:
Thank you for the invitation to come and meet with you.
[Translation]
Last week, the minister had the honour of hosting several of you in Charlottetown.
[English]
We found your visit to be enormously valuable. It allowed us to meet face to face to talk about our mutual concerns and explore opportunities as we move forward.
On a personal level, I came away with a renewed sense that we all share one thing in common, that being our deep interest in making sure that Canada's veterans and their families have access to the best possible care and support.
For those of you who could not join us in Charlottetown, I should properly introduce myself and provide you with a bit of context as to my role in the establishment of and ongoing liaison with the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman.
A little over a year ago I assumed the responsibility for the newly established Service Delivery and Commemoration Branch. This is the branch that delivers services and benefits to our 220,000 clients. We also have responsibility for delivering remembrance programming so that all Canadians can learn about the sacrifices and achievements of our traditional and modern-day veterans.
Nationally, we deliver benefits through some 60 points of service. These include our district and satellite offices, as well as our growing presence on Canadian Forces bases and wings. The branch employs about 2,100 people, or about 50% of the department's employees. Many are the front-line workers who, as the minister would say, are VAC's boots on the ground.
Prior to heading up this branch, however, I was the assistant deputy minister of the Corporate Services Branch. As such, I was honoured to be the executive officer who had the responsibility of laying the foundation for both the Veterans Bill of Rights and the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman. Their creation represents a significant milestone in the history of Canada's veterans. Veterans organizations have lobbied for both of them for some time, and all remain fully supportive of a meaningful bill of rights and a strong ombudsman's office.
What I'd like to do over the next few minutes is address the issues and concerns that have been raised by the ombudsman over the past few weeks.
[Translation]
Today, we will discuss the working relationship between Veterans Affairs Canada and the Office of the Ombudsman, as well as the procedures we have put in place to ensure that his office has the resources it needs to carry out its mandate.
[English]
It is fair to say that both sides have experienced some growing pains, but I can assure you that the department is 100% supportive of providing veterans and their families with both a bill of rights and an ombudsman who can champion the rights of individual veterans as well as identify any systemic issues that challenge us.
Let's address some of the issues that were raised last week when the ombudsman appeared before this committee.
First, the ombudsman expressed concern that his office does not have full access to VAC documents and information. It is correct that we are not in the position to share information related to cabinet confidence or client-solicitor privilege. However, we do share all other information in our possession to allow the ombudsman to do his job.
The ombudsman and his staff have full access to the department's electronic client tracking database. This same database contains all of the pieces of information on any given client, and is used by VAC staff to assist our 220,000 clients. This database is also used to post entitlement rulings by the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. I would note that even the minister himself does not have access to this database.
The ombudsman and his office can contact any VAC staff member, anywhere, anytime. They have full access to the department's e-mail system and electronic staff directory.
We've also provided the ombudsman's staff with a full list of subject-matter experts within the department. This means that anyone within the department is only an e-mail or a phone call away.
Information sharing is also facilitated through regularly scheduled meetings with the office of the ombudsman. To date, VAC's senior management has met 16 times with the ombudsman and representatives from the ombudsman's office. We schedule meetings on a quarterly basis, but senior management has extended an open invitation to the ombudsman and his staff that we will meet with them anytime they wish.
Staff in human resources meet with the ombudsman's office on a monthly basis. To date, 20 meetings have taken place.
Staff within the program, policy, and partnership branches also meet and talk regularly. I'll come back to this, but on the issue of homeless veterans alone, the policy folks have shared information with the ombudsman's office on at least 20 separate occasions.
So far, we have also arranged for the ombudsman's staff to visit about 25 of our offices across the country to meet face to face with our staff, including at our atrium for the Charlottetown-based staff.
In terms of VAC's attitude towards the office of the ombudsman, the ombudsman has said that the department is ambivalent towards his office, treating it as nothing more than a complaints department. Well, I can assure you that the department believes in the value of an ombudsman and how they can help veterans in a way that the department cannot. We appreciate the observations and recommendations that the ombudsman has been able to offer for consideration.
To date, the office of the ombudsman has provided us with four discussion and observation papers and one report on the funeral and burial program. We have welcomed the recommendations put forward, and we have responded to all those items that are within our current authorities.
We also appreciate the client referrals that have been received from the office of the ombudsman. To date, our head office has received about 375 requests. We've been able to resolve each and every one of them.
I'll now turn to the ombudsman's authorities.
[Translation]
The ombudsman said that the department did not give him the tools he needed to do his work.
[English]
To put this in perspective, the office of the ombudsman was created under an order in council, and thus reflects the wishes of parliamentarians. Treasury Board allocated a budget of $6.3 million for the ombudsman's office, of which $1.3 million is managed by VAC.
To help support and respond to the office of the ombudsman, Treasury Board approved ten positions within VAC. These resources are deployed in various areas of the department. Some of the positions are statistical and tracking, while others are program area experts who are tasked with responding to inquiries from the office of the ombudsman within reasonable timeframes.
The workload is sufficient to justify these ten FTEs. They are 100% necessary if we are to work together to build and maintain the office of the ombudsman.
Our department has signed four memoranda of understanding with the office of the ombudsman. These memoranda help to define the services we provide to the office and our working relationship with respect to key functions such as operations, information technology, information management, and finance. An MOU governing human resources is ready to be signed.
With regard to the hiring and management of staff, the ombudsman has expressed concerns about his ability to staff his office.
[Translation]
I assure you that the department is working hard on many levels to help the ombudsman create a sustainable infrastructure in terms of human resources.
[English]
Establishing a new organization is not easy. Roles and responsibilities have to be defined. Accountability mechanisms need to be put in place. Staffing qualifications have to be determined. It's important that fair and equitable access to jobs is ensured. The hiring process must be fair, open, and transparent.
To facilitate this, the ombudsman has been granted sub-delegation staffing authority equivalent to that of an assistant deputy minister. Our executives are managed as a corporate resource. The deputy minister is accountable for all staffing at the EX level and has retained this authority. As of last month, the department had facilitated 67 separate staffing actions on behalf of the ombudsman's office.
The individuals who work in his office are valued members of the public service. They have access to the same job postings and career opportunities as any other federal public servant. In fact, some members of his staff have already returned to the department.
On homeless veterans, the ombudsman states that the department has all but ignored his advice about homeless veterans. He feels that he has been personally maligned by the department because of his efforts to raise the awareness of homeless veterans.
On the contrary, we share the ombudsman's commitment to help veterans who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. I think both our organizations would agree that the primary goal is to prevent veterans from becoming homeless. To this end, VAC has many programs in place, including access to income support, disability benefits, rehabilitation programs, and health care.
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, veterans do become homeless. Anyone, including the ombudsman, who knows of a veteran who is either homeless or at risk of becoming of homeless is urged to call us.
When we learn of a homeless veteran, we assess their needs and set in motion the programs and services that are needed to provide them with safe housing, meals, access to health professionals, and emergency funds if needed. They can be either VAC programs or programs in partnership with community-based organizations.
The ombudsman is concerned that VAC is not visible enough in shelters, but as the minister has confirmed, we have made contact with more than 75 homeless shelters and agencies across the country that support the homeless. We encourage intake officers at shelters and other agencies to ask one simple question: do you have military service?
With regard to the VAC national strategy on homelessness, there's been much discussion about the ombudsman's access to a departmental strategy on homelessness. I want to stress that the ombudsman's office was fully engaged in the discussions leading up to and during the development of this document.
But I also want to stress the point that the department has been active in many parts of the country and our interventions have been customized to reflect the particular geographic area and the particular needs of that area. Every month for the past 18 months, VAC and the ombudsman's office have met or corresponded on issues directly or indirectly related to homelessness. Our two organizations continue to work together on this file. In May, VAC briefed the ombudsman's office on our progress.
In conclusion, the ombudsman's pledge to leave nobody behind is commendable. It has raised media awareness of the issue of homelessness and it has helped to encourage and support the ongoing work of the department. We know that the office has now launched its first systemic investigation concerning red tape. We look forward to recommendations that may come from that study.
We promise to resolve, to the best of our ability, any individual client inquiries that are brought to our attention.
From a corporate standpoint, we will continue to honour all memoranda of understanding and we will work diligently to make sure his office has the resources and infrastructure it needs to carry out its mandate.
When and if members of the ombudsman's staff wish to seek other federal career opportunities, their efforts will be supported to the same extent as any other public servant's.
Finally, we remain one hundred percent committed to a meaningful bill of rights and a strong Office of the Veterans Ombudsman. Veterans and their families need both organizations to work on their behalf. Is VAC prepared to do that? Yes.
[Translation]
Are we willing to do more? Yes.
[English]
Will we succeed? Yes, we will. As the chairman mentioned, I will be back here again on Wednesday afternoon before this committee. In the meantime, I will be going to Canadian Forces Base Gagetown to spend some time at the base tomorrow. As you know, we're setting up integrated personnel support centres on the Canadian Forces base. So I'm actually going out to meet with the base commander tomorrow, just to get a sense of how things are going on the ground, and what types of issues the base commander is hearing from the men and women who are serving at Base Gagetown.
Thank you.
:
The general direction is to make contact with the shelters and/or the individuals who are responsible for the shelters. The issue of homelessness is not an easy issue, and the way of dealing with it may not be the same in every particular city or every particular province. If you look at things such as shelters, soup kitchens, etc., many of them are organized differently. Some of them are run by umbrella organizations, some are independent.
I've been around the public service long enough to know that you can't sit in headquarters and say “Thou shall” and all of a sudden the issues are going to be resolved. You have to leave it, in my view, in a broad policy framework, and the goal is first of all to avoid people becoming homeless. But sad to say, some do, so the direction I've given to my staff is to work with the local veterans organizations, work with the shelters, work with agencies—whether it be the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, provincial social services—and create the connections. The connections have to be made on the ground so that when somebody identifies himself as a veteran....
We will get what I might call a tip or some information that we have a veteran in the shelter. You need to understand that just because someone is a veteran, and just because they're in the shelter, that may be their choice, and notwithstanding the intervention that we have, they may not be ready for our services and programs. Sometimes it takes a period of time to create a relationship, and that's where I'd like to make the connection with the OSISS peer support coordinators. Sometimes when someone is homeless, let's face it, they're down and out, they're probably angry at society, they're probably angry at the government. So sometimes it takes a connection by someone such as a peer who has had some of these very same difficulties and says, “You know, I used to be like that, but there is help, and these are some people....” You have to build the trust factor. So yes, getting information from police departments, getting information from social service agencies, those are all good things, but at the end of the day we have to build that trusting relationship.
I guess if I look at it, we have to also understand the diversity of the country. If we look at Parliament in itself, Parliament has representative members from every part of the country. Every part of the country has its own particular views, its own particular issues, and that's why we just don't have one parliamentarian but over 300 to reflect the views.
In that same thinking, we have to allow local managers to be innovative. There are some innovative projects that we're ready to launch in some of our big cities, but the reality is that they have to have some flexibility to be able to do that. We have a veterans helpline that's open 24 hours a day, staffed by counsellors. It's not an answering service; there's actually a counsellor who can help you. There's lots out there. The trick is to make the connection, and the trick is for the local managers, who know their environment--the people in social services, the people in the various agencies--to talk to them and say, “How can we make the connection?”
Last but not least, there are veterans who are homeless and who want to be homeless. I can tell you of a situation of a veteran I know of in a particular city who's homeless. He lives in his car, because that's his choice. He doesn't want to live at a fixed address for a number of reasons. But that's the reality. That doesn't mean the person isn't getting services from us. It doesn't mean he isn't getting help. But he's made a certain choice because of other factors in his life that he doesn't want to live at a fixed address.
:
We don't have an identifier in our computer base that says a person is homeless. We do have clients who we feel are at a higher risk because they may be shown as “of no fixed address”, so they could be at risk of being homeless or maybe not.
Those clients would be managed through a case manager who would do the necessary follow-up. So there are people we know who may be at risk. For example, everybody leaving the Canadian Forces today gets a transition interview, and on the basis of the transition interview we may identify some people who may be at risk of any number of things, including homelessness, depending on some of the information we get. So it is proactive. It's about making sure people are aware of what we can do, coming back to the OSISS peer support coordinators. I can tell you about a couple of cases in point. I made reference to an individual who walked into the Vancouver district office and said he needed help. That's an easy one to find.
Also, when you look at certain parts of the country, the numbers of reservists are not.... DND, because of the tempo of operation, is using more and more reservists on its missions overseas, and when the reservists come back, they go back into their communities. We do a transition interview and what have you, but others who are regular forces members stay at the base or stay with their group.
The point I'm making here is that to try to reach out to these people, we're trying a number of pilots, and one of the things we're doing is we're writing.... British Columbia has a really high percentage of reservists, particularly in the lower mainland, so we're doing some things there a little bit differently. When I was in B.C., I talked to the gentleman who is in charge of the reservists, and we're working at trying to connect to them in two ways. First, we send out follow-up letters to them: we know you are a reservist and that you served in Afghanistan--and by the way, we want to remind you that if you have any needs, we are here, this is our phone number, call us if you need anything.
Also we're working through our network. There are some things we're doing in Ontario. We made contact with all the reserve units to ask whether they know of people who may be at risk, because if a soldier comes back from a mission and is no longer going to the parades every weekend, it could be an indication he just doesn't want to do that any more or it could indicate he is withdrawing. And maybe when you look into it you find that not only is he not going to parades, you find he quit his job, and there are complaints at social services vis-à-vis some interactions with the family.
So no one solution fits all, and that's why I say you have to come at it in a multi-faceted way. You've got to come at it on the ground and you've got to have your people on the ground making the connections you need, because a directive from me in headquarters is probably not going to be the most effective way to get the results we need.