RECOMMENDATIONS SINCE 2006

The government’s initial commitment to make the NVC a “living document” led to the creation of two main advisory groups: the Special Needs Advisory Group (SNAG), and the New Veterans Charter Advisory Group (NVCAG).[1]

Between 2006 and 2009, these groups made 294 recommendations:

• Special Needs Advisory Group:
• SNAG 1: 26 January 2006, 80 recommendations;
• SNAG 2: 16 November 2006, 45 recommendations;
• SNAG 3: 14 December 2007, 86 recommendations;
• SNAG 4: January 2009, 6 framework recommendations. Summary of observations and shortcomings.[2]
• New Veterans Charter Advisory Group: A single report submitted in June 2009 with 77 recommendations, including 16 broader “framework” recommendations.

In June 2010, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs (ACVA) tabled a report containing 18 recommendations,[3] and then the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence (VEAC) submitted nine recommendations to the government in its March 2013 interim report.[4]

Lastly, in anticipation of the planned parliamentary review of the Enhanced New Veterans Charter Act two years after it came into effect, Veterans Ombudsman Guy Parent submitted 20 recommendations in a June 2013 report, which is based on an actuarial analysis and provides a context for the parliamentary review.

This resulted in a total of 341 recommendations. We determined that 120 of these recommendations could be discarded since they were made in some form or with a similar intent more than once. That means there are a total of 221 distinct recommendations.

However, these recommendations do not all have the same scope. Of these 221 recommendations, 164 would require internal administrative changes within the Department, focusing mostly on best practices to be adopted in terms of case management and rehabilitation management. We estimated that at least a third of these 164 recommendations have been implemented.

That leaves 57 more important recommendations, whose implementation would require a legislative or regulatory amendment. Of these, 8 have been fully or partially implemented since 2006.

Concurrently, the government conducted its own full evaluation of NVC programs. Five reports were prepared between June 2009 and March 2011.