Standing Committee on Public Accounts

Comité permanent des comptes publics

For immediate release

Ottawa, February 14, 2023 -

Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) needs to repair the way it manages its disability benefits programs and better serve Canadian veterans, according to a report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts presented in the House of Commons today by John Williamson, Chairman of the Committee. In addition, the Official Opposition tabled a dissenting report.

The Office of the Auditor General of Canada released an audit in 2022 that concluded VAC was not taking appropriate actions to reduce wait times for Canadian Armed Forces and RCMP veterans to receive disability benefits to which members are entitled to receive. In some areas, program delivery worsened. The audit found the following:

• The department’s service standard is to process 80% of applications within 16 weeks of receiving all the information required to process them, but in Fiscal Year 2020–2021 this target was met only 39% of the time.

• Women wait longer than men for a benefits decision on a first application – 47 weeks for women compared with 38 weeks for men, which represents an overall deterioration for both groups compared to the results of a past Ombudsman’s report.

• Francophones waited longer than Anglophones (46 weeks vs. 38 weeks) for a benefits decision.

In this report, the Committee has made six recommendations to help VAC fix service delivery for Canada’s veterans and to support the well‑being of our veterans. Committee members will monitor progress at VAC and respond if necessary.