Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs

Comité permanent des anciens combattants

For immediate release

Ottawa, December 09, 2016 -

Today, Neil Ellis, Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs (ACVA), presented a report on the delivery of services to Canadian veterans. The Committee’s goal was to a provide an overview of the way in which the many programs and services of Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) are delivered to veterans and to identify the barriers that sometimes prevent veterans from taking full advantage of them. “What we found was that these programs and services are not widely known and are far too complex. Moreover, they do not ‘reach’ veterans in most cases. Instead, veterans themselves must go to great lengths to seek them out. Therefore, the entire approach to service delivery should be reconsidered in order to simplify the process and reverse the burden of the system,” said Ellis.

The report is divided into four sections. The first presents a look back at the last decade, which saw profound changes take place within VAC. The second section describes what could be called the departmental “culture,” which was heavily criticized during this study and is, according to a number of witnesses, the source of many problems associated with service delivery. The third section deals with the transition from when a member of the military is injured or becomes ill to when he or she leaves the Canadian Armed Forces and becomes a veteran. A successful transition is without doubt the best guarantee of a veteran’s long-term well-being. The fourth section discusses issues surrounding the delivery of specific services: the department’s handling of so-called secondary injuries or illnesses; long-term care programs; professional training; the key role of case managers; families; mental health; and sexual harassment.

The report contains 18 unanimous recommendations on a wide variety of topics, including the two that follow:

• That medically releasing members be considered released only once Veterans Affairs Canada has made a final adjudication on their applications for benefits and once all health, rehabilitation and vocational services have been put in place.

• That the Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Canada work together to create a one-stop shop, or “concierge service”, through which one individual would serve as the single point of contact for medically releasing members and would coordinate the services offered by the Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Canada before, during and after release.

In conducting this study, the Committee held 25 meetings and heard over 70 witnesses, beginning in March 2016. The Members would like to offer their sincere thanks to those witnesses for their contributions, and they hope the report accurately reflects the many points of view that were expressed.

The report can be viewed online at the Committee’s website.