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Results: 121 - 135 of 393
View Luc Desilets Profile
BQ (QC)
I now want to hear your views regarding the transfer of the file of a military member who leaves the military and becomes a veteran.
In your opinion, is there a simpler way to transfer information from one department to another? I know that, in terms of confidentiality, the issue isn't clear or straightforward.
I want to hear your views on the matter.
Robert Thomson
View Robert Thomson Profile
Robert Thomson
2020-11-16 16:50
In my case, it took four months for CAF to transmit all the files, to get all the files from my personal doctor to Veterans Affairs, and that's apparently when they start the timing. They don't start the timing when you first apply. They start the timing once they've received all the paperwork. If that takes four or five months for CAF and other doctors, that just increases the wait time and the pressure on the member.
View John Brassard Profile
CPC (ON)
Yes. They have been shut down since March and aren't expected to open until January, if then.
Mr. Heilman, I have a question for you. It's more of curiosity and concern.
The Canadian Forces medical staff diagnoses are often the reason that people are being medically released, but there's still some reluctance on the part of Canadian Forces medical personnel to provide the details of the injuries that are related in order to adjudicate the benefits of the claim. Why is there a continuation of this that seems to happen, this reluctance among Canadian Forces medical personnel to provide that information to VAC, which would help in the adjudication and claims processing process?
Brock Heilman
View Brock Heilman Profile
Brock Heilman
2020-11-16 17:02
I am not a clinician myself. I don't work in the clinics. I work at the headquarters, so I can't discuss what would be in the mindset of the clinician. What I can tell you is that they are absolutely dedicated individuals and are wanting to do nothing more than provide the best health care possible. The second they have the possibility to offer a diagnosis, they do that. In my 21-year military career and my six years at the headquarters working with CFHIS, I have never seen a doctor take their time to provide a diagnosis.
View Andy Fillmore Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Andy Fillmore Profile
2020-11-16 17:03
Thank you very much, Chair.
I want to say a sincere thanks to all the witnesses for giving us their time and the benefit of their expertise today.
I'd like to say particular thanks to you, Mr. Thomson, for your service and for sharing some of your afternoon. I'd like to follow up on something you said about information sharing and pose a few questions to Mr. Heilman.
Mr. Heilman, I heard your reluctance to get into the question of whether it's CAF or VAC that should be in the business of attributing the cause of an injury to military service. It appears that one way we can avoid needing to change the way attributions are made is to improve the way that information is shared between the departments. I think Mr. Brassard was touching on this as well just now.
On that point, relating to the backlog, in your view what information, if any, between the two departments is currently not being shared that would be relevant to a veteran's claim and that could be improved? What are we missing here?
Brock Heilman
View Brock Heilman Profile
Brock Heilman
2020-11-16 17:04
Now that we are moving CFHIS directly into the hands of VAC adjudicators, there is no information, or no immediate information, that will be missing other than paper records that will need to be scanned into CFHIS. That being said, the amount of time it takes to scan a record is measurable by us, certainly. For some files it can take an hour. For files that are much more complex, it can take a full day.
It is getting much better. I am a veteran and I was medically released, so I have skin in this game. Some of these people are my friends. Some of these people were my soldiers and some of them were my peers. I am definitely doing absolutely everything I can, and I have the full support of my chain of command to do everything I possibly can to expedite this file transfer as quickly as I possibly can.
View Rachel Blaney Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Heilman, I'll ask you a question. First of all, I want to thank you for your service and thank you for sharing the skin that you have in the game. I really appreciate the hard work that you're doing, and I know that it obviously matters a lot to you.
Especially in our last testimony, we heard the former military ombudsman talk a lot about having more responsibility given to CAF to diagnose, tell people where they are and then pass that on to VAC, and just have VAC be more of the implementation branch of this process. We know that so many people are getting held up in that transition between the medical records process.... I appreciate the work that you're all doing on fixing that. Then we could allow VAC to implement that process but then also do any follow-up on injuries that may come at a later time, because we know that some folks walk out the door of CAF and then several years later find out that there's something else that is a challenge for them.
I'm just wondering if you've heard about what the former military ombudsman said, and if you have any thoughts on whether that process would actually work and help us streamline this process so that our veterans get the support they need in a more timely manner.
Brock Heilman
View Brock Heilman Profile
Brock Heilman
2020-11-16 17:13
Mr. Walbourne and I met when I first took over the job. I had several ideas about how I wanted to act, but I had files transferred to VAC so I did work quite closely with him. We met just one on one and shared some of our ideas. What I'm seeing today is some of those ideas for expeditious file transfers come to fruition. Specifically, the grand vision we had was to get the electronic health record directly into the hands of Veterans Affairs. I'm happy to say that we have started that and it has proven to be successful, and we have been able to give Veterans Affairs direct access to the health record.
I will tell you that the surgeon general, Major-General Bilodeau, and the commander, Admiral Patterson, are both very close to their friends in Veterans Affairs. They're dedicated to closing the seam and working collegially with VAC to expedite this file transfer and get it going as quickly as we possibly can.
View Cathay Wagantall Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you.
First of all, very quickly, Mr. Heilman, thank you for what you're doing. This has been a long time in coming, as you are aware. This term “closing the seam” has been part of the conversations at this committee since 2016.
You've mentioned a couple of times things around the electronic records that you're getting to VAC now. However, you say when “VAC requests” and “when the member requests”.
In looking at this down the road and with the potential for more cases out of COVID, we want to be ahead of the game. Is there not a way for the Canadian Armed Forces to create a form right now that goes out to every member and tells them that to expedite their case, if and when it would be needed, please sign here that they recognize that their files will be available at VAC immediately, and that by signing this they are agreeing to have those files transferred to VAC?
Would that not work? Please answer yes, no or give a quick explanation of why.
Brock Heilman
View Brock Heilman Profile
Brock Heilman
2020-11-16 17:15
Yes, ma'am. Technically anything is possible. I'm not aware right now of where the minds of the transition group—who would be specifically responsible for that piece—rest on that specific item.
I will tell you that the second that VAC asks us for a file, it is a simple click of a mouse to add that person into what they can see.
View Marie-France Lalonde Profile
Lib. (ON)
We are sorry we were late.
I want to go back through some of the recommendations. We talked a little about the work that's being done, and I know that it doesn't seem to be going as fast as we hoped, but on the information between the Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs in terms of transitioning the information, do you think that is very relevant? Do you believe that would certainly help?
Robert Thomson
View Robert Thomson Profile
Robert Thomson
2020-11-16 17:24
I think it would. As soon as the military has decided a member is going to be medically released, that information should be forwarded to Veterans Affairs, because I believe that nine times out of 10 that member will be submitting an application if they haven't already. If that information is already in Veterans Affairs' hands, that should—Mr. Bouchard could verify this or argue it—help in the length of time it takes to complete a file and have a decision made.
Mark Agnew
View Mark Agnew Profile
Mark Agnew
2020-11-16 11:14
Thank you, Madam Chair and honourable members, for the invitation to speak as part of the committee's U.K. study. It's a pleasure to be back here and to see you all again virtually.
As the committee's members will appreciate, the U.K. is a significant trading partner for Canada. It's our third-largest goods export market and second-largest destination for foreign direct investment abroad. As Trevor alluded to a moment ago, it's quite important, particularly in the EU-28 context, with 40% of our merchandise exports and 36% of our service exports from the EU-28 going to the U.K.
Despite the impressive overall rankings, it still is an overall small proportion of our global trade share, behind the United States. The relationship, we feel, has the potential to grow, and certainly Britain is an ideal market for Canadian companies seeking to diversify, given our shared language and ways of doing business.
With the EU separation question firmly decided in the U.K., we need to look ahead to dealing with the world as it is. The reality means that, once the U.K.'s transition period with the EU ends on December 31, the U.K. will no longer be treated as if it were a party to CETA by the Government of Canada. Given how important the U.K. is as part of the EU-28's export basket, the short answer is that Brexit matters for Canadian businesses.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has not completed our own in-house modelling, but some external work serves as a rough guide for what the potentials are. Canadian economist Dan Ciuriak conducted an analysis in 2018 as part of the British government's CETA impact assessment. The study found that by 2030 the value of the U.K.'s participation in CETA would be worth about £1.1 billion, or approximately $1.9 billion Canadian in terms of Canadian exports to the U.K.
Although this is definitely not a precise measurement, given that we don't know the final architecture of the U.K.'s trade arrangements with the EU and Canada and that we don't know what the U.K.'s final picture will be in 2030, given that the study was done with a 10-year time horizon, and that we also have divergences in the U.K. and EU's MFN tariff rates, it nonetheless provides at least a decent rough signpost on the potential for what a U.K.-Canada trade deal means to the Canadian economy.
I'd like to just be a bit more specific now on some of the immediate implications of not having a transition agreement in place by December 31.
The first is tariffs. Canadian businesses will lose preferential access to the U.K. market, making our products less competitive. Some examples of where we would face tariffs under the U.K.'s global tariff regime include lobster products, with tariffs of up to 10%; plastics under HS 3908, with tariffs of up to 6%; vehicles under HS 8703, with tariffs of up to 10%; and beef products under HS 0201 with an ad valorem tariff of up to 12%, plus specific tariff units per kilogram.
I should add here a note that Canadian beef products have a TRQ under CETA and certainly any TRQs that are transposed into a U.K.-Canada context need to be commercially viable for Canadian companies to take advantage of them.
The second, which we will not have without a transition agreement in place, are the discussions around regulatory co-operation. CETA provides a framework for critical regulatory dialogue to occur on agriculture non-tariff barriers and through the conformity assessment protocol. Regulatory co-operation is not glamorous; it's the nuts and bolts of trade and absolutely critical. Our trade agreements have an important role in shining a spotlight on the work that regulators do to make sure that issues are advancing in a timely manner for businesses. Certainly agriculture non-tariff barriers have been quite problematic in the EU context, and we hope that the U.K. will eventually take a different approach.
The last is service exports. CETA's temporary entry chapter provides provisions on intra-company transferees, and this means that Canadian companies can bring in specialized talent to work in Canadian operations. CETA's contractual service suppliers' provisions mean that specialized skills can be brought in to fill supply chain gaps for Canadian businesses. CETA provisions on these entry categories reduce business burdens and, without them in a U.K. context, companies will need to use other routes that are more cumbersome.
Simply put, if CETA matters, then transitioning it into a bilateral agreement also matters. We have been working closely with our U.K. counterparts at the Confederation of British Industry to advance this and will continue to do so until the deal is done.
Certainly we hope this committee will be able to facilitate an expeditious passage of the implementing legislation once the agreement is finalized.
As members of the committee will appreciate, everything you do in trade builds on what came before it. CETA was the gold standard when it was negotiated, but the Canada-U.K. transitioning agreement should be seen as a starting point for going further.
I'd like to quickly highlight five areas where we think we can do this.
Number one is digital trade. Since CETA's negotiation, global trade discussions on digital trade rules have taken on a much bigger focus. This includes the WTO as well as our digital trade chapters in CPTPP and CUSMA. Discussions with the U.K. on digital trade should support better data flows by Canadian companies.
Number two is regulatory co-operation. The future gains on merchandise trade will ultimately be determined by reducing non-tariff barriers given how low tariff rates are for most products. This is particularly important for Canadian agriculture exporters, as I alluded to a moment ago, where it's been a tough slog in the EU. There's also forward-looking work that we can do in areas like health sciences procurement as well as cybersecurity.
Number three is critical minerals. The global supply of rare earth minerals that enable the production of many high-tech products remains dangerously concentrated. Future discussions between the U.K. and Canada should facilitate greater private sector production and movement of these rare earth extractive products.
Number four is trade facilitation. The pandemic has emphasized the value of the efficient movement of goods globally. Canada and the U.K. should explore ways to introduce additional measures that would modernize customs processing in CETA, and build on the free trade agreement from the WTO.
Number five is labour mobility. Enhancing the ability of companies to attract talent and access service contracts abroad is critical to diversifying what you're exporting, not just to where. Activities like after-sales servicing can actually be more lucrative for companies than the original export itself, so we should try to be ambitious in how we approach this business activity.
Without a bilateral agreement in place, certainly these five areas, and work on other areas like sustainability, will be difficult to go further on.
Thank you for your consideration, and we look forward to the discussion.
Results: 121 - 135 of 393 | Page: 9 of 27

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