ACVA Committee Report

Supplementary Report of the New Democratic Party (NDP)

The backlog of disability benefit claims at Veterans Affairs Canada has been a known issue since 2016. Since then, veterans and their families have been reassured time and time again that the Minister and senior staff at Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) are working on solving the problem.

Despite those assurances little progress has been made. The Committee heard repeated testimony of the deep frustration and neglect felt by veterans at the lengthy delays in the processing of their applications. The backlog continues to grow out of control while the government continues to postpone the implementation of policy solutions. This does not inspire confidence in the government’s ability to eliminate the backlog and make supports rapidly available to veterans who desperately need them.

The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) was clear in its report; to prevent the backlog in disability benefit claims at VAC from worsening, the temporary hires from June 2020 need to be made permanent. It is completely unreasonable to assume that improvements in VAC’s processing times alone will be able to fill a 300-employee gap, yet the Minister would not commit to making these hires permanent at this time[1].

Yves Giroux, Parliamentary Budget Officer, responded to the suggestion from VAC department officials that his report is unhelpful and does not take all information into account:

“The report we drafted and provided to you and to parliamentarians takes into consideration improvements that were mentioned, such as digitization of files. It takes into consideration what we were told by Veterans Affairs were improvements that they made. It's a bit surprising for me, personally, to hear that there are further improvements the department is undertaking, which will further reduce the backlog, without my office and me having been informed of that while we were drafting the report.” [2]

Virginia Vaillancourt, President of the Union of Veterans Affairs Employees, expressed concern about these temporary announcements:

“… we welcome the additional resources that are coming, directed towards this problem, but there are two basic flaws with this particular plan.

…it is proposing another temporary solution to a permanent problem. We have been through this process of putting in temporary or surge resources to address problems in one area and hoping to reduce the pressure on the system.”[3]

The NDP believes that the people who served and continue to serve this country deserve timely supports from their government after suffering mental or physical injuries in the line of duty.  No veteran should experience undue suffering or be inflicted with sanctuary trauma by the very department that exists to serve them. Assurances are not enough; veterans need and deserve swift action.

NDP Recommendation:

That the government, Minister and VAC fully implement all the Parliamentary Budget Office recommendations as quickly as possible.