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PART 1
https://www.hilltimes.com/2018/10/25/betrayal-commitment-canadas-veterans-community/172111
OPINION: Feds betraying commitment to veteran community - By BRIAN N. FORBES - OCT. 25, 2018
The disabled veteran community expected the re-establishment of the Pension for life option would not just attempt to address the concerns of a small minority of disabled veterans, but would include a recognition of all disabled veterans in need of financial security.
In late August, the Supreme Court dismissed the Equitas class-action lawsuit, closing the door on the legal claim initiated against Ottawa on behalf of Canada’s disabled veterans’ community.
Members of the Equitas veterans’ society, led by determined and courageous advocates, were essentially seeking a court order that would compel Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) to address the financial disparity between disability benefits awarded under the old Pension Act and those benefits granted under the New Veterans Charter, now known as the Veterans Well-being Act.
Notwithstanding the court’s decision, the battle continues and is now being waged in the political arena.
The National Council of Veteran Associations (NCVA) contends that the “lifelong pension” legislation doesn’t live up to the Liberals’ 2015 campaign promise to address the inequities in the new charter.
Amid the backdrop of the Equitas lawsuit, during the 2015 election campaign, the prime minister pledged to Canada’s veterans that, should his party win, the lawsuit would be unnecessary, as his government would re-establish lifelong pensions as an option to the lump-sum disability award.
Many understood that this commitment would specifically address the basic discrimination that exists between the Pension Act and the Veterans Well-being Act’s disability benefits. From the outset, the disparity in benefits has been at the crux of the claim.
Its new legislation continues to ignore the elephant in the room: the government has not ensured that a comparable level of financial security is provided to all disabled veterans and their families over their lifetimes.
In particular, the statutory and regulatory amendments ostensibly reflect the government’s attempt to create a form of “pension for life,” which includes the following three elements:
- A disabled veteran will have the option of receiving the present lump-sum disability award in the form of the new Pain and Suffering Compensation benefit. If eligible, and depending on the severity of the disability, the veteran can receive a monthly payment in the maximum amount of $1,150 per month, for life. For those vets who currently receive a disability award, a retroactive assessment would potentially apply and could mean a reduced monthly payment for life. In effect, VAC has simply converted the amount of the lump sum disability award into a form of a lifetime annuity as an option for those disabled veterans who are eligible.
- A new Additional Pain and Suffering Compensation benefit will essentially replace the Career Impact Allowance (Permanent Impairment Allowance), with similar grade levels and monthly payments, which reflect a non-taxable, non-economic benefit. But it would still be limited in its application to those veterans suffering a “permanent and severe impairment which is creating a barrier to re-establishment in life after service.”
- A new, consolidated Income Replacement Benefit that is taxable would combine four pre-existing benefits: Earnings Loss Benefit, Extended Earnings Loss Benefit, Supplementary Retirement Benefit, and Retirement Income Security Benefit. This benefit would be increased by one per cent every year until the veteran reaches what would have been 20 years of service or age 60. It also stipulates that any veteran who wishes to join the workforce may earn up to $20,000 before any reduction will be made to their benefit payment. It is not without financial significance that the current Career Impact Allowance and Career Impact Allowance Supplement have been eliminated from the Income Replacement Benefit package.
Although the devil remains in the details, when compared to the current charter, it is apparent that only a circumscribed number of seriously disabled veterans and their survivors may benefit from the new legislation. However, the greater majority of disabled veterans will not be materially better off. It is evident that the financial disparity between the Pension Act and the new legislation will be perpetuated for this significant cohort of disabled veterans.
Much more is required to improve the charter to satisfy the pressing concerns of the veterans’ community, if the government is to uphold the “one veteran-one standard” principle.
It is unacceptable that we continue to have veterans’ legislation that provides a significantly higher level of compensation to a veteran who is injured prior to 2006—the date the New Veterans Charter was enacted—when compared to a veteran who is injured post-2006. If applied to the Afghanistan conflict, this discrimination results in veterans of the same war having totally different pension benefits.
In the lead-up to Veteran Affairs Minister Seamus O’Regan’s announcement in 2017 outlining changes to the benefits, and in discussions following Budget 2017’s release, there was considerable concern in the veterans’ community that the government would establish an option wherein the lump-sum payment (disability award) would be apportioned or reworked over the life of the veteran in order to create a lifelong pension. NCVA and other veteran stakeholders, together with the ministerial policy advisory group, strongly criticized this proposition as being inadequate and not providing the lifetime financial security.
Stakeholders expected that some form of a substantive benefit stream would be established, which would address the financial disparity between benefits received under the Pension Act and the New Veterans Charter.
NCVA has long recommended that the department adopt the conclusions in the advisory group’s 2016 report, as well as the recommendations in the 2017 NCVA legislative program. Both reports proposed that combining the best provisions of the Pension Act and the New Veterans Charter would produce a form of lifetime pension that would secure the financial security for veterans in need.
If the “one veteran-one standard” philosophy that VAC advocates is to have any meaning, the government has to satisfy the financial needs of Canadian veterans and their dependants. But the new legislation misses the opportunity to recognize that the longstanding social covenant between Canadians and the veterans’ community demands nothing less.
Our past analysis, along with the appendices within, address the fundamental deficiencies in the department’s position and outlines a series of proposals.
As a first step to addressing the community’s concerns, the government should consider implementing this recommendation from the advisory group:
[T]he enhancement of the Earnings Loss Benefit/Career Impact Allowance as a single stream of income for life, the addition of Exceptional Incapacity Allowance, Attendance Allowance and a new monthly family benefit for life in accordance with the Pension Act will ensure all veterans receive the care and support they deserve when they need it and through their lifetime.
In specific terms, we would also suggest some steps that would go a long way to satisfying the “one veteran-one standard” approach.
Among our proposals is to liberalize the eligibility criteria for the new Additional Pain and Suffering Compensation (APSC) benefit so that more disabled veterans actually qualify. Only veterans suffering from a severe and permanent impairment will be eligible. That means the greater majority of disabled veterans will not qualify for this new component of the proposed lifelong pension.
These new regulations ostensibly replicate the eligibility prerequisites of the Permanent Impairment Allowance/Career Impact Allowance. Since their inception, these provisions have produced restrictive and arbitrary results. They were further complicated with the formula established by the department in 2017, in relation to the interpretation of the Career Impact Allowance grades, through the employment of the “diminished earnings capacity” test.
A more generous, readily understood approach is needed to cover a more inclusive class of disabled veterans. NCVA has long held that the traditional regulations on these benefits and policy guidelines reflected a “blunt instrument” as opposed to a “precise tool” in evaluating the overall impact that an injury may have on a disabled veteran.
In NCVA’s 2017 legislative program, we argued that the veterans’ disability award—the Pain and Suffering Compensation benefit—initially granted should be a major determinant in evaluating CIA (APSC) qualifications. The “diminished earnings capacity” test that VAC uses, and the new criteria set out for APSC qualification, represent a more restrictive approach to the evaluation for the disability award.
NCVA contends this employment of the disability award (PSC) percentage would produce a more straightforward solution to this issue of CIA (APSC) eligibility. The following would reflect this form of evaluation criteria for CIA (APSC):
Veteran Disability Award (PSC) CIA (APSC) Grade
78% or over 1
48% – 78% 2
Alternatively, the DA (PSC) percentage could be applied in a more precise manner by using the percentile against the maximum CIA/APSC compensation available. For example, if a veteran is in receipt of a DA (PSC) of 65 per cent, the veteran would receive 65 per cent of the maximum CIA (APSC) allowance. For the purposes of Grade 3 assessment, we recommend that the DA (PSC) percentile could be similarly applied. For example, if a veteran is in receipt of a DA (PSC) of 25 per cent, the veteran would receive 25 per cent of the maximum CIA (APSC) allowance. This quantification of career impact has been used under the Pension Act for almost 100 years in assessing the loss of earning capacity of a disabled veteran for lifetime pension purposes.
Adopting this approach would enhance the Pension for Life by incorporating more disabled veterans and addressing disparities.
In reference to the regulatory amendments, the prerequisite for the APSC benefit with regard to the disability of amputation remains arbitrarily defined—both in terms of eligibility and in the designated grade level. For single-limb amputees, in order to qualify, amputations have to be at or above the knee, or at or above the elbow. Our years of experience with the War Amputations of Canada make clear that the loss of a limb at any level represents a “severe and permanent impairment” for the veteran amputee. The distinction is not justified and should be amended.
The government should also create a new family benefit to parallel the Pension Act provision in relation to spousal and child allowances to recognize the impact of the veteran’s disability on his or her family.
It should also incorporate the special allowances under the Pension Act, namely, the Exceptional Incapacity Allowance and Attendance Allowance, into the Veterans Well-being Act to help address the disparity between the two statutory regimes.
In my over 40 years of working with the War Amps, we’ve handled hundreds of special-allowance claims and were involved in formulating the Exceptional Incapacity Allowance (EIA)/Attendance Allowance (AA) guidelines and grade profiles. These represent a key part of the compensation available to war amputees and other seriously disabled veterans governed by the Pension Act.
The grade levels for these allowances tend to increase over the life of the veterans as the ravages of age are confronted. Indeed, non-pensioned conditions, such as the onset of a heart, cancer, or diabetic condition, for example, are part and parcel of the EIA/AA adjudication uniquely carried out under the Pension Act policies.
In a related note, it is interesting that Veterans Affairs refers to the new Caregiver Recognition Benefit of $1,000 a month as an indication of the government’s attempt to address the needs of families of disabled veterans.
What continues to mystify the veterans’ community is why the government has chosen to reinvent the wheel. For decades, the Attendance Allowance, which has five grade levels, has been effective at addressing caregiving needs. It provides a substantially higher level of compensation and more generous eligibility criteria.
The spouses or families of seriously disabled veterans often have to give up significant employment opportunities to fulfill the caregiving needs of the disabled veteran, and $1,000 a month is not sufficient recognition of this income loss. Veteran Affairs should return to the Attendance Allowance provision and pay such a benefit to the caregiver directly, if so desired.
We would strongly suggest that VAC pursue the incorporation of the EIA/AA special allowances into the new legislation before it goes into effect in April.
https://www.hilltimes.com/2018/10/25/betrayal-commitment-canadas-veterans-community/172111
OPINION: Feds betraying commitment to veteran community - By BRIAN N. FORBES - OCT. 25, 2018
The disabled veteran community expected the re-establishment of the Pension for life option would not just attempt to address the concerns of a small minority of disabled veterans, but would include a recognition of all disabled veterans in need of financial security.
In late August, the Supreme Court dismissed the Equitas class-action lawsuit, closing the door on the legal claim initiated against Ottawa on behalf of Canada’s disabled veterans’ community.
Members of the Equitas veterans’ society, led by determined and courageous advocates, were essentially seeking a court order that would compel Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) to address the financial disparity between disability benefits awarded under the old Pension Act and those benefits granted under the New Veterans Charter, now known as the Veterans Well-being Act.
Notwithstanding the court’s decision, the battle continues and is now being waged in the political arena.
The National Council of Veteran Associations (NCVA) contends that the “lifelong pension” legislation doesn’t live up to the Liberals’ 2015 campaign promise to address the inequities in the new charter.
Amid the backdrop of the Equitas lawsuit, during the 2015 election campaign, the prime minister pledged to Canada’s veterans that, should his party win, the lawsuit would be unnecessary, as his government would re-establish lifelong pensions as an option to the lump-sum disability award.
Many understood that this commitment would specifically address the basic discrimination that exists between the Pension Act and the Veterans Well-being Act’s disability benefits. From the outset, the disparity in benefits has been at the crux of the claim.
Its new legislation continues to ignore the elephant in the room: the government has not ensured that a comparable level of financial security is provided to all disabled veterans and their families over their lifetimes.
In particular, the statutory and regulatory amendments ostensibly reflect the government’s attempt to create a form of “pension for life,” which includes the following three elements:
- A disabled veteran will have the option of receiving the present lump-sum disability award in the form of the new Pain and Suffering Compensation benefit. If eligible, and depending on the severity of the disability, the veteran can receive a monthly payment in the maximum amount of $1,150 per month, for life. For those vets who currently receive a disability award, a retroactive assessment would potentially apply and could mean a reduced monthly payment for life. In effect, VAC has simply converted the amount of the lump sum disability award into a form of a lifetime annuity as an option for those disabled veterans who are eligible.
- A new Additional Pain and Suffering Compensation benefit will essentially replace the Career Impact Allowance (Permanent Impairment Allowance), with similar grade levels and monthly payments, which reflect a non-taxable, non-economic benefit. But it would still be limited in its application to those veterans suffering a “permanent and severe impairment which is creating a barrier to re-establishment in life after service.”
- A new, consolidated Income Replacement Benefit that is taxable would combine four pre-existing benefits: Earnings Loss Benefit, Extended Earnings Loss Benefit, Supplementary Retirement Benefit, and Retirement Income Security Benefit. This benefit would be increased by one per cent every year until the veteran reaches what would have been 20 years of service or age 60. It also stipulates that any veteran who wishes to join the workforce may earn up to $20,000 before any reduction will be made to their benefit payment. It is not without financial significance that the current Career Impact Allowance and Career Impact Allowance Supplement have been eliminated from the Income Replacement Benefit package.
Although the devil remains in the details, when compared to the current charter, it is apparent that only a circumscribed number of seriously disabled veterans and their survivors may benefit from the new legislation. However, the greater majority of disabled veterans will not be materially better off. It is evident that the financial disparity between the Pension Act and the new legislation will be perpetuated for this significant cohort of disabled veterans.
Much more is required to improve the charter to satisfy the pressing concerns of the veterans’ community, if the government is to uphold the “one veteran-one standard” principle.
It is unacceptable that we continue to have veterans’ legislation that provides a significantly higher level of compensation to a veteran who is injured prior to 2006—the date the New Veterans Charter was enacted—when compared to a veteran who is injured post-2006. If applied to the Afghanistan conflict, this discrimination results in veterans of the same war having totally different pension benefits.
In the lead-up to Veteran Affairs Minister Seamus O’Regan’s announcement in 2017 outlining changes to the benefits, and in discussions following Budget 2017’s release, there was considerable concern in the veterans’ community that the government would establish an option wherein the lump-sum payment (disability award) would be apportioned or reworked over the life of the veteran in order to create a lifelong pension. NCVA and other veteran stakeholders, together with the ministerial policy advisory group, strongly criticized this proposition as being inadequate and not providing the lifetime financial security.
Stakeholders expected that some form of a substantive benefit stream would be established, which would address the financial disparity between benefits received under the Pension Act and the New Veterans Charter.
NCVA has long recommended that the department adopt the conclusions in the advisory group’s 2016 report, as well as the recommendations in the 2017 NCVA legislative program. Both reports proposed that combining the best provisions of the Pension Act and the New Veterans Charter would produce a form of lifetime pension that would secure the financial security for veterans in need.
If the “one veteran-one standard” philosophy that VAC advocates is to have any meaning, the government has to satisfy the financial needs of Canadian veterans and their dependants. But the new legislation misses the opportunity to recognize that the longstanding social covenant between Canadians and the veterans’ community demands nothing less.
Our past analysis, along with the appendices within, address the fundamental deficiencies in the department’s position and outlines a series of proposals.
As a first step to addressing the community’s concerns, the government should consider implementing this recommendation from the advisory group:
[T]he enhancement of the Earnings Loss Benefit/Career Impact Allowance as a single stream of income for life, the addition of Exceptional Incapacity Allowance, Attendance Allowance and a new monthly family benefit for life in accordance with the Pension Act will ensure all veterans receive the care and support they deserve when they need it and through their lifetime.
In specific terms, we would also suggest some steps that would go a long way to satisfying the “one veteran-one standard” approach.
Among our proposals is to liberalize the eligibility criteria for the new Additional Pain and Suffering Compensation (APSC) benefit so that more disabled veterans actually qualify. Only veterans suffering from a severe and permanent impairment will be eligible. That means the greater majority of disabled veterans will not qualify for this new component of the proposed lifelong pension.
These new regulations ostensibly replicate the eligibility prerequisites of the Permanent Impairment Allowance/Career Impact Allowance. Since their inception, these provisions have produced restrictive and arbitrary results. They were further complicated with the formula established by the department in 2017, in relation to the interpretation of the Career Impact Allowance grades, through the employment of the “diminished earnings capacity” test.
A more generous, readily understood approach is needed to cover a more inclusive class of disabled veterans. NCVA has long held that the traditional regulations on these benefits and policy guidelines reflected a “blunt instrument” as opposed to a “precise tool” in evaluating the overall impact that an injury may have on a disabled veteran.
In NCVA’s 2017 legislative program, we argued that the veterans’ disability award—the Pain and Suffering Compensation benefit—initially granted should be a major determinant in evaluating CIA (APSC) qualifications. The “diminished earnings capacity” test that VAC uses, and the new criteria set out for APSC qualification, represent a more restrictive approach to the evaluation for the disability award.
NCVA contends this employment of the disability award (PSC) percentage would produce a more straightforward solution to this issue of CIA (APSC) eligibility. The following would reflect this form of evaluation criteria for CIA (APSC):
Veteran Disability Award (PSC) CIA (APSC) Grade
78% or over 1
48% – 78% 2
Alternatively, the DA (PSC) percentage could be applied in a more precise manner by using the percentile against the maximum CIA/APSC compensation available. For example, if a veteran is in receipt of a DA (PSC) of 65 per cent, the veteran would receive 65 per cent of the maximum CIA (APSC) allowance. For the purposes of Grade 3 assessment, we recommend that the DA (PSC) percentile could be similarly applied. For example, if a veteran is in receipt of a DA (PSC) of 25 per cent, the veteran would receive 25 per cent of the maximum CIA (APSC) allowance. This quantification of career impact has been used under the Pension Act for almost 100 years in assessing the loss of earning capacity of a disabled veteran for lifetime pension purposes.
Adopting this approach would enhance the Pension for Life by incorporating more disabled veterans and addressing disparities.
In reference to the regulatory amendments, the prerequisite for the APSC benefit with regard to the disability of amputation remains arbitrarily defined—both in terms of eligibility and in the designated grade level. For single-limb amputees, in order to qualify, amputations have to be at or above the knee, or at or above the elbow. Our years of experience with the War Amputations of Canada make clear that the loss of a limb at any level represents a “severe and permanent impairment” for the veteran amputee. The distinction is not justified and should be amended.
The government should also create a new family benefit to parallel the Pension Act provision in relation to spousal and child allowances to recognize the impact of the veteran’s disability on his or her family.
It should also incorporate the special allowances under the Pension Act, namely, the Exceptional Incapacity Allowance and Attendance Allowance, into the Veterans Well-being Act to help address the disparity between the two statutory regimes.
In my over 40 years of working with the War Amps, we’ve handled hundreds of special-allowance claims and were involved in formulating the Exceptional Incapacity Allowance (EIA)/Attendance Allowance (AA) guidelines and grade profiles. These represent a key part of the compensation available to war amputees and other seriously disabled veterans governed by the Pension Act.
The grade levels for these allowances tend to increase over the life of the veterans as the ravages of age are confronted. Indeed, non-pensioned conditions, such as the onset of a heart, cancer, or diabetic condition, for example, are part and parcel of the EIA/AA adjudication uniquely carried out under the Pension Act policies.
In a related note, it is interesting that Veterans Affairs refers to the new Caregiver Recognition Benefit of $1,000 a month as an indication of the government’s attempt to address the needs of families of disabled veterans.
What continues to mystify the veterans’ community is why the government has chosen to reinvent the wheel. For decades, the Attendance Allowance, which has five grade levels, has been effective at addressing caregiving needs. It provides a substantially higher level of compensation and more generous eligibility criteria.
The spouses or families of seriously disabled veterans often have to give up significant employment opportunities to fulfill the caregiving needs of the disabled veteran, and $1,000 a month is not sufficient recognition of this income loss. Veteran Affairs should return to the Attendance Allowance provision and pay such a benefit to the caregiver directly, if so desired.
We would strongly suggest that VAC pursue the incorporation of the EIA/AA special allowances into the new legislation before it goes into effect in April.
