Opening Statement: Thomas Jarmyn, Acting Chair, Veterans Review and Appeal Board – House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs (ACVA) - 2016

Ottawa, ON – May 31 , 2016

Mr. Chair, Honourable Members.

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

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

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

To be very clear, the Board is not part of the Department of Veterans Affairs: we are an entirely separate organization and operate at arm’s-length to provide a fair appeal process.

Also, our mandate is limited to reviewing departmental decisions on Veterans’ disability benefits; we are not involved in any of the other programs and services delivered by Veterans Affairs Canada.

Before I tell you more about the Board’s program, I’d like 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 providing Veterans and their families with a fair and timely appeal program for disability benefits.

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

Veterans who are dissatisfied with departmental decisions on disability benefits can apply to the Board for an independent review.

In any given year, between 8 and 10 per cent of those who receive a departmental decision come to the Board for redress.

These cases tend to be the most complex and challenging.

We provide Veterans with two levels of redress: a Review hearing, and if they are still dissatisfied, an Appeal hearing.

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.

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

The Review hearing is a very important opportunity for Veterans, since 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 a Veteran is dissatisfied with their Review decision, they can request an Appeal hearing.

This is a brand new hearing by a panel 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.

I’d now like to take a moment to talk to you about the Board members who hear and decide cases.

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

They also receive continuous training on common and emerging medical conditions related to service.

Last year, our Board members issued 2,500 Review decisions and 800 Appeal decisions.

As a result, about 1,600 Veterans—almost half of those who came to us—received new or increased disability benefits from the Board.

These numbers speak clearly to the value of our independent appeal program.

But they have also prompted some to ask whether these Veterans could have received the “right” decision earlier.

That is why, in 2013, the Board began tracking the reasons our panels ruled favourably where the Department did not.

We ask our members to categorize the reasons: Was it because of the Veteran’s testimony? Was there new medical evidence? Could a more favourable decision have been made earlier?

One of the things we found is that new evidence and the Veteran’s testimony are factors in the majority of cases.

We share these reasons with the Department so that it can look for opportunities to improve the initial application and decision-making processes—to ensure Veterans get the benefits they are entitled to as early as possible.

Though decision outcomes are very important, we also need to ensure that we are delivering service to Veterans in a fair, timely, and respectful way.

One way to find out whether we are doing this, is to ask the Veterans we serve.

In 2013, the Board established an exit survey for applicants who had a Review hearing, to get their feedback about the experience.

During the last three years, about half of all Veterans who had a Review hearing completed our exit survey.

I am very pleased to report that the vast majority of them indicated that they had a good experience.

Of particular importance, 97 per cent told us that Board members treated them with respect, and 91 per cent said their hearing was conducted in a fair manner.

The exit survey also gives Veterans the opportunity to give us genuine and instructive feedback and suggestions for improving the hearing experience.

This feedback has been extremely valuable, and we have been using it to guide improvements year over year.

On that note, let me turn now to the work we are doing to serve Veterans better.

Over the last several years, we have embraced and acted on feedback and recommendations from this committee, the Veterans Ombudsman, Veterans organizations, and other stakeholders.

And in doing so, we have 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 improving decisions to make sure they are written in plain language and that reasons are clearly explained.

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

We have also increased transparency in decision-making by publishing all Appeals, and many Reviews on CanLII, the Canadian Legal Information Institute’s website.

I encourage you to visit CanLII to read some of our decisions.

Beyond fair hearings and clear decisions, we know we must provide timely service.

We have demonstrated our commitment to timeliness by establishing service standards for the time within our control, and meeting them for the vast majority of cases.

Our goal is to schedule, hear, and decide a case within 16 weeks of being advised by the Veteran and their representative that they are ready to proceed.

Last year, we met this standard in 96 per cent of cases – far exceeding the 80 per cent target we set for ourselves.

Our second service standard focusses on decisions, with a goal of issuing 80 per cent of them within 6 weeks of the hearing.

Again, we exceeded our target last year by issuing 86 per cent of decisions within this timeframe.

We know there is still room for improvement, which is why we continue to focus on reducing timeframes through: flexible scheduling practices; close monitoring of our work; and modernizing our operations for paperless hearings.

Finally, we continue to focus on plain language in our communications, and on 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.