4
ARMED FORCES PENSIONERS
’
/ANNUITANTS
’
ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
New Veterans Charter
It is widely recognized that very
few, if any, veterans are satisfied with
our ‘New Veterans Charter’ (NVC) that
replaced the post-WW2 ‘Pension Act’
in 2006. The Veterans Ombudsman,
Guy Parent, has been especially critical
of the legislation, and it is has been
under review by Parliament’s Standing
Committee on Veterans Affairs for
some time.
For several years, AFP/AAC has
been part of a concerted action by the
National Council of Veteran Associa-
tions (NCVA) to improve the Charter
so that it meets the needs of today’s
veterans – especially those who are ca-
sualties of war. Recently (on April 1st,
2014) the Chairman, NCVA appeared
before the Standing Committee on Vet-
erans Affairs and made the following
recommendations:
• The Service Income Security In-
surance Plan Long Term Disability
(SISIP LTD) Program should be elim-
inated to eradicate the insurance cul-
ture constraints presently contained in
the New Veterans Charter. At the time
of the enactment of the New Veterans
Charter, VAC committed that, as a fun-
damental pre-condition to the passage
of the legislation, the SISIP LTD Pro-
gram would be eliminated as soon as
possible so as to remove the restric-
tions that were inherent to the overall
income replacement program.
• The Earnings Loss Benefit should
be increased to 100% of pre-release in-
come and, in relation to permanently
incapacitated veterans, be paid for life
(not terminated at 65, as is currently
the case). In addition, the projected ca-
reer earnings of a Canadian Armed
Forces member should be employed as
the standard for the payment of the
Earnings Loss Benefit. In this context,
VAC should adopt the approach uti-
lized by the Canadian Courts in assess-
ing the concept of “future loss of
income,” which specifically addresses
the projected lifetime earnings lost by
a plaintiff in a personal injury claim.
• In the event the SISIP LTD Pro-
gram cannot be eliminated in the short
term, we propose that VAC “top up”
the SISIP LTD policy so as to produce
the same net effect on the overall in-
come program. It is recognized that at-
tempts to remove the SISIP LTD policy
have encountered administrative obsta-
cles from certain central agencies of
Government, and thus a strategy of
“topping up” the SISIP LTD policy
would appear to be an alternative im-
plementation strategy to accomplish
this overall objective.
• The restrictions and complexities
of the Permanent Impairment Al-
lowance (PIA) guideline should be ad-
dressed so as to allow greater numbers
of disabled veterans to qualify for ap-
propriate levels of entitlement for this
important allowance.
The full presentation by the Chair-
man, NCVA is too lengthy for this
newsletter however it may be seen on
our website at:
/
2014/submission_to_standing_com-
mitte_on_vets_affairs.pdf
When the NVC was introduced, it
was marketed as a “Living Charter”
with the inherent flexibility to facilitate
remedial action rapidly to correct any
deficiencies. The reality is that it has
proven the exact opposite: an ab-
solutely inflexible piece of legislation
that does not come close to meeting the
needs of our wounded veterans.
It is obvious that the Minister of
Veterans Affairs has to convince the
Harper Government to heed the expert
advice of the Veterans Ombudsman
and the New Veterans Charter Advi-
sory Group to fix this broken veterans
legislation. The alternative is to see
more wounded veterans living in
poverty or seeking desperate solutions
for coping with their conditions.
Members who prefer to receive this
newsletter electronically instead of a printed
mail-out can let us know today by e-mailing:
