Supporting Canadian Veterans with Disabilities
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Authors
Aiken, Alice
Buitenhuis, Amy
Date
2016-04-07
Type
journal article
Language
en
Keyword
Disabled Veterans , Pensions
Alternative Title
Abstract
Abstract
The provision of benefits and services to veterans to ensure they
receive the health care and compensation they need to lead a good
quality of life after military service has always been a challenge for
governments around the world. In Canada, over 4,000 Canadian Forces
members are released each year, and many leave with physical inju
-
ries as well as operational stress injuries such as post-traumatic stress
disorder. There has been a push in the past two decades to modernize
veterans’ programs to ensure that veterans receive adequate physical
rehabilitation, mental health care, and vocational retraining to reinte
-
grate smoothly into Canadian society.
In 2006, Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) made broad, sweeping
changes to the way veterans receive services and benefits by introduc
-
ing the New Veterans Charter (NVC). The Pension Act, which was
the 50-year-old policy that previously determined veterans’ services
and benefits, mostly provided veterans with life-long pensions based
on disability. The NVC provides a range of financial programs and
services for veterans released after April 2006.
Within the past five years, a number of reports have examined the
effectiveness of the NVC, highlighting gaps and providing recommen
-
dations. As of the time of publication of this report, few changes have
been made. Therefore, this report does not aim to provide recommen
-
dations specific to the improvement of the NVC. Instead, it compares
the financial benefits offered under the NVC to those offered under
the Pension Act. This comparison specifically looks at how financial
benefits offered under the two policies differ for veterans with the
most severe disabilities. Financial benefits are important for veterans
with severe disabilities because they are more likely to have difficulty
finding work, and they face higher health-care costs than veterans with
less severe or no disabilities. The report is organized as follows. Chapter 1 provides background
information on the NVC, the Pension Act, and the history of veterans’
benefits in Canada. It also summarizes reports written thus far on the
success of the NVC and defines the term “veteran with severe disabili
-
ties.” Chapter 2 describes the method of comparison of the financial
benefits from the two policies used for the study, and Chapter 3 sum
-
marizes the results of the comparison. Chapter 4 discusses the results
and also highlights some of the limitations of the study and areas of
future work. Finally, Chapter 5 provides some recommendations for
consideration regarding the NVC.