OTTAWA — The federal government is failing to keep its promise to care for veterans, Canada’s auditor general declared on Tuesday as she called for a real plan to ensure ill and injured ex-soldiers aren’t forced to wait months, or even years, for the support they need.
Karen Hogan’s scathing indictment followed the tabling of a report in Parliament that found disabled veterans continue to face unacceptably long wait times and delays in finding out whether they qualify for federal assistance and benefits.
“I'm really left with the conclusion that the government failed to meet a promise that it made to our veterans, that it would take care of them if they were injured in service,” Hogan said at a news conference Tuesday in Ottawa.
“This has a real consequence on the well-being of our veterans and their families.”
Hogan’s report echoes warnings and complaints from veterans advocates and others that delays in the processing of such claims can have a significant effect on disabled veterans and their families by preventing access to treatment and financial assistance.
But at a separate news conference, Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay acknowledged the need to do more to help Canada’s veterans, while essentially dismissing Hogan’s findings.
Calling the auditor’s report a “snapshot of a point in time,” MacAulay presented his own figures on the size of the backlog, pointing to them as proof that the government’s approach is working.
“We're on the proper path, as I indicated previously, to make sure that we deal with this appropriately and to put the backlog where it needs to be,” he said.
“I can assure you we have the process in place and we will do that.”
There have been several recent government plans designed to ensure veterans aren’t forced to wait months and sometimes years for Veterans Affairs Canada to process their disability claims.
Those initiatives were in response to growing anger and frustration from former service members, veterans advocates and others as wait times have continued to grow, resulting in more than 40,000 unprocessed applications.
The measures in question include the hiring of hundreds of temporary staff over the past few years, as well as efforts to cut red tape and lean more heavily on digital tools.
While Hogan in her report noted the introduction of those measures, she found many are still in development and Veterans Affairs was unable to actually assess the impact of those in place.
The auditor general took particular aim at the Liberal government’s hiring of hundreds of temporary staff to eliminate the backlog, saying the approach has had little impact in part due to high levels of turnover as people look for more stable jobs.
The result is that not only has Veterans Affairs largely failed to eliminate the backlog, it has been unable to even keep up with the claims that continue to stream into the department.
“They can't address the backlog, let alone keep up with the increased demand,” Hogan told reporters. “So it really is time to have a more stable, long-term view of how to process these applications.”
While the auditor general did not specify what a long-term plan would look like, she did emphasize ensuring Veterans Affairs has enough resources — including permanent staff — to keep up with the continued influx of claims.
“It's time to find a more sustainable solution that will see veterans receive their benefits in a timely way,” she said. “After all, it is our veterans who are here to take care of and protect our country and keep peace. The government should do better by them.”
Brian Forbes, chairman of both The War Amps executive committee and the National Council of Veteran Associations, which represents 68 organizations across Canada, said Hogan’s “has cemented what we’ve been saying for years.”
Forbes was hopeful Hogan’s report would finally spur the government into action, including the automatic approval of veterans’ disability claims with an audit function to catch cheaters.
“Ninety-six per cent of post-traumatic stress claims are approved in the end and 86 per cent of moderate to serious disabled veterans’ claims are approved,” Forbes said in an interview.
“Why are we procrastinating on entitlements when those are the facts? Why can't we just move to an automatic entitlement and allow these people to get their treatment benefits and allow them to get their health-care benefits?”
The hope for a concrete plan was echoed by Royal Canadian Legion dominion president Bruce Julian, whose service officers are responsible for helping veterans collect and fill out the onerous paperwork needed to apply for disability benefits.
“We’ve seen the despair and anger from veterans and families as situations worsen,” Julian said in a statement.
“We hope this report will finally provide the impetus needed to create and execute a concrete plan of action, end unreasonable wait times, and duly serve the injured Veterans who served us.”
Yet MacAulay suggested the temporary staff and other measures are actually having an impact, saying the number of claims that have been sitting in the queue longer than the department’s target of 16 weeks has shrunk since the audit.
Such numbers are suspect, however, which Hogan noted in her report as the clock often doesn’t start running when a claim is filed and can end weeks before it is fully processed — a problem that MacAulay acknowledged and promised to fix.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 31, 2022.
Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press
