ARCHIVES

 

    Exhibit A: to SVAC Presentation Jun 01 2005

Veteran Organisation As Ombudsman?

 No one, including us, would diminish the incredible achievements of the Legion nor its value to veterans at large and to Canada as a whole. Although the Legion’s membership is declining at the rate of approximately 15,000 members per year, it still boasts a membership of more than 400,000, over 25% of which is 75 years old or older:

Veteran Statistics: According to VAC (July 2004)

Total Number CF members (serving and veterans):                          490,000

Total Number of War Veterans (WWI, WWII and Korea)                 250,000

 

 Legion Membership (end 2004 statistics)

 

Legion Membership Total                                        416,071

Actual Veterans in Legion            (also includes

Commonwealth Veterans and Life non-veterans)    149,730

 

Total War Veterans                                                  52,238

Total CF Veterans (149,730 – 52,238)                    97,492

 

Legion percentage of total veteran population:

 

War Veterans (assuming all Canadian Military Veterans)   20.9%           

CF Veterans       (assuming all Canadian CF Veterans)        19.9%

 

Brief

 The Legion’s Dominion Command has an impressive array of at least 23 programs and operations during the previous year. Everything from sports programs for the CF to the invaluable Poppy campaign and the Veterans/Seniors housing project. One may note that the last program on the list is “Advocacy Initiatives to the Government.

 However, an ombudsman is very different from an advocate. An institutionalized ombudsman, if properly created and legislated into being, unlike any of the veterans organizations, has true investigative powers, full-time dedicated resources, professional staff as well as the power to report officially to the government and the public. An Ombudsman, above all else, is impartial.

 In the question of the legion or any other special interest group, the bottom line is that they are by their very nature, partisan organizations that, ultimately, represent the interests of their membership. We are not members of such organizations, at least 80% of Canada’s veterans are not members of the Legion. Canadians, especially some of the most disabled and, therefore, disenfranchised, should not be forced to deal with a special interest group to have their needs met when it is a legislated mandate of the government of Canada to care for disabled veterans. Such farming out of responsibility is contrary to fundamental right of equal access to services for all Canadians, not just members of the Legion or the other five veterans organizations with which Veterans Affairs has an exclusive relationship.

 The Minister and her staff have spoken publicly on numerous occasions endorsing the Legion as the VAC Ombudsman. She has even testified to the Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs to this effect.

The Fact that the relationship of the Legion and the Department of Veterans Affairs is so close shows a strong degree of partisanship on behalf of the legion and VAC itself for one another. However constructive and valuable the relationship may be, it is not the basis of an objective and impartial ombudsman’s office.

 The Minister, her staff and the senior bureaucrats appear to be even bigger advocates of the ‘legion as ombudsman than the legion itself. Such enmeshed interests have long raised alarm bells with the modern veteran. This enmeshment is far from the values of an independent, professional and objective ombudsman required to monitor and investigate systemic problems as well as provide a confidential and potent mechanism for veteran’s complaints, free of any possible retaliation.

 But whatever technical obstacles there may be in creating an Ombudsman, Andre Marin in his latest White paper states:

 “Access to the Office of the Ombudsman could be granted simply by the Minister of Veterans Affairs signing a Ministerial Directive. Or, more appropriately, a Canadian Forces/Veterans Affairs Ombudsman’s office having co-ordinate jurisdiction could be entrenched in statute, with the Ombudsman reporting to the Minister of National Defence on DND/CF issues, and to the Minister of Veterans Affairs on issues related to Veterans Affairs Canada. The truth is that departmental organization is a technical obstacle, not an impediment to doing the right thing, and it is a maxim of good government that technical obstacles never be allowed to impede doing the right thing. Instead, technical obstacles should be managed and overcome.”

 

To subscribe to VeteranVOICE.info send an email to webmaster@veteranvoice.info

Disclaimer and Non-Endorsement for VeteranVoice.info: Please click here!.