Testimony to ACVA - Testimony on the New Veterans Charter
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1 Testimony to ACVA April 15, 2010 Sean Bruyea Captain (retired) Advocate for Disabled Veterans and Their Families and Freelance Journalist Text of Testimony on the New Veterans Charter In many ways, Canada’s veterans were betrayed by the MPs who sat in the 38th Parliament. They passed the Veteran’s Charter in mere seconds on May 10th 2005 without even reading it. Their Senate colleagues did little better giving it just two days of debate. At its heart, C-45 removed the lifelong monthly disability award and instead pays out a onetime lump sum for pain and suffering. In contrast, when the subject of MP Pensions, which only affects a privileged few, was raised in the 35th Parliament, it was the subject of a Supply Day debate, and when Bill C-85 was finally tabled there was so much debate that a time allocation motion was needed. So while changes to MP Pensions were hotly debated over months of Parliament, the New Veterans Charter came like a thief in the night, with the acquiesce of all four parties in the House of Commons. Ironically, the rapid passage of the Bill occurred while most members of the subcommittees of both houses had just returned or were overseas celebrating VE day. Quite simply, VAC betrayed veterans and hoodwinked Parliament and I am here to ask you to right that wrong. Unstated at any point during the Parliamentary debate is the real reason why VAC needed to pass C-45 with such urgency. Its officials had recommended: “A shift to greater use of lump sum payments combined with customized rehabilitation services . . . to regain control of an alarming future liability scenario” This was however hinted at, by the testimony of Darragh Mogan when he appeared before the only Senate committee meeting on the Veteran’s Charter and admitted that that the program “would pay for itself over a 15-to-20-year period.” This is the best illustration of a “hidden agenda” in recent Canadian political history. Make no mistake about it, the remainder of the programs in the Charter for disabled veterans and serving members existed in one form or another before the Charter was passed. This was not, as Minister Guarnieri claimed during the 2 May 11 hearing to Senate National Finance Committee, “an entirely new vehicle designed to deliver what the current system cannot.” Louise Richard, Harold Leduc and I were the only Canadians given an opportunity to testify to committee in opposition to the Charter as it was written. Indeed, we were all sold this new legislation based upon short briefings which used such catch phrases as “opportunity with security”, “widespread consultations”, “case management” and “psycho-social rehabilitation” to name but a few. Although Veterans Affairs did not have vocational rehabilitation or job placement at the time, SISIP Vocational Rehabilitation Program had a long and successful history and the CF had at least three job placement programs in operation. Minister Guarnieri also claimed that the new system “will take us back to the same position we were in, and enable us to provide the same level of reestablishment support we provided, following the Second World War.” Then, Ministers from each of a half dozen or more departments had been organized into a special committee. Experts from the Military, medicine, rehabilitation and representatives from the highest levels the federal, all provincial and most large municipal governments, industry and community leaders all came together to create what was largely accepted as the best rehabilitation and reestablishment program in the world at the time. Then, the Deputy Minister of Veterans affairs personally recruited 34 individuals straight from the military to act as the senior managers to implement these new programs because he knew that veterans were the best to understand the needs of other veterans. Veterans whether wounded or not were given healthcare, low cost insurance and financial assistance to reestablish. All were offered a choice of land grants, farming assistance, low interest mortgages, university or apprenticeships as well as small business assistance. Meanwhile, any disabled veterans were provided with all of the above plus greater healthcare, the best case management and rehabilitation the world had to offer and a monthly disability pension to be paid for life. Where there were roughly a million WWII veterans, compared to the roughly half a million Canadian Forces veterans, both deserve similar benefits and compassion for the injuries suffered during their honorable service to this nation. Whereas WWII benefits were designed by a committee of Ministers, the Veteran’s Charter and its associated programs were almost solely authored by a 3 Modernization Task Force headed by a VAC Director, Darragh Mogan who called upon another VAC director, Ken Miller to be his principal salesman. They presented the Charter as a fait accompli to the greater Canadian government as well as to Parliament, veterans’ organizations and the Canadian public. To my knowledge not one member of the Task Force in VAC has any military background and reportedly not a single senior manager in the entire department is a veteran. More disturbingly, they had very little oversight or meaningful revision by superior or elected officials and have seen almost none since. The Minister promised reviews ever 2-3 months in 2005 and later the Department talked of regular reviews at perhaps every year or two years. As a result of testimony from me in 2005 to Senate, the Department created the Special Needs Advisory Group (SNAG) and then later the New Veterans Charter Advisory Group to ensure that those veterans who are most disabled and their families were being appropriately cared for by the Charter. These groups have done good work making approximately 299 recommendations for change to the Charter. However all suffer from the same process flaw; the people in charge of receiving the recommendations are the very same as those who authored the Charter. It is therefore not surprising to note that less than half a dozen recommendations have been even partially implemented by VAC in the four years since SNAG’s first report was submitted and that no serious consideration has been given to any recommendation that might involve financial consequences. Had the real intent of the Veterans’ Charter been any other than saving the government money, such groups would have been convened before the legislation was tabled so that all their recommendations could have been part of the original program. Moreover, there would have several committee hearings prior to its passage in either House. True to the spirit of VAC’s hidden agenda, SNAG’s reports have never been made public and the proceedings of these advisory groups are never published. In the same way, when the Charter was created, only one or two individuals from each of only six veteran organizations were involved. Each was sworn to confidentiality and agreed to, in effect, unquestionably support the Charter. These leaders could not share any details of the Charter with their membership. Amazingly, this is what VAC has called the “most widespread consultation in VAC’s history”. It is frightening that they believe this to be true. 4 For the veteran and CF community it is like we are playing hockey by the rules on our side but VAC’s net is too small to fit the puck and facing the opposite direction. Canada’s men and women in uniform have high respect for you our elected Members of Parliament, and we ask to do what we cannot, hold Veterans Affairs Canada accountable. In is unacceptable that VAC bureaucrats should be able to accept or reject any recommendations which affect the sacred contract between Canada and its veterans. It should be Parliament and especially this committee which instructs VAC to implement changes. Somehow along the way, VAC officials and Parliament have developed a highly dysfunctional relationship. Bureaucrats believe that they can accept or reject what Parliament tells them and Parliament has done very little to change such unbridled arrogance of certain VAC senior managers. Let me ask some questions: 1. Would a lifelong disability pension not offer more security than a one -time lump sum? 2. In a world where university level education i s a pre-requisite for government jobs, how can VAC promote the fast-tracking of veterans while excluding university training? 3. Would no-interest loans or grants like those offered to World War II veterans not offer more opportunity to start a business while the injured soldier can still count on the security of a lifetime monthly disability award? 4. Why is it that public servants can use their rehabilitation time and income to contribute to their retirement pension but disabled veterans cannot? 5. Why is it that Public servants can arrange for a gradual back to work schedule but the Veterans Charter does not allow this? 6. Why is it that not a single dollar earned by a public servant on long term disability is deducted but half a dollar is deducted from a veteran on long term disability? 7. Should there be specific programs to help those veterans that have been out of the workforce for years, sometimes a decade or more, especially where these veterans in their 30’s 40’s and 50’s still want to contribute, to work, to be productive members of Canadian society? Each of these questions is complex and deserves a comprehensive answer. Had the Veterans’ Charter been given proper public hearings before passage we would know those answers. I hope that your committee report will provide guidance in each of these matters as well as my other recommendations. As SNAG recommends, the Charter must be completely reviewed by both houses as if it is being seen for the first time, in its entirety and Committees 5 should be willing to rewrite the whole Act if necessary. This is because Canada’s men and women in harm’s way want to know that their Veterans Charter is not the work of cost-cutting bureaucrats in Charlottetown but of their elected leaders in Ottawa. Indeed, if given a broader mandate, this Committee should ask whether the Prime Minister should apologize to these neglected and forgotten disabled veterans and whether these veterans and their families should have been given access to War Veteran programs. The committee should also examine whether maintaining VAC’s headquarters in Charlottetown is a benefit to veterans, or simply allows civil servants an even greater distance from their Ottawa political masters. It should also study whether VAC should be integrated into the Department of National Defence. Not to be overlooked, is whether a department charged with the care, rehabilitation and treatment” of Canadian veterans, should have more than a symbolic presence of veterans in their ranks. I know that I am asking a lot, but this minority Parliament is capable of great things. If you’re looking for resolve, I invite you to travel to Afghanistan and tell our soldiers that it is too difficult to change the public service because they are too powerful. Our soldiers may remind you of the challenges of patrolling the Panjwayi district of Kanadahar and their willingness to die in the service of the country they love. They hope that they can count on you to successfully accomplish this important mission. Finally, I want to remind you that as an active opponent of the Veterans’ Charter as written, I have been singled out for reprisals by VAC bureaucrats as documented by nearly 13,000 pages of my personal government information obtained through the Privacy Act. If VAC were as busy improving the Veterans Charter as they are at targeting their critics, our nation would be well served indeed.
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