Opening Statement:Thomas Jarmyn, Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board - Senate Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs - 2016

Ottawa, ON – March 23, 2016

Mr. Chair, Honourable Senators.

Thank you for inviting me here today to speak to you about the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, and how we are serving Canada's Veterans.

Joining me is Dale Sharkey, the Board's Director General.

The Board provides Veterans, members of the Canadian Armed Forces and the RCMP, and their families, with an independent appeal program for disability benefits decisions made by Veterans Affairs Canada.

Our mission is to ensure they receive the benefits they are entitled to under law through timely, respectful hearings and fair, plain-language decisions.

To share a bit about myself – I am a Veteran with more than 18 years of service as a Regular and Reserve Force Naval Officer.

I am also a lawyer with more than 20 years of experience and graduate degrees in administrative law and ethics.

I am very proud to be in my current role, leading the Board in ensuring fairness in the disability benefits system for Veterans and their families.

I'd like to start by explaining how our hearing process works.

If a Veteran is dissatisfied with a departmental decision on disability benefits, they can apply to the Board for redress.

About 10 per cent of Veterans do this each year.

Their cases tend to be the most complex and challenging.

When a Veteran comes to the Board, they have access to two levels of redress: Review and Appeal.

Review hearings are conducted by panels of two Board members in locations across Canada.

At these hearings, Veterans can bring forward new evidence, give oral testimony, and have their case presented by lawyers from the Bureau of Pensions Advocates or service officers from the Legion.

These hearings are non-adversarial, which means no one argues against the Veteran.

The Review hearing is a very important opportunity for Veterans: it is their first and only chance to appear before decision-makers to tell their story.

Their testimony is often significant as it can help them establish the required link between their disability and their service.

If the Veteran is dissatisfied with their Review decision, they can request an Appeal hearing.

Appeals are heard by panels of three Board members who were not involved in the case at Review.

While the legislation does not permit oral testimony at this level, the Appeal hearing provides a further opportunity for the Veteran, through their representative, to submit new information and make arguments in support of their case.

Last year, the Board issued more than 2,700 Review decisions and over 1,000 Appeal decisions.

As a result, almost 1,800 Veterans received new or increased disability benefits from the Board.

Now let me take a moment to talk to you about our Board members.

These are the people who conduct hearings, decide cases, and write decisions.

As independent decision makers, Board members are not bound by previous decisions made by the Department.

When they hear a case, Board members consider the Department's decision, service files and medical records, medical information provided by the Veteran, the Veteran's testimony, and the representative's arguments to determine whether new or increased benefits can be awarded.

As Acting Chair, I have been reaching out to military leaders about their role in encouraging serving personnel to report their injuries, to get treatment, and to document nagging conditions.

I cannot overstate to this Committee how important it is for CAF and RCMP members to document events during service, so they can reconstruct them later to support their applications.

I am often asked who our Board members are and how they are chosen.

Our members are motivated and dedicated Canadians who qualified for appointment through a merit-based selection process.

Today, 13 of the Board's 20 members have military, RCMP, police, or healthcare backgrounds.

Veterans and stakeholders have told us that all Board members should have a good understanding of military and RCMP work and culture.

We agree.

All members receive training from serving personnel.

They also have hands-on visits to Canadian Forces Bases where they learn about the physical and mental challenges inherent to various trades.

Members also receive continuous training on common and emerging medical conditions related to Veterans' disabilities.

Let me turn, now, to the work we are doing to serve Veterans better.

Over the last several years, the Board has made great strides in improving the appeal program.

First, we made it a priority to improve our decision-writing.

We have put significant effort into member training to ensure that decisions are written in plain language and that reasons are clearly explained.

These efforts have yielded results: at informal feedback sessions coordinated by the Legion, serving members and Veterans told us that our decisions are clearer and easier to understand.

Our decisions are the most important communications tool we have, so they will continue to be our focus going forward.

We have also increased access to our decisions by publishing all Appeals, and many Reviews, on the Canadian Legal Information Institute's website (or CanLII), a well-known online legal resource.

This increases transparency in our decision-making.

It allows Veterans to see how the Board applies the law in cases similar to their own, and shows Canadians that we are fulfilling our obligations.

I encourage you to visit CanLII's website and read some of our decisions.

In addition to ensuring that hearings are fair and decisions are clearly expressed, we are mindful of the need to provide timely service – or, as our legislation states, to be as expeditious “as the circumstances and considerations of fairness permit.”

We have demonstrated our commitment to a timely process by establishing service standards for the time within our control, and meeting these standards for the vast majority of cases.

We know there is room for improvement, so we will continue to focus on reducing timeframes through flexible scheduling practices and close monitoring of our work.

When it comes to improving the service we provide, we value the perspective of those we serve.

The Board has established an ongoing exit survey to get feedback from Veterans who have had a Review hearing.

This exit survey has confirmed that the vast majority of Veterans have a positive experience at their Review hearing.

Of particular importance is that 95 per cent of Veterans have told us that Board members treated them with respect.

Additionally, 93 per cent have told us that Board members listened to what they had to say, and 91 per cent told us that Board members made efforts to put them at ease.

The exit survey also gives Veterans the opportunity to give us genuine and instructive feedback, which we have been using to further improve the hearing experience.

We are also looking to improve our operations through modernization.

We are working toward paperless hearings, and equipping our members with the tools, technology, and training they need.

All of this supports our goal of issuing timely, fair, and well-reasoned decisions for Veterans.

Finally, we are continuing to focus on plain language in our communications and to expand our outreach with the CAF and RCMP, Veterans' organizations, and other groups dedicated to supporting Veterans and their families.

Ultimately, we want Veterans to know their rights.

We want them to come forward if they are dissatisfied, to tell us about their situation, to know they have been heard, and to have confidence in our decisions.

And most of all, we want them to receive all the benefits they are entitled to under law.

With that, Mr. Chair, I would like to thank you for allowing me to talk to you today about the important work we do on behalf of Canada's Veterans.

I would be happy to answer your questions.

Thank you.