Veterans Affairs Committee on Sept. 23rd, 2025

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Say that complaints were sorted into two types: complaints about wait times for accessing support or a family doctor—in Quebec, you have to be lucky to find a family doctor—and complaints about inequities or unfairness. If each of those two types of complaints were assigned an approximate percentage, would the proportions be equal? Would it be a good idea to try identifying what to focus on to support our veterans?

[Nishika Jardine]

Thank you for the question.

The majority of the complaints we receive are from veterans who have an approved condition, a disability benefit, and they are now in treatment because they're entitled to treatment benefits for that condition for life. The majority of the complaints we get are around the fact that the treatment benefit they are seeking has been denied by Veterans Affairs. That's probably the most common complaint we get.

We also hear complaints about the rehabilitation program and the connection to the income replacement benefit. The disability wait time, the wait time to get a decision is still a complaint that we hear, but it has, absolutely, slipped to second place.

Let me reiterate that the majority of veterans are satisfied with the service they receive from Veterans Affairs. They don't stand up and say, “I'm really happy with VAC.” They come up to me quietly, and they say, “You know, I'm really happy with Veterans Affairs. I couldn't be happier. I'm very satisfied.”

We get complaints like, “I got a decision that I'm not happy with”, and we can help with that. However, there is a cohort of veterans who struggle to meet the administrative ask of the department, and who grapple with feelings of institutional betrayal. It's a complex thing because, for veterans, trust is so critical, and so, when they grapple with that, they have a much harder time asking for and receiving what they need.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

My understanding is that it takes considerable attentiveness to establish a relationship for providing benefits or following up on a claim. It's one thing for someone to lose their job for the first time in their life and have to build their file to get employment insurance benefits. If someone has served in the forces, they expect to be supported, in honour of their service. What I understand is that the current wait time might be acceptable for a certain group of people, but for veterans, it's missing the mark. Am I understanding that correctly?

[Nishika Jardine]

That's exactly it.

Again, most veterans are happy and satisfied with Veterans Affairs. They can ask for what they need. They get what they need.

For the group who struggle, it's my impression that—and I'm still working to understand it better myself—their needs are more acute. Their feelings of institutional betrayal are, maybe, greater or they just struggle to meet that administrative ask. For them, it's a much more difficult process.

This concept of trust and institutional trust is huge for veterans. We serve, and we're told that, “If you're hurt or ill afterwards, Veterans Affairs will be there for you.” They see their buddies getting their disability benefits and treatment benefits, but for them, somehow, they run into some friction, so for them, that friction equals betrayal and now it's a fight to the death. It's a battle.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move on to the second round of questions.

For the benefit of those watching our proceedings, of new parliamentarians and of those who may be a bit rusty, I'd like to repeat that the speaking time will be five minutes for the Conservatives, five minutes for the Liberals and two and a half minutes for Ms. Gaudreau of the Bloc Québécois.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Viersen.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here.

I'm interested to hear a little more about these town halls that you held around the country. I live near the base at Edmonton. You said you held them nearby. Did you make it out, 200 to 300 kilometres from there, to Whitecourt, Barrhead, that area? I have veterans in my constituency. How did you come to the decision on where to hold these town halls?

[Nishika Jardine]

Thank you.

We started with the base. Also, the Royal Canadian Legion has been extremely generous with us. My colleague approaches the Legion and asks, “Is anybody willing to host us?” We've tried hotels, but with the Legions, it seems to work really well. We go wherever a Legion is willing to host us, usually in that local area.

We have been to Smoky Lake. Although we didn't do a town hall, we were invited.

That is the other way we choose where to go. We get invitations. As we're becoming well known, people reach out to us to invite us to do a presentation, which turns into a kind of town hall as we hear from people.

We were in Métis Crossing to contribute to the Métis service officer training, and then we were up in Cold Lake as well.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Okay, so that's Alberta, and I appreciate that.

[Nishika Jardine]

We were also in Calgary.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Have you been to all the provinces and territories?

[Nishika Jardine]

We absolutely have, although we're going to Whitehorse in two weeks.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Similarly, I did a whole series of town halls across northern Alberta this summer. I set them up as open-ended deals and, fascinatingly, found that the same five issues came forward. Was your experience similar? What are the top five things that folks bring to you?

[Nishika Jardine]

The number one concern of veterans today is access to a family doctor. I know that's the same for many Canadians, but for veterans, because you serve all across the country, you may not even be able to get in with your family's family doctor, if they even have one.

The stories are heart-rending. We heard from a veteran who said, “My doctor fired me because the VAC paperwork is onerous.” They're too much trouble. I can tell you stories.

Access to a family doctor is the number one pressing concern. For any kind of decision from Veterans Affairs that they're unhappy with, we hear the whole range of them: the treatment benefits, the wait times for disability claims. These are the main ones: “Why can't I get X benefit? I think I should be able to get X benefit.” It's that kind of thing.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

If you want to come back to some of these items, that would be fine.

On PCVRS, we get quite a number of complaints. That's not even necessarily from people who have experiences with it, but from people who are watching it and are concerned about double-dipping or favourable treatment of particular contractors and that kind of thing. Did you hear any of that through your town halls?

[Nishika Jardine]

Yes, I did. We do get complaints about PCVRS, the rehabilitation program.

Our approach for the complaints that we get about PCVRS and the implementation of a contract for the rehabilitation program has been that we pass those on directly to the person in charge of implementing it in Veterans Affairs, in the hope that, whatever it is, it can be resolved quickly. That has always been what we have done.

Our intention in all of the work we do is to reconnect the veteran to the department, because usually it's going to be a lifelong—

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

The challenge, I guess, is probably more systemic. People are concerned about—I don't know if this is in your purview or not—the whole decision to do this PCVRS instead of keeping it in-house with Veterans Affairs. Can you manage that as an issue? Is that outside the scope of your organization?

[Nishika Jardine]

While we do get complaints about it, they appear to be with respect to implementation, something that the department could fix.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Okay.

[Nishika Jardine]

We have not yet received a preponderance of complaints that would lead us to believe there was an unfairness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

I'm so sorry, Mr. Viersen. I've been quite generous on my part, so rest assured that I will be as generous for others.

Mr. Casey, the floor is yours.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome, Ms. Jardine and Mr. Schippers. It's good to have you here. I appreciate the work you do on behalf of veterans.

I want to come back to the topic that was raised by Mr. Tolmie. He noted, upon his extensive review of the documents you provided, that there were a lot more green check marks prior to 2015 than after that.

I note that prior to 2015, in the information you provided to us, there were 19 recommendations that you indicated are no longer tracked. In your introductory remarks, you indicated that, in some circumstances, events overtake the recommendations, which results in them no longer being tracked.

Can you speak to the fact that there are 19 pre-2015 recommendations that are no longer tracked? If there is a pattern there, can you explain to us why that categorization of pre-2015 recommendations is so prevalent?

[Nishika Jardine]

I'm not sure.

Duane, I wonder if you could answer.

[Duane Schippers]

Part of it is a maturity of the office over time. When the office first started, it was largely doing a lot of advocacy. It was blue-sky. It was about what veterans should have, but not necessarily—

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I remember Pat Stogran.

[Duane Schippers]

—about fairness and assessing.

There are some standards today, as the office and other ombuds' offices around the country have matured, with a focus on fairness. You will see a change in the tone of recommendations, from the earliest days of our office to the later days, and how things are worded.

Often, they were open-scoped. They were things that would have been very much nice to have, as opposed to being focused on a fairness assessment. Some of them have been taken off for that. Some of them have been removed just because of time.

Our position is that if it's still a really relevant and ongoing issue, we will do an update report on it. After 10 years, we really start to look at it. If the department hasn't moved on it after 10 years, we are probably going to either drop it or do a new, updated report to push that issue again.