1939-1945 war and of the Korean War were transferred to Kirkland Lake. This is where their file ends up, no matter what they have to say about it, and they do not have the right to say very much about it.
We finally ended up taking care of the colonel. We tried to make some arrangements with soldiers from the 22nd Regiment who could help him and with women personnel who could help his wife, but nothing worked. We are forgotten citizens.
The file that I submitted to you contains all the explanations. However, I am sorry that I could not translate it.
Gentlemen, I have said what I had to say.