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Flurry of announcements on veteran and casualty support topics

From the Minister's Info-machine:
The Honourable Erin O’Toole, Minister of Veterans Affairs, and the Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, today announced part-time Reserve Force Veterans will have the support they deserve, honouring a pledge made by the Government of Canada. The ministers were joined by Member of Parliament Scott Armstrong and the Veterans Ombudsman, Guy Parent.

Today’s announcement focused on the Veterans Affairs Canada’s (VAC) Earnings Loss (EL) Benefit, which provides income support for Veterans with service-related injuries while they are participating in VAC’s Rehabilitation Program or who are unable to be suitably employed.

Currently, part-time Reserve Force Veterans in receipt of the Earnings Loss Benefit are eligible for an annual EL Benefit of $24,300. Through changes aimed at ensuring respect for reservists, beginning in April 2015, all Veterans of the Reserve Force eligible for the EL Benefit will be ensured a minimum annual income of $42,426, which is the current EL Benefit of a basic corporal in the Regular Force. This is a big step forward for those who need it the most, and responds to concerns raised by the Veterans Ombudsman and the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs regarding fair treatment of Canada’s reservists.

Survivors of part-time Reserve Force Veterans who lose their lives as a result of service will also benefit from this change.

Quick Facts

    The EL Benefit is a taxable monthly benefit that ensures Veterans’ total income will be at least 75% of their pre-release military salary while they are participating in rehabilitation or unable to be suitably employed ....
More in the Backgrounder:
Respect for reservists ¿ Enhancing benefits for Reserve Force Veterans

The New Veterans Charter (NVC) was designed to meet the needs of today’s Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), including members of the Regular and Reserve Forces. It was created to help Veterans and their families.

Through the NVC, Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) has programs in place to assist eligible reservists who are injured or become ill resulting primarily from their service in the CAF and, in some cases, to assist them in finding civilian employment. Today’s announcement focused on VAC’s Earnings Loss (EL) Benefit, which provides income support for Veterans with service-related injuries while they are participating in VAC’s Rehabilitation Program or who are unable to be suitably employed.

Our Government pledged to address the benefits available to part-time Reserve Force Veterans. This was also the recommendation of the Veterans Ombudsman and the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. Currently, part-time Reserve Force Veterans in receipt of the Earnings Loss (EL) Benefit are eligible for monthly benefits totaling $24,300 annually.

Beginning in April 2015, all Veterans of the Reserve Force who are eligible for the Earnings Loss Benefit would receive a minimum income of $42,426. This is the same minimum amount a Regular Force Veteran would receive through EL and is set at 75% of a basic corporal’s salary.

It is estimated that by 2020, approximately 290 part-time Reserve Force Veterans could receive this increased income each year. Survivors of part-time Reserve Force Veterans who died as a result of service would also benefit from this change, as well as eligible Veterans who are also receiving benefits through the Service Income Security Insurance Plan provided by the Department of National Defence.
Example of a Veteran who could benefit from this change

Corporal M was a part-time (Class A) reservist who was injured in a training exercise. He suffered severe, disabling injuries as a result of the accident. He spent several months in hospital undergoing extensive rehabilitation. Corporal M applied to Veterans Affairs Canada for a disability award and was assessed with a 70% disability.

Due to his disabling injuries, Corporal M was medically released in 2014 and applied to VAC for Rehabilitation and Earnings Loss (EL) benefits. Corporal M was granted eligibility for the VAC Rehabilitation Program and EL in June 2014. He is currently eligible for $2,025 in EL per month ($24,300 per year) before offsets. Corporal M will maintain eligibility for EL until he completes the Rehabilitation Program, or, if it is determined that he will never return to suitable employment due to his injuries, he will receive his ELB until age 65.

With the proposed change, Corporal M will see his EL increase to match the EL rate for Regular Force Veterans. His EL will increase from $2,025/month to $3,535/month (or from $24,300/year to $42,426/year).

A continuum of care

While enhancing benefits for part-time reservists is the focus of today’s announcement, it must be viewed as part of a spectrum of services and supports available to Veterans. Reserve Force Veterans who are injured as a result of military service—regardless of rank or class—have access to other benefits from VAC such as treatment benefits, the Veterans Independence Program (VIP), Career Transition Services, financial benefits and disability benefits.
 
There should be more announcements coming now on the topics of veteran care-giver benefits and of severely disabled compensation.

Ottawa set to beef up benefits for disabled vets, families
Gloria Galloway
Globe and Mail
17 Mar 2015

The federal government is attempting to fill two more gaps in the support offered to Canada's most injured military personnel with better compensation for severely disabled veterans and financial assistance for the family members who care for them.

Veterans Affairs Minister Erin O'Toole will be at a naval reserve facility in Vancouver on Tuesday to announce improvements to the allowance for those veterans who are permanently impaired, as well as a benefit for caregivers.

The deficiencies in the permanent impairment allowance - a taxable monthly benefit paid to the most severely disabled veterans who fall under the New Veterans Charter, which became law in 2006 - have been discussed for years.

So, too, has support for caregivers, though it was unclear Monday whether the government would offer them a benefit or a tax credit.

A tax credit would be of little help to some spouses of disabled veterans whose family income is low.

The changes expected Tuesday address key complaints voiced by veterans. The caregivers' grievance was highlighted last spring when then-veterans minister Julian Fantino was chased out of a Commons Veterans Affairs committee by the wife of a veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The television cameras were rolling as Jenny Migneault shouted: "What about us? The spouses, the caregivers, the ones who live 24 hours a day with their heroes? Nothing for us?"Mr. O'Toole's modifications to the veterans' compensation package come a little more than two months after he was appointed to replace Mr. Fantino, a former police chief who was demoted over his handling of the portfolio and the deteriorating relationship between the Conservative government and former soldiers.

Last week, Mr. O'Toole proposed a retirement benefit to lift some disabled veterans out of poverty and said he will increase payments to part-time reservists who are so injured they can no longer work.

But critics question why the government has waited so long to act when many of the improvements being announced by Mr. O'Toole have been, according to the government's own estimates, relatively inexpensive and easy to implement. The retirement benefit announced last week, for instance, is expected to cost about $2-million annually in its initial phases.

"Why did it take so long?" asked Sean Bruyea, a retired Air Force captain and veterans' advocate. "If the government cared now enough to do this, does that mean they did not care enough before?" The problems being addressed by Mr. O'Toole are largely related to the provisions of the New Veterans Charter, which replaced a system of lifetime pensions with one that was based on lumpsum payments and other awards, including the permanent impairment allowance.

The spate of improvements being offered by the Conservative government in the months before a federal election is also indicative of the many ways that the system for compensating veterans - especially those who served in more recent conflicts such as the war in Afghanistan - is lacking.

Scott Maxwell, the executive director of Wounded Warriors Canada, credits the government for appointing Mr. O'Toole, who once served as a navigator on Navy helicopters, to clean up the troubled file.

The improved benefits for disabled veterans help the government plug its biggest hole and improve relations with a core constituency, he said.

In June of last year, Guy Parent, the Veterans Ombudsman, issued a report that said problems with how the allowance for permanently impaired veterans is awarded meant too many were not receiving the benefits or were receiving them at a grade level that is too low.

"This is unfair and needs to be corrected," he said.

Mr. Parent found that, when determining the amount to be awarded, the disability adjudicators in the department of Veterans Affairs were taking no account of the effects of a disability on a veteran's employment and career-progression opportunities. And, he said, the list of impairments that qualify for the benefits is too narrow.

As Ottawa attempts to address the gaps in the charter, there are fears that some veterans may lose out.

Older veterans whose disability predates the Veterans Charter said they were worried the government would deduct the amount of their lifetime pensions from any monies they might be able to receive from the new Retirement Income Security Benefit, announced last week.

The Veterans Affairs department did not last week respond to requests from The Globe and Mail to clarify if that was the case. But, on Monday, an official said in an e-mail that the lifetime disability pension will not affect the retirement benefit.
 
Have the recent announcments improved relations between veterans and the government.  At least one news article headline suggests as much.

Tenuous truce between veterans, department
5 Things to know

The Canadian Press
National Post
14 Apr 2015

Veterans Affairs Minister Erin O'Toole has unveiled the latest plank in the Conservative government's bid to restore relations with ex-soldiers and their supporters: a plan to hire 100 new case managers to speed the delivery of benefits and services. Here is some of what the government has done to date for veterans, as well as some of the issues that remain outstanding.

Lawsuit over the New Veterans Charter

1.  The Harper government partially defused a politically explosive court challenge by convincing a group of Afghan war vets to put their classaction lawsuit on hold. The suit has been a public relations disaster for the Conservatives, who pride themselves on supporting the troops. Veterans and their families and supporters were deeply offended when government lawyers argued that Canada has no extraordinary legal obligation to its returning soldiers and that current and future governments cannot be bound by political promises of care made during the First World War. The case remains on hold while veterans evaluate the government's latest measures. The government did spell out the nation's gratitude to its soldiers in the recently introduced Bill C-58, but critics suggest the language is not detailed enough.

New disability awards payment

2.  The replacement of lifetime pensions for injuries with a system of lumpsum payments was one of the most controversial changes in the New Veterans Charter when it was introduced in 2006. Soldiers who are physically maimed or suffer mental trauma are reimbursed through a workers compensation-style disability chart to a maximum of just over $306,000. The fact that modern-day veterans receive less than their predecessors was one of the issues that prompted the class-action suit. Even though Canada's system of payments is among the lowest among the allies, O'Toole chose not to tinker with the existing lump-sum fee schedule. Instead, he introduced a one-time $70,000 payment for physically injured soldiers. Troops will qualify for it retroactively, and are eligible even if they are not eventually categorized as disabled.

New benefit to help wounded veterans with no military pension

3.  The veterans ombudsman pointed out in 2013 that potentially hundreds of wounded former soldiers, who did not serve long enough to qualify for a military pension, faced the prospect of spending their retirement years in poverty. O'Toole responded by introducing a new retirement income security benefit, which included not only the most severely wounded, but those who had suffered moderate disabilities. They are covered by a web of incomereplacement programs and supplements, which end when they turn 65. The new benefit ensures they will receive monthly income support payments after retirement. Critics, such as veterans advocate Sean Bruyea, say the issue has been long-standing one, and the government is only acting now because it's facing an election.

Agreeing on a wounded soldier's medical diagnosis

4.  Soldiers who are medically released from the Canadian military are often given one diagnosis by doctors with the Department of National Defence, and an entirely separate one by physicians at Veterans Affairs. It's been a source of frustration and outrage, especially for ex-soldiers who are denied benefits at one department for conditions that ended their careers at another. O'Toole has promised to smooth out the transition by having veterans staff involved right at the beginning of the discharge process when an injured soldier is still in uniform. Canada's military ombudsman and the Royal Canadian Legion say the dual review is unnecessary and the diagnosis at National Defence, the agency that determines if the soldier is still fit to serve, should suffice.

Veterans office closures

5.  The Harper government closed nine regional Veterans Affairs offices, shifting the work to the more generic Service Canada outlets. The ensuing storm of criticism continues to linger. Both opposition parties have hammered the government about complaints from veterans that have surfaced in public or in MPs' constituency offices. The Royal Canadian Legion, which has a volunteer force that has been helping vets navigate the maze of paperwork, has called for an immediate review of the decision to close district offices and urged the government to reopen the offices where there is an increased and established need for case managers.
 
This is the most recent progress report that Minister O'Toole has put out.

 
In addition to announcements saying mo' staff will be added (rehired?) in some areas, there's a new commitment to make letters. forms & other documents easier to understand:
The Honourable Erin O’Toole, Minister of Veterans Affairs, today provided an update on the progress made by the Department’s Veteran-centric Communications Task Force to improve how Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) communicates with Veterans and their families. The Task Force was created to find ways to reduce the administrative paperwork burden for our Veterans and to ensure all letters and forms are easy to understand and necessary.

The task force was mandated to look at each and every form and letter we use to communicate with our Veterans and ask:

    Is it easy to understand?
    Is it necessary?
    Could it be eliminated altogether?
    If updates or renewals are required, is this appropriate?
    Could a case manager help fill out this paperwork?
    Could more time be given to complete this paperwork?

The first phase focussed on reviewing ministerial correspondence to include Veteran-centric language. Phase one is now complete, and new letters with Veteran-centric language are now being used in customized ministerial correspondence.

With assistance from the Veterans Ombudsman, the second phase involved the review of the most frequently used forms and applications. As a result, we will reduce the number of forms from 22 to 9, eliminating more than 800,000 pages of paper per year, significantly reducing the paperwork burden on our Veterans. The proposed new forms and applications are being developed and shared with the Veterans Ombudsman, stakeholders and Veterans’ organizations, for feedback and testing from a Veteran’s perspective. Using the feedback, the Department will begin revising the forms and making the changes to the forms and applications on a priority basis. A major roll-out of the phase two changes will begin in fall 2015.

Phase three involves a comprehensive review and rewrite of the most frequently used letters to Veterans and their families which are used approximately 400,000 times a year.
Good to see, but would this have been so hard to do, say, at the beginning of a majority mandate?
 
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