Proceedings of the Subcommittee on
Veterans Affairs

Issue 1 - Evidence for October 24, 2001

The Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs of the Standing Senate Committee on Defence and Security met this day 5:30 p.m. to examine and report on the health care provided to veterans of war and of peacekeeping missions; the implementation of the recommendations made in its previous reports on such matters; and the terms of service, post-discharge benefits and health care of members of the regular and reserve forces as well as members of the RCMP and of civilians who have served in close support of uniformed peacekeepers.

Senator Michael A. Meighen (Chairman) in the Chair.

[English]

The Chairman: I see we have a quorum.

We are pleased to have representatives from the Royal Canadian Legion. Mr. Jim Rycroft is Director of the Service Bureau; Duane Daily is Dominion Secretary; and Gordon Beech is a Service Officer. Welcome, gentlemen.

Mr. Duane Daly, Dominion Secretary, Royal Canadian Legion: The legion is honoured to be here. The Senate Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs has traditionally been a powerful voice influencing Veterans Affairs Canada to modify, and in some cases to implement new, laws, regulations and policies to better accommodate the changing needs of veterans. The legion brings its practical experience in the disability pension field before the committee to suggest changes for further improvements.

A significant focus for us is to work towards improvements in the disability pension system and related benefits. Veterans Affairs Canada seems to have paid close attention to the crucial implementation of standards of long-term care for veterans. We are also actively discussing improvements to prisoner-of-war benefits with the department.

In the opinion of the legion, Veterans Affairs Canada is a very progressive department. Under the leadership of the former minister of Veterans Affairs, the Honourable George Baker, and now the Honourable Ron Duhamel and Deputy Minister Larry Murray, significant strides have been made in a number of areas. We are particularly pleased with the Merchant Navy compensation package, the extension of veterans status in Bill C-43 and the authorization of funding for an additional 2,600 veteran beds throughout the country.

Recently, the parameters of the Veterans Independence Program, which enables ailing veterans to remain in their homes as long as possible, were expanded significantly. However, the department still has a major step to take - to expand the VIP to surviving spouses for life, as long as there is a need. Achieving this objective is the top priority of the legion.

There is always more to be done. Our main focus today is to outline some of those problem areas and to suggest solutions.

The disability pension process has been significantly improved as a result of pension reform implemented in September 1995. However, application decisions are taking longer on average to be made and published than a year or so ago. The problem lies with the steps prior to adjudication in the complex and convoluted environment in which pension officers, bureau lawyers of Veterans Affairs Canada and service officers of the legion work to obtain information to support a claim. We will continue to work with the department to seek improvements in process.

I would ask our Director of the Service Bureau to provide some detail.

Mr. Jim Rycroft, Director, Service Bureau, Royal Canadian Legion: Our service officer network of over 20 full- or part-time command service officers and some 1,600 volunteer branch service officers works well. In cooperation with Veterans Affairs Canada, we represent veterans and survivors at all levels of the disability pension process. Many of our service officers have served in the Canadian Forces and have first-hand observations that can be useful in dealing with that environment. A revitalization of the system through a modern version of the veterans charter might go a long way to improving the current situation.

The primary focus of our concern today has to do with the appeal process. I am referring to the review and appeal panel hearings of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. Currently, their decisions are made and published faster than they were prior to pension reform. It is also true that many decisions are favourable to the veterans whose cases come before the board. Further, the board recently initiated a one-member panel process to deal with cases expeditiously. That is as it should be.

However, the legion, through its service officers, perceives significant problems with the policy and process of the board in a few critical areas. The first is the inability and unwillingness to provide interpretations under the Veterans Review and Appeal Board Act. A formal process mandated by the act allows a particularly difficult or problematic section of legislation to be interpreted by the board for the clarification and guidance of board members, advocates - that is, both legion service officers and Bureau of Pensions Advocates lawyers - and the clients themselves.

The Chairman: Is that like an advance ruling?

Mr. Rycroft: No, it is more of a policy determination. Section 30 of the VRAB Act permits the advocates of the legion or the bureau to ask a question related, for example, to what this section of the act means or what this policy means to the board in this context, and then, rather than ruling on a specific case, they will give us a generic ruling or a clarification of policy of process.

In the five years since its inception, the board has been unable or unwilling to hold a single interpretation hearing. The Bureau of Pension Advocates and the Dominion Command and Pacific Command of the Royal Canadian Legion have requested interpretations during the past five years. All have been rejected.

As a result of this impasse, the Dominion Convention of the legion passed two resolutions, each of which provided $30,000 in funding to challenge two issues in the courts that have proved to be particularly frustrating for us and those we represent. The first of these is a constitutional challenge to the budget legislation of 1995, legislation that cut off Allied veterans who did not have pre-war domicile in Canada from veterans benefits such as War Veterans Allowance. After entreating the Veterans Review and Appeal Board to interpret the War Veterans Allowance Act in the context of the rights provided by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the legion finds itself in a position of having to present an individual case through the multi-level system, and then, if dissatisfied with the result, apply to the Federal Court for judicial review, requesting the court to strike down the provision that precludes Allied veterans resident in Canada from being eligible on the grounds that it discriminates on the basis of national origin and therefore offends the Charter of Rights.

The second interpretation issue for which the legion resources must now be expended in a court challenge has to do with the treatment of hearing-loss cases. It is the legion's view, and a view that is held by the Bureau of Pensions Advocates, that the VRAB is not properly applying departmental policy on hearing loss. I can answer questions and provide details to the extent that you want to explore this issue. The intransigence of the board in this area has meant that many clients with hearing-loss claims have had their cases put on hold for the past two years, until this matter can be formally sorted out.

We would not be in this situation had the board either adopted its own hearing-loss policy or properly interpreted the hearing-loss policy of the department. In summary, the VRAB Act provides for interpretation. The current board chairman has refused to invoke the process, a valuable and useful one that needs to be reinstated.

Mr. Daly: I would now like to turn to the February 1999 report of the Subcommittee of Veterans Affairs entitled "Raising the Bar: Creating a New Standard in Veterans Health Care." This report has had a powerful influence on the policy of Veterans Affairs Canada in moving towards a needs-based system. There are some 68 recommendations, of which the department has indicated to the legion that it has implemented or is actively pursuing about 60. The legion, for its part, will continue to watch and work closely with the department as it moves forward.

Perhaps the most tangible result touching on the matters raised in the Senate subcommittee report is the partnership between Veterans Affairs Canada and the Royal Canadian Legion in the area of seniors' housing. In April 2000, Veterans Affairs Canada seconded the Director of Veterans Land Act Administration to the legion where he currently serves as the legion's seniors housing coordinator. Veterans Affairs has also provided support staff and office space in Charlottetown at their expense. This is a significant contribution.

Recently, under the volunteer sector initiative, a grant of $300,000 has been awarded to the legion, which will work in partnership with other veterans organizations to study policy capacity in this relatively unexplored area.

The Chairman: I do not understand what that means. Do you mean, to study policy capacity in the unexplored area of seniors' housing?

Mr. Daly: Yes. We have not determined the exact approach that we will take. This money will allow us to assess those areas where the deficiency exists and to assess any role we could play, along with Veterans Affairs. We are very fortunate that the volunteer sector initiative has supported it financially, as we did not have the resources ourselves to fund a policy initiative of this magnitude.

Since its recent inception, the program has enabled a number of legion branches to explore and initiate seniors' housing projects.

As an aside, senator, you may know that today we are managing up to 9,000 seniors' housing units in the country. Those are from apartment-size units up to larger buildings.

Every successful project takes pressure away from expensive, long-term care residential solutions and aims towards providing assistive housing at a level appropriate to the need of the veterans and seniors who are able to reside there. We would be most willing to address any questions or comments that the subcommittee might have about this exciting new initiative, but I will now ask Mr. Beech to explain in more detail some of those seniors initiatives.

Mr. Gordon G. Beech, Service Officer, Royal Canadian Legion: In many ways, our housing initiative typifies legion interest and involvement in community and seniors issues. Our interest is driven in part by legion work as a veterans service organization where our obligation and experience with aging veterans and their spouses is transferable to senior citizens in Canada. Involvement with the Department of Veterans Affairs conducting disability pension work, promoting health care in veterans hospitals and securing Veterans Independence Program benefits provides insight into the needs of seniors. In addition, legion benevolent work provides a constant awareness of the number of seniors who manage as best they can on very limited means. While our interest, in large part, is due to our veterans service activities, it is also worth noting that some 45 per cent of legion members are indeed seniors.

The bulk of our seniors programs is delivered from our 1,600 branches in communities across Canada. The branches operate quite autonomously under our provincial command structure to provide programs tailored to the particular needs of the local community. Branches may include activities such as healthy living, group dining, foot care clinics, information and education, housing, security, emergency response, sports, safety, independent living, transportation and support groups.

Our policy framework for seniors issues is established with input from our veterans service and seniors committee, while our Dominion Headquarters oversees our national programs. In terms of health care, which is always an issue, the legion Gerontology Fellowship Program is a major endeavour that originated in 1981. At that particular time, there was little gerontology expertise in Canada. The legion provided grants to medical professionals, in many cases, to study abroad and to facilitate specialized-knowledge transfer to Canada. The program has been adapted and continues to this day.

Seniors are naturally concerned with health care. We have been engaged with Veterans Affairs and Health Canada in a national falls-prevention initiative aimed at creating awareness and transferring specialized knowledge to seniors and to medical professionals. In another partnership with Health Canada, the legion, along with 12 other seniors organizations, participates in the National Congress of Seniors Organizations, intended to consult and interact with government officials in the development of policy and legislation impacting seniors.

Mr. Daly: Veterans Affairs Canada and Health Canada are natural partners and sources of expertise for the legion's seniors program. Many other seniors organizations represent very specialized interests and, hence, the challenge for the legion is to provide guidance and a means for our members and seniors in their communities to access information and services rather than duplicate the efforts of others. We believe information technology is the key and, as such, encourage government initiatives such as Seniors Canada On-line as a complement to our own in-house communication.

We would be pleased to answer any questions.

The Chairman: Thank you for the succinct presentation. I am sure members of the committee would like to follow up on a number of issues with you.

Senator Hubley: I would like the say how delighted I am for the opportunity to sit in this evening.

I was a member of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board for some time before my appointment to the Senate. I am doubly interested in how you look at the work of the Board.

My question has to do with a situation that was brought to us as members of the Aboriginal Peoples Committee. In Western Canada, some legions are closing. I am wondering how the legion organization will then be able to address and follow the concerns of veterans in those areas?

Mr. Daly: It is a concern for us today. As indicated in this briefing, we do have 1,600 branches, but sustaining those branches has been a challenge. Not too long ago, we had a membership of just under 600,000. Today, we have about 465,000 members. As our population ages, we are becoming perhaps a less exciting opportunity for some Canadians than in the past. We are trying to reinvigorate and re-establish ourselves as an effective community-based organization.

The issues of veterans care and seniors support remain as two of the predominant aspects of our organization. We have set up a new strategic plan that we are in the process of implementing. It will focus on those issues and bring us more up to date with today's situation.

The Chairman: On page 2, you indicate that the top priority of the legion is to convince the department to expand the VIP to surviving spouses for life, as long as there is need. By that, do you mean if the spouse is in a position of need?

Mr. Daly: Yes.

The Chairman: There is a needs test there?

Mr. Daly: It refers to spouse or widow.

Mr. Rycroft: The context is surviving spouse. There is a one-year cushion at present. At that point, the one year finishes, then the Veterans Independence Program, which both spouses prior to the passing of the veteran were relying on, then evaporates. The aging widow - it is usually a widow - is then left in a position where she would like to stay in the home but no longer has support. The support was directed to the veteran in the Veterans Independence Program, but there was a collateral benefit for the spouse.

Certainly, in the mind of the veteran, that program was taking care of both of them - allowing both of them to live in the house. As the veteran contemplates his own passing, one of his primary concerns becomes what will happen to his spouse. We are trying to honour the veteran's wishes to take care of the surviving spouse. That is the proper thing for Canadians to do. If the Veterans Independence Program does not fill that need, then perhaps a provincial taxpayer, or some other person, will have to place the spouse into a long-term care facility, at a cost of $50,000 to $80,000 per year. The Veterans Independence Program could solve the problem for $2,500 to $4,000 per year.

The Chairman: You say there is a one-year period, and the position of the legion is that you are trying to persuade the department to continue the VIP for the life of the spouse.

Mr. Rycroft: In most cases, we are not talking about a long period of time, because the veteran is usually well on in years. The program is needs based. The need only comes with age.

The Chairman: This is a naive question and indicates my age and stage in life, but I assume no one fusses about the legal definition of "spouse" or "partner."

Mr. Rycroft: It is well-defined now.

The Chairman: A partner would be covered; correct?

Mr. Rycroft: Yes, a partner would be covered under the current legislation - as of one year ago.

The Chairman: I have highlighted a few areas, but please, honourable senators, if you have any comments, go ahead.

I am pleased, and I think other senators would be too, with the tone of the presentation. Things seem to be moving along the right lines and you appear to be pleased with the progress.

Senator Hubley would know about the review board, and that is what I wanted to ask about. What discussions have you had in respect of the interpretation matter? Where are you on that discussion with the board? Can you tell me why the board, under its present chairman, does not want to give an interpretation?

Mr. Rycroft: I met with the senior legal adviser of the board, Mr. Gene Dixon, today, and the indication I received was that the interpretation was too formal a process to effectively open the dialogue. Perhaps the legion would agree with that, if there were other channels of communication that were getting us down the track to good policy definition and so forth.

When I last spoke to the chairman, Mr. Brian Chambers, in September at our eastern service officers conference, he indicated a great willingness to launch into a dialogue that really had not ever been proposed by the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, in spite of five years' worth of attempts to engage the board in dialogue. I do not know whether this willingness to launch into a dialogue is because the board is now more comfortable, after five years of existence, to gauge itself; I am afraid the chair would have to say.

If the chair were able to sit down with the bureau pension advocates and talk about policy, which we all have to invoke at board hearings, that would certainly be one way, short of an interpretation, to address the issue. We would be delighted with that, but that has not happened. We started asking for a dialogue back in 1995 - time passes.

Senator Hubley: Given the service that you have provided to veterans, are you still seeing World War II veterans coming forward for the first time? What veterans would comprise the bulk of those now going to the legion?

Mr. Rycroft: I will give you rough figures, which will reflect the department's statistical analysis as well. About 60 per cent of our new clientele are post-Korea Canadian Forces veterans. Having said that, about 50 per cent of our clientele are World War II and Korea veterans, and there is even a rare World War I veteran.

A veteran is a legion client, not only for a lifetime, but until his or her spouse passes on. We tend to hold on to those clients. In terms of our new business, 40 per cent is WWII or Korean veterans, or their surviving spouses, who are often coming in for the first time.

In 1984 or so, the department changed the legislation to allow remarried spouses to continue the war pension, and yet we still have people who say that they did not know about that. For the first time, after 16 or 17 years, they are finding out they could have had this re-instatement. One of our challenges is to ensure that everyone who may have a benefit under the system is aware that they are eligible to have us represent them to obtain that benefit.

Senator Atkins: In respect of the hearing-loss cases, as I recall from other discussions we have had, there were criteria for establishing whether a veteran received benefits for loss of hearing. Do the criteria relate to medical records and battle experience?

Mr. Rycroft: I will summarize our dilemma with respect to hearing-loss cases. Under the Veterans Affairs policy, which the Veterans Review and Appeal Board applies, there are two categories by which one can measure hearing loss.

The first is a mechanical process that measures a certain decibel loss at a certain frequency. A straightforward, simple calculation will result in a hearing-loss determination.Those cases are relatively easy, although relating it to service or noise exposure can sometimes be an issue.

The problematic cases for us fall under the second part of the departmental policy, which indicates that, notwithstanding the arithmetic, a case has to be decided on its own merits. There have been cases where the audiologist's report has indicated a real hearing loss in a veteran but where the arithmetic did not support the finding. If you go back to the basic definition of a "disability" in the Pension Act, you will find that it is a generous one. It does not mention number crunching. A medically determined hearing loss is a real disability.

We are talking about situations where an individual is not able to hear when there is more than one person in a room. So, regardless of the numbers, that veteran is still disabled, certainly in our contention. Nevertheless, the Veterans Review and Appeal Board will not apply anything outside of the numbers that are referenced in the policy. That is our dilemma.

Senator Atkins: Can I assume that as veterans age the number of hearing disabilities in that population also increases?

Mr. Rycroft: Certainly, and perhaps Mr. Beech can comment because he works with individual clients more than I do. Maybe he will be able to illustrate with one or two examples some of the ways the criteria are applied to World War II veterans.

Mr. Beech: Hearing-loss cases are very much a numbers game. You tend to look for an audiogram at the time of release, which determines it.

Senator Atkins: Is that release from the service?

Mr. Beech: That is correct. That determines whether the disability existed at that time. For still-serving members, in cases we are seeing now, audiograms usually form part of the medical record. The Canadian Forces did not keep good records during the war and at various other times in its history. In addition, audiograms were not generally administered until about the mid-1960s. There are many people who served in World War II, or Korea, or post-war, who were exposed to intense noise associated with artillery fire, and there is no documentation in their files to provide that data.

As a result of an earlier interpretation hearing by the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, there tends to be an error in favour of the veteran. There is an assumption, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, that the hearing loss is attributable to service.

Senator Atkins: Does that apply to other injuries as well?

Mr. Beech: No, not to the same extent.

Senator Atkins: I ask that question because I understand that at the end of the war many veterans, even Korean War veterans, wanted to leave rather than go through the details and the experience of medical examinations. All they wanted to do was get out; therefore, there are not any back records. Those are the difficult cases for the veterans review board. They say they cannot help a veteran who does not have a medical history record. It makes it harder to give the veterans the benefits that they deserve.

Mr. Beech: I can confirm that situation. When someone has been away for six months, they are lined up in a recreation centre and are presented with a form to identify where they have been and whether they have any medical conditions to declare. The soldier knows if he does not declare a medical condition, he can go to his wife and family standing nearby. If he declares a medical condition, he will go to another line, and it will be another two or three hours before he is examined.

The common practice is to complete the form and go to see the wife and family. Later on, when he applies for a pension it is difficult for the Veterans Review and Appeal Board to give a fair interpretation. It is also challenging for the pension advocate to scrape together other evidence that would help convince the adjudication official that there is a valid injury interest there.

Senator Atkins: What about the cases where service personnel are not aware that they have a disability when they are discharged from the military. We are hearing that there are some medical disabilities that are developing as a result of shots that they have received while they are in the military.

Mr. Beech: Those are tough cases. It depends on the medical evidence available. In some instances, there is no medical evidence to determine the efficacy of an inoculation or a medication.

It is a long and involved process. It is just as long from an epidemiology point of view to attribute it to a particular inoculation. There are aspects of those cases that we might associate with Gulf War syndrome; however, various reports have said that there is no such thing. Veterans Affairs has bent over backwards to find valid medical conditions that are not the syndrome claimed but nonetheless are associated with service in that particular special duty area. That falls in a grey area.

Senator Atkins: I understand that the Americans are not acknowledging it; or are they?

Mr. Beech: I do not want to speculate because I am not sure which specific inoculations you refer to.

Senator Atkins: I am trying to think of the one that has been debated in the last two years. We had the example of the sergeant in the Canadian military who refused to take the shot.

Mr. Rycroft: That was an anthrax inoculation, as opposed to the one you are thinking of which is pro something, but I do not recall the term. It is interesting to note that the test for the servicemen is fairly generous. He or she does not have to show that it was a particular thing that caused the harm, only that it arose or was connected with that special-duty area.

Veterans Affairs is very good. If a service person goes to a special-duty area healthy and comes back sick, and it can be related in anyway, even if it is not known whether the source was depleted uranium, a shot or something else, that person could be found pensionable.

The Canadian test leaves the onus on the service person to make the claim and prove it. It is interesting to contrast that with the United Kingdom where, for the first seven years after the disability arises, the onus is put on the Crown to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the disability is not attributable to military service. Maybe it is time for Canada to take a look at a test like that, which is more generous at least for the first seven years.

Service people do not see why it should be up to them to prove that their service caused their injury. The British system almost entirely alleviates that burden.

Senator Atkins: It is worth noting that some 45 per cent of your members are seniors. I would have thought it would have been more than that.

Mr. Daly: We are pleased about that. Our message is getting out. We are recruiting more serving members of the military to become members of the legion. You may be interested to know that the legion has adopted a significant program to support morale-building activities for serving personnel.

The Royal Canadian Legion is now funding the show tours that go into Bosnia because the Crown is not providing the full support. We communicate to servicemen that if they want us to continue with these activities, they have to support us by joining the organization. We have been successful.

A couple of years ago, we instituted a new category. Previously, a person had to have served in some capacity or had to be a blood relative of someone who had served in order to join the legion. In 1998, we recognized that we were going to suffer if we did not open it up. There were many Canadians who wanted to join the legion because they believed in remembrance and wanted to work in the poppy campaign. Thus, we started the affiliate category. We have now opened our doors to all Canadians who would like to join the legion.

Senator Atkins: I do not think we use the legion enough to sell the credibility of the armed forces. We should be involving veterans. I have been on a number of Veterans Affairs trips to South Korea and Normandy. The veterans we travelled with are wonderful individuals dedicated and proud of their service.

The Chairman: I agree with Senator Atkins. I think members of the serving forces should go into the schools and talk to younger Canadians so that they do not only see somebody of my age, which is what they associate with veterans and remembrance. The younger soldiers are good examples of young Canada and would make a very strong impression on people in schools.

Mr. Daly: We are trying to consistently have a veteran and serving soldier speaking. The three of us before you represent that next generation of post-war members of the Royal Canadian Legion. We have made a strong point to members of the Armed Forces about who we are, what we could be doing and why we want them to join us. Many are accepting the offer.

The Chairman: Any other questions from senators?

Why does it take a greater amount of time for the department to make decisions on first application adjudications compared to the time required to prepare a claim?

Mr. Rycroft: Computerization. We believe it to be a blip, but it is worth mentioning. The client-service-delivery network is an expensive and sophisticated system designed to capture all the bits and pieces that had built up in a hodgepodge system before CSDN. This has been put together into an integrated, well-functioning package, which has been made available to legion service officers on their desktops as well. It contains all of the information and decision points about our clients that we need in order to precede in the system. That is the good news.

The bad news is that as with any new system there are always glitches. One of the glitches was that pension histories did not port over from the older computer systems into the new system. We had a hand exercise with in excess of 100 clerks putting in pension histories. They have put in some 28,000 of these pension histories. The department is probably back on track, but it took close to year.

Processing slowed down because without a pension history the adjudicators cannot adjudicate and decision points cannot be surpassed. We are all on hold waiting for the information to go into the computer system in order that we can proceed.

The long-term prospect is very bright. The short-term pain lasted about one year. According to the Assistant Deputy Minister of Veterans Services, Brian Ferguson, we have reached the point where we are out of the woods and things should speed up again.

Senator Hubley: Are the 9,000 units that you supply for veterans housing or seniors housing spread equally across the country?

Mr. Rycroft: I would think so. Those 9,000 units happened without organizing anything. Those are spontaneous projects by individual branches and they vary in the scope.

Both examples are in British Columbia. One project is a house that a branch bought for a veteran and his spouse and called it their housing project. I was capturing the data and asked for the name of the project. They gave me a street address. That was one housing project; nevertheless, it is one unit.

At the other end of the spectrum, which is more typical, are large assisted-housing unit. An example in Vancouver is the New Chelsea Society, which has been around since the mid 1950s. It has resulted in an ageing-place scenario. It is subsidized-rent housing with professionally managed trips to shopping centres, integrated home care and meals on wheels.

In part, the purpose of these projects is to try to even out those blips. The more well off provinces tended to contain the better off legion commands and branches and tended to be able to sponsor more housing projects.

One of our mandates is to even the playing field. We are hoping that this project will help us identify areas, such as places in the Maritime Provinces, that do not have the proportionate numbers and help us to even that skewed data. Most of the projects are in Ontario and British Columbia, and there are some in Alberta. If you were looking at Saskatchewan or the eastern provinces, the projects are quite light in numbers.

Senator Hubley: The legion plays an instrumental role in tracking or being the contact with Aboriginal veterans. I heard that many of the legion branches are closing. Would that not wipe out that contact? Is there anything that you can do to have the service officer contact these people and encourage them to apply?

Along the same lines, how are you able to address different customs and cultures? Sometimes cultural differences become a barrier for these people to apply.

Mr. Rycroft: One of the refreshing things I found in doing some research on native veteran issues was how progressive the legion was even back in 1926 and 1927, shortly after its inception, in advocating rights for veterans on the basis that those who serve their country were without distinction in terms of colour, race or creed. I came across some correspondence, progressive by today's standards, asking why the government was not treating all veterans the same?

That has been the approach of the legion, as far as back as I have been able to find records. Having said that, another nice thing about the legion is our membership is not exclusive. A person can belong to the Royal Canadian Legion and can belong to a native veterans association. The two are not inconsistent; they tend to be complementary.

We have linked in to native veterans who belong both to the legion and to veterans' organizations for Aboriginals. We have invited the leaders in these organizations to share their agenda items with us so that we can complement that when go forward with our resolution.

We have opened the dialogue. We have had a number of issues that have gone forward to benefit all veterans.

You mentioned a significant issue with respect to cultural aspects. I will tell you where we are with that issue. At the risk of being called paternalistic, the legion tends to take the hand of the veteran or spouse. We walk whomever we are representing through the system and take that bureaucratic burden from the person. We work for them. We report back to them. We will do what we can under the system for that person. That works well for everyone. That formula seems to be a success even in this environment.

Senator Atkins: This may be a naive question. Could you define veteran for me?

Mr. Daly: We recently produced a definition. This has been a concern that we have had for a long time, particularly in dealing with the processes of government that would only react to war veterans.

Today, we define a veteran as anyone who has served and has been honourably discharged from the armed forces.

Senator Atkins: Not necessarily someone who has had wartime service?

Mr. Daly: That is right. We refer to those individuals as war veterans, which is a distinct group requiring our support. The other group is made up of veterans who have been honourably discharged.

Senator Atkins: The term veteran includes anyone who joined the service, served and receives an honourable discharge; correct?

Mr. Daly: A veteran is any person who is serving or who has honourably served in the Armed Forces of Canada, the Commonwealth or its wartime Allies or has served in the merchant navy or ferry command during wartime. The Government of Canada has responded to this through the leadership of Veterans Affairs through the Department of National Defence. They have come up with a definition of veteran, and they have removed the part about anybody person who is serving and are saying that it is anybody who has served and been honourably discharged.

Senator Atkins: Not just during wartime.

Mr. Daly: That is correct. People who have been bloodied in Bosnia are veterans. People who operated in cold war situations who were not injured are still veterans.

The Chairman: Is there anything you would like to add?

Mr. Daly: It has been a pleasure to discuss these points this evening. We appreciate the invitation and the opportunity.

The Chairman: On behalf of all senators, we look forward to a continuing dialogue. We will be going to the Maritimes with a part of the larger Security and Defence Committee at which time we will have an opportunity for a first meeting with Mr. Murray. We will discuss some of the matters you have raised today and discuss the issues remain outstanding under raising the bar. It is an excellent senate report and has been helpful.

We thank you for giving us an excellent start.

The committee adjourned.