THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON VETERANS AFFAIRS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, April 15, 2026
The Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs met this day at 12 p.m. [ET] to examine and report on issues relating to Veterans Affairs, including services and benefits provided, commemorative activities, and the continuing implementation of the Veterans Well-being Act.
Senator Dawn Anderson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, welcome to this meeting of the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs.
Before we begin, I would like to ask all senators and other in-person participants to consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents.
I am Dawn Anderson, a senator from the Northwest Territories and chair of this subcommittee. I am joined today by my fellow subcommittee members, whom I welcome to introduce themselves.
Senator Ince: Good afternoon. Thank you for being here. Tony Ince from Nova Scotia.
Senator White: Good morning. Thank you for being here. I’m Judy White. I am filling in for Senator Tracy Muggli. I’m from Newfoundland and Labrador, and Tracy Muggli is from Saskatchewan.
Senator MacAdam: Welcome. I’m Jane MacAdam from Prince Edward Island.
Senator McNair: Welcome. I’m John McNair from New Brunswick.
The Chair: Colleagues, today, we have the pleasure of welcoming Colonel (Ret’d) Nishika Jardine, Veterans Ombud, and Mr. Duane Schippers, Deputy Veterans Ombud. We have invited Ombud Jardine and Mr. Schippers to discuss issues related to the mandate of the Office of the Veterans Ombud. Thank you both for joining us.
We will begin by inviting you to provide your opening remarks, to be followed by questions from our members. I remind you that you have five minutes for this opening statement.
[Translation]
Colonel (Ret’d) Nishika Jardine, Veterans Ombud, Office of the Veterans’ Ombudsman: Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee.
Thank you for inviting us to speak to you about our work.
[English]
As you may know, the main purpose of my office is to provide Canadian Armed Forces and Royal Canadian Mounted Police veterans and their families with an avenue of recourse when they feel they have been treated unfairly by Veterans Affairs Canada, VAC. The mandate also includes the identification and review of systemic issues that pose a gap or barrier to veterans’ equitable access to the programs and benefits established by Parliament for them.
Ultimately, we provide a path for a veteran or their family members to reconnect with the department with which they will be in a lifelong relationship for benefits that affect their well-being. Our recommendations are entirely based on this underlying focus to resolve unfairness in the department’s decisions, policies or even legislation.
Where veterans perceive unfairness, I can assure you they interpret that as a betrayal of the sacred trust with which they have given their service to Canada. When we seek benefits and services from Veterans Affairs, most of us do so from a place of trust in this institution that is, in our minds, there to take care of us when we have been injured or suffered illness as a result of our service. Veterans Affairs holds a unique place in the veteran community because of their role in administering veterans legislation.
Sadly, there are too many veterans who have completely lost trust in Veterans Affairs and, by extension, the government. A few days ago, you would have heard Senator Patterson speak about the retroactivity provisions within Bill C-15, provisions that have undoubtedly saved the government from the class-action lawsuits that were under way but that have, quite frankly, also worked to erode that sacred trust.
Our most recent systemic findings and recommendations have been made with the intent of rebuilding trust with Canada’s veterans. For example, our 2025 investigation into the Veterans Affairs Canada Internal Review Process found that the reasons provided by the department’s national first- and second-level appeals units often did not meet the requirements for fair reasons set out by the Supreme Court of Canada. The decision letters, in many cases, did not even address the concerns that the veteran had provided in their request for review; how frustrating to submit an appeal in the expectation that one’s points will be considered and then to receive what is essentially a form letter that does not meaningfully address those points.
Even more compelling, I believe, is our January 2021 recommendation for mental health treatment benefits for family members in their own right when the mental health issue is service-related. I am disappointed that this recommendation, which was accepted by Veterans Affairs, remains unimplemented, despite continued evidence that families are bearing the psychological costs of service without fair access to care. Imagine having to say to a widow whose suffering veteran spouse took their own life that Veterans Affairs can no longer provide mental health treatment for you and your children because the law won’t allow them to.
Most recently — and I imagine you are well aware of the media stories — a significant number of veterans have received overpayment letters from Veterans Affairs informing them that they were paid more income replacement than they were entitled to and that the amount must now be recovered. These letters to individual veterans include amounts in the tens of thousands of dollars. How can Veterans Affairs have missed the overpayments over several years?
Of course, I would be remiss if I did not also speak about veterans’ immense frustration with the rehabilitation program and how it is being delivered. Veterans have spoken of having their benefits threatened. This is because the Income Replacement Benefit is linked to participation in the rehabilitation program. The frustration we have heard makes me question whether there might not be a flaw in the program’s design. Certainly, the very high rate of veterans being determined to have a diminished earning capacity, which provides them with income replacement for life, begs the question of whether the program is delivering the right results for veterans.
Honourable senators, many veterans are satisfied with their interactions with Veterans Affairs Canada. They come up to me quietly and say, “I’m good. I couldn’t be happier.” But I cannot ignore the vehement expressions of deep distrust that I hear from a not-insignificant cohort of veterans and their families. I know they would welcome your interest in these issues that I have identified as well as others. You have been instrumental in effecting changes for the benefit of our veterans and their families, and I look forward to contributing to your work however best I can.
[Translation]
Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, Ombud Jardine.
We will now proceed to questions. In order to maximize the number of questions, four minutes will be allotted for each question, including the answer. I ask that you keep your questions succinct and that you identify which witness your question is directed to.
I would like to offer the first question to our deputy chair.
Senator Ince: Thank you very much for being here. My first question is regarding your oversight and accountability.
Of the 19 recommendations issued by your office, 6 were not implemented. What were those recommendations, and what reasons were provided by VAC for not implementing them?
[Translation]
Col. Jardine: Thank you for the question.
[English]
Over the almost 20 years that our office has been in existence, we have made over 100 recommendations to the minister to correct unfairness.
Are you referring to a specific report, senator?
Senator Ince: Actually, let me back up a bit. Just bear with me a second here.
Col. Jardine: No worries.
Senator Ince: Let us move on to someone else, and I will come back to you.
Col. Jardine: Of course.
Senator McNair: Welcome, again, to both of you. Thank you for your continuing efforts to rebuild trust for veterans.
Going through some of the documentation for this meeting, the Veteran Homelessness Program was launched to help prevent and reduce veteran homelessness. VAC’s departmental plan for 2026-27 sets a target of less than 0.3% of VAC clients experiencing or at risk of homelessness by March 2027, which is higher than the 2024-25 actual result of 0.2%.
Can you indicate, from your perspective or in your opinion, why VAC would set itself a target it has already met rather than one this program is truly meant to reduce?
Col. Jardine: Thank you for the question, senator.
I’m unable to comment on figures and percentages — that is not something we have looked into — but I can speak to my personal experience of travelling across the country, meeting with veterans in every province and territory, save Nunavut, and learning about veteran homelessness. I think it was in Fredericton at the men’s shelter where I asked the director, “How does this happen? Why is there homelessness?” There were not just veterans there, but we were focused on them. They “fall out of their families” is the way he expressed it.
I think the causes of homelessness for veterans and homelessness for Canadians writ large are probably similar. Are there exacerbating conditions for veterans? I’m sure there are. Service to Canada demands so much of you, and there may be veterans who struggle with reconciling that as they return to civilian life. Whatever it is that pulls them that way or down that road where they “fall out of their families” and find themselves without a home — these are the causes the department could focus on.
Senator McNair: Thank you. Of all the issues you have come across during your tenure as Veterans Ombud, where, in your opinion, would parliamentary intervention help most? What would you recommend this subcommittee study next?
Col. Jardine: Thank you for that question. There are real issues with the design of the rehabilitation program, which was put in place in 2006 with changes to veterans legislation. I believe 75% or more of the veterans who go through that program come out of it with what they call a “diminished earning capacity,” which, essentially, says, “We think you cannot work anymore.” So they receive the Income Replacement Benefit for life. In my opinion, it acts as a disincentive for them to return to the workforce. I can’t believe that 75% of veterans can’t work. I just cannot believe that that is true. It is something that we as a country need to be mindful of and ask, “What is wrong here?” Veterans have so much to contribute. Is this program delivering the results that it was designed to? I’m not certain that it is. This is something that Parliament could look into. It requires an in‑depth study.
Senator McNair: Thank you.
Senator Ince: Thank you so much. The question referred more to the fact that you did 13 systemic reviews, and you provided the Minister of Veterans Affairs with 19 formal recommendations. Of these, seven were fully implemented, one was partially implemented, two are in progress, two are under departmental review and six were not implemented.
Col. Jardine: Senator, you have a far more concise grip on the statistics of our recommendations than even I do. We know that it takes time for the department to implement the changes that we have identified. The most recent recommendations remain unimplemented, not yet addressed or maybe partially implemented. I think you are best placed to ask the department how they are doing on this progress. We annually publish a report where we go through every single recommendation that is still valid and publish it in something we call Spotlight, which gathers all that information. We ask the department to comment and provide us information about what is happening with each of these recommendations.
Some of them they don’t accept, but for the ones they do accept I think that question is fair. What’s the holdup?
Senator Ince: Thank you.
Senator White: Thank you both for your presentation, and thank you both for your service. It is very much appreciated. I wonder if you could talk a little about the difference and connection between veterans’ benefits programs under VAC and the commemorative programming aspects of VAC and the recognition of service. As parliamentarians, what should we know about those programs, and what do they mean to you?
Col. Jardine: The commemoration part is what you would see at Remembrance Day and the innumerable ceremonies that happen at the National War Memorial fairly quietly. We don’t do a lot of looking into the commemoration side of things, but my personal opinion, and I think most veterans would agree, is that Veterans Affairs does commemoration really well.
On the benefit side, of course, the department’s role is to simply administer the benefits and programs as they are laid out in legislation and regulations. Where we find unfairness is primarily in the policies they put in place to administer these benefits and programs. As I said in my remarks, most veterans are happy with what they get from VAC. They are able to fill out the paperwork. They put in their paperwork and get their approvals, or if they get denied they go through the process as it is laid out for them. Most of them are satisfied with what they get.
However, there are other veterans for whom even asking for help is a bridge too far because it goes against our ethos of being the ones who help and not being the ones who ask for help. When there is mental health involved, when they finally get around to asking for help, if they struggle with getting that paperwork done, if they get denied or there is friction, then for them, this is betrayal, because, as I said in my remarks, it is all about trust. VAC is supposed to be there for us, but then they get that friction.
It is not all veterans, but there is a cohort for whom this becomes betrayal, and now it is a fight to the death. They are angry and frustrated. They see their buddies getting their benefits, but they don’t get theirs. I firmly believe, after five years of being in this role, that the department needs to lean in for these veterans and offer more of a hand, saying, “I see you are struggling, and here is how we can help more or in a better way,” as opposed to responding, as they have to, to the anger, frustration, language, security bans and all of that. They have to do that because they are required to provide a safe workspace for their employees. These are public servants trying to do their best for veterans. They do not deserve to be sworn at and threatened on the phone.
But we have to look beyond that, I believe, for some of our veterans who are struggling.
I hope I have answered your question. Commemoration works well. For the most part, the department administers the benefits in a way that is satisfactory to veterans. But there are things that they do that erode that trust, and there are veterans who struggle with accessing the benefits and services that are there.
Senator White: I am wondering if you can help me understand by giving me a couple of examples. You have answered the question, but I’m just a visual person, so it would be helpful if you could give me a couple of examples.
Col. Jardine: Examples of where they struggle?
Senator White: Yes. Examples of where the policy is not applied or not implemented properly for them.
Col. Jardine: Absolutely. That is our systemic work. We have individual complaints, but in our systemic work VAC has an internal review process. For example, a veteran has been approved for a knee issue, and their doctor recommends a certain treatment that is not in the VAC formulary because it is a new treatment. The veteran calls up and says, “I want this treatment covered,” and they say, “No.” They are then given an appeal process. They write in for their appeal and say, “This is what my doctor prescribed,” and they raise their points. At least 70% or 80% of the time, these appeals are denied. That seems statistically wrong.
You will find the very in-depth review we did on our website. Please read the “Message from the Veterans Ombud,” where I lay it out in clear, plain language. We write for the VAC policy writers. We found that the way they do this work doesn’t reflect the standards set by the Supreme Court of Canada in making administrative decisions. They don’t even address the veteran’s point. They get a form letter.
The frustration is around this kind of thing. When we have to refer veterans to appeals, saying that they have to go through the first level of appeal, they throw up their hands and say, “Why should I even bother?”
Senator White: Thank you. That was very helpful.
Senator MacAdam: Thank you for being here today, and thank you for your service. I’m going to continue with the systemic reviews that you do. How do you select the reviews you undertake?
Col. Jardine: Thank you. We receive individual complaints. Those are really our bread and butter. The number of those is increasing over time. If we see a trend, or even if we see one complaint, that says to us that there is a problem here, a systemic issue. For example, there is a benefit called Additional Dependant Care, where, when you are in the rehabilitation program, the department will give you an allowance or amount to help pay for babysitting for your kids. That amount has not changed since 2006. If you have three kids and an elderly, unwell parent who rely on you for their care, the department can’t come close to covering what it truly costs for you to go away to an in-patient program. If you need to get overnight babysitting for six weeks for your three dependent children and your elderly mother who is unwell and that forces you into financial distress, there is an issue there. We only need one of those complaints to say that this is a real problem the department must and can address to make it better, to come up to the standard of what it costs today for people.
Senator MacAdam: Do you feel you have enough resources to do the reviews you want to do?
Col. Jardine: We are a tiny office. We have 30 people. I have three or four people doing these reviews. It takes us a year to do an in-depth study on something. We have managed with the budget and resources we have been given, but as complaints to our office have increased over the past three years, we have done a reorganization to put more resources on individual complaints. We are getting by at the moment.
Senator MacAdam: Okay. Now, you mentioned earlier about veterans reaching a point where they can appeal, but they sometimes throw up their hands and don’t bother appealing. There is also the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. I wonder if you could speak to your relationship with the Veterans Review and Appeal Board and how your work coordinates.
Col. Jardine: The Veterans Review and Appeal Board exists to provide recourse, the right to review and appeal, to veterans who have been denied their disability claim. For example, if I have served and have an injury or illness that I can relate to my service and a diagnosis, I would put in my claim to the department. If the department denies it, usually because they cannot connect it to service, my right of appeal is to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. There is zero overlap between the work they do and the work that we do. They deal with disability claims and certain other benefits. For the remainder, essentially, if they get denied, they can come to us at some point in that process.
If you have a disability claim for your knee, you are entitled to treatment benefits for the rest of your life. If, in the course of asking for those treatment benefits, whatever your doctors recommended, the department denies you that treatment, then you have recourse through us after you go through some steps.
Senator MacAdam: Thank you.
Duane Schippers, Deputy Veterans Ombud, Office of the Veterans’ Ombudsman: You are getting into some of the details of the structure of Veterans Affairs Canada. I would say that what you need to be aware of — and you may have seen this on the news — is that there has been a significant reduction in the Bureau of Pension Advocates, which exists to help veterans appeal and appear before the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. It is funded by the government to help veterans do this, but they have reduced their lawyers by about 33% going forward. There are already huge backlogs. There are going to be further backlogs as a result of these reductions.
They were given additional funding to help deal with the massive increase in the backlog and the claims. While VAC continues to have ongoing funding this last budget, that has not flowed through to the Bureau of Pension Advocates going forward, so there will be a gap in what the bureau can do to represent veterans in terms of time.
When you look at the appeal process, which is the other side, where we are involved, there is also a problem in the sense that it takes a few months to get a first-level review, but if you decide you are not happy with that, you are going to be waiting roughly a year now to get through to a second-level review. In terms of a decision on something relatively important — it could be the Income Replacement Benefit so that you can pay your mortgage — you might be waiting a year and a half to actually get a final decision from VAC before you can seek judicial review and before you can come to us. VAC takes a year for a second-level review, and it takes roughly six months for a judicial review. It is faster to go to court, but you cannot access it until you have exhausted the department’s review process.
Senator McNair: Back to employability, you talked about the fact that you cannot believe that veterans cannot work in certain circumstances and some of the stats you are hearing from VAC. In their departmental plan, they talked about how the proportion of veterans who are employed fell from 56% to 54% in 2024-25, despite 318 priority appointments in the federal public service from medically released veterans that year. To what extent is employment one of the main concerns you have been hearing about, and how well, in your opinion, is the government’s priority hiring program working? I’m curious to know whether you were aware or have heard from any veterans that the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires right of first refusal for guard services is expiring on March 31, 2027, and will not be renewed. As I understand, the Corps of Commissionaires is one of the largest employers of veterans.
Col. Jardine: We haven’t done any studies on the numbers that you speak of. I am well aware of the right of first refusal having been terminated by the minister. I’m not an expert on this at all. I would invite you to call in the Corps of Commissionaires, who can speak to this. I don’t know who employs the most veterans. It is outside of my mandate and what we would look at. I know it came as a shock to the Commissionaires that, after having this in place for 80 years, it was terminated.
Senator McNair: Talking about the increasing number of complaints and information requests for your office, which are up to, I think, 1,848 this year, I take it you have an expectation that they are going to continue to grow. You indicated earlier that you are currently making do with what you have, but when are you going to hit the wall on that? If it increases to 2,000 complaints, we are building a backlog that we are never going to be able to deal with.
Col. Jardine: Our service standard is that we will deal with an individual complaint within 60 business days. At the moment, we have been meeting that standard. I am aware we haven’t completed our annual report for this year, but regarding the 1,848, we expect that to be above 2,000 for this fiscal year that just ended.
Yes, we do have cases in our inventory that have yet to be assigned to an analyst. Are we coming close to that point where we are unable to keep up? We will take that to the department and ask for more resources when we arrive at a place where we are unable to move things around within our current resources and address that. But we want to be certain of our own statistics and that we have done everything we possibly can before I go to the department. In this era of fiscal tightening, if you will, we want to be 100% certain that we have a solid case to say that we are unable to meet our own targets anymore and that we need help with additional resources.
Senator McNair: I commend you on making a deadline of 60 business days and meeting that target now, but looking at what you are saying about having over 2,000 this year, I think you know that conversation is likely going to have to take place sooner rather than later.
Col. Jardine: Absolutely.
Mr. Schippers: To be honest, from a budget perspective, we were actually facing a cut in some of our funding for this year. It did not materialize, but we were asked and told to expect a cut. So I have to say right now that we’re grateful that we didn’t have a cut in this environment, but it remains to be seen if, in years two or three, we’ll have cuts in addition to the pressures of not being able to handle the complaint load.
Senator McNair: Thank you.
Senator MacAdam: You’ve touched on complaints in general from veterans around loss of trust with the department, but besides that overarching complaint, what are the biggest complaints? What programs or issues have the biggest complaints that are not just related to a general lack of trust?
Col. Jardine: The most common complaint we have is around treatment benefits. That’s when your doctor prescribes something, and the department says, “No, we don’t agree, and we’re going to deny that.” That has now become our most common complaint.
Recently, it was the overpayment situation. I think it started in the fall and went over Christmas and into the new year. I can’t recall the number of veterans who received those overpayment letters, but the amounts they needed to repay ranged from $50,000 to $80,000 because the department had not tracked the fact that they had overpaid them for five or six years. To receive one of those letters is heart-stopping, really. We have had a number of those complaints.
Unfortunately, we have to send them through the appeals process first because that’s the law. We have to tell them to go there, and then if they don’t get a resolution, they can come back to us.
But those are two examples: treatment benefits where the department disagrees with a doctor’s recommendation and says that they won’t pay, and this overpayment situation, of course, is a very serious one.
Mr. Schippers: If I can jump in on that issue, I think the question is this: why are these overpayments happening? Part of the problem is that VAC doesn’t have all the information it needs in a timely fashion.
So a veteran applies for the Canada Pension Plan disability, CPPD, benefit and starts receiving that. They might tell Veterans Affairs Canada, “I’m getting this now,” but there is no effective communication between the CPPD folks and Veterans Affairs. Similarly, with the Service Income Security Insurance Plan, SISIP, program, which is the veterans’ long-term disability program, a private program, they don’t know when you’ve finished that or when you’re on it, how fast you have come on it, your pension benefits and things that are deducted from income. There is no coordination.
You would think that in this day and age the government would be able to get its act together and have one payer to pay the veterans so you don’t end up with veterans being told they have an overpayment in the $70,000 to $100,000 range.
When you receive that letter, it is heart-stopping. It’s like, “How am I going to pay my mortgage?” It tells you, “You owe us this much money, and someone will be in touch.” It doesn’t say that they’re going to work out payment terms. That communication is grossly lacking. If they get a letter like this before Christmas, you can imagine what that does for the Christmas season for a veteran. They are not in that mental health space after receiving a letter like this.
Senator Ince: I’m going to ask a question on behalf of my colleague Senator Patterson.
I’ve heard her ask this question in several places before, and it’s about the so-called “gold-digger clause,” which denies survivor benefits to spouses or common-law partners of veterans, provided the relationship began after the veteran turned 60. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Col. Jardine: I’m going to defer to my legal colleague here to answer you.
Mr. Schippers: First of all, the “marriage over 60” clause is an exception to what normally applied. Normally, what applies in the public service generally is that when you stop contributing to the plan and retire, that’s it. If you get remarried after that, your spouse does not share in your pension.
If you’re in a marital relationship, common law or whatever, before you leave the pension plan, your spouse gets basically an ongoing payment of half your pension if you pass. The difference for the RCMP and veterans — and they both have this “marriage over 60” clause — is that many of them retire much earlier in life, so they will often retire after 20 years of service with a pension in both the RCMP and as a veteran.
So instead of saying, “If you remarry, there’s no benefit for the spouse,” we’re going to extend that until you hit age 60, which would be the normal retirement age if you’re in the public service or beyond, and at that point you can retire.
Now, it is probably worth looking at whether that is the appropriate age cut-off today, particularly given the impact of service on family relationships. You’re more likely to be divorced if you serve in the Canadian Forces and you’ve been away from your family. You are more likely to have that marital strife that leads to divorce and likely remarriage later in life.
So whether it shouldn’t exist at all versus whether it should be extended to 65 or 70 might be a different issue. But it merits some reconsideration on that side, given where we are today.
Even the public service pension plan changed in 2012 to increase the age limit before you can retire, and that is what we’re seeing. So maybe 60 is too young in today’s world. I like to think 60 is young still.
Senator Ince: It is. Thank you so much for that.
The Chair: Thank you. Given there are no senators in the queue or on the floor, I will ask a question.
What should we as senators take away from the Ombud today aside from the recommendation for the study? Are there two or three key things we can focus on to advance or support the Ombud and, by extension, the veterans?
Col. Jardine: Thank you for that question. Over the five years I have been in this role, the issue of trust is paramount. The department does great work.
My colleague spoke about communication. Why can’t Veterans Affairs communicate with veterans in a veteran-centric way? Why is their website impossible to navigate?
In the military and in the RCMP, we are used to being communicated with directly. Orders were issued in a very clear format. You knew where to be, at what time, wearing what clothes, and you better be 10 minutes early or you’re 15 minutes late, that kind of thing.
You can’t go on that website and find what you’re looking for because it is not laid out in a veteran-centric way. I understand they are bound by how the Government of Canada designs websites. It does not work for veterans. I have a master’s degree. I can’t find what I’m looking for. You need to know how to google in a better way than I can.
I have been advocating for this for over three years: Please, for the love of God, find a better way to talk to us. And a study by yourselves might have more weight than certainly what I’m able to impress upon the department. This is where they fall down. They make decisions, and they don’t think about the impact on the veteran community. Putting in that retroactivity piece in Bill C-15 on the accommodations and meals for long-term care affected our most elderly and disabled veterans. They made a mistake for 30 years. You can’t make whole every veteran, and most of them are gone, but maybe you could have done something and said, “We made a mistake in that.” To admit you have made a mistake and take responsibility goes a long way in the veteran community.
What I hear from veterans is that they cannot trust this department. They are forced to rely on it because it provides them with the benefits that have been laid out by Parliament for them, but they hate it.
It is sad because the department does good work, and I have seen them go well beyond the rules. They skate very close to the policy line for some things, and they do good work for veterans and their families. But, man, they can’t communicate about it.
I don’t know if I’ve answered your question well enough, but that’s what I would say.
The Chair: Thank you.
Do you have anything to add, Mr. Schippers?
Mr. Schippers: Oh, you shouldn’t have asked me that question.
What goes a long way to create trust is a common understanding of expectations. I am not sure there is a common understanding from Canadians about what they are giving veterans and what veterans are receiving and what they expect veterans to receive, and I’m also not clear that there is a common understanding of what veterans need and what their expectations are. What does financial security look like for a veteran? Do we have a common understanding of that, or do we just throw the term out and not actually know what that means? Is it that they are going to get paid what they were making in the military for the rest of their lives? What are we doing?
I would suggest that, short of a royal commission to look into this, the Senate might be uniquely placed to look into some of those issues.
There are at least three different plans out there now. You have the Pension Act, you have the New Veterans Charter in 2006 and then you have Pension for Life starting in 2019.
Depending on when you suffered your injury and when you applied, you could be getting different benefits and be treated differently than other veterans. I’m not sure that veterans care so much about what act is in place, but they look at their neighbour and say, “You are getting this. I’m not, and you are getting way more than me. That doesn’t seem right.”
Like I said, I don’t even know if Canadians truly understand what veterans are getting. Some of those programs are very generous, which is fine, but when you ask an average Canadian, I think they get the general, “Oh, veterans are poorly treated.”
I’m not sure that is the case in most situations, but I’m also not sure that we have settled on exactly what that looks like for veterans. What do we want for veterans? Figuring that out, I think, is where we need to go.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
This brings us to the end of today’s meeting. I would like to extend a sincere thank you to Ombud Jardine and Mr. Schippers for taking the time to be with us today.
Our next meeting will take place on Wednesday, April 22, at 12 p.m. in the same room. I wish everyone a good afternoon.
(The committee adjourned.)