Systemic Reviews

I am pleased to publish Fair Compensation to Veterans and their Survivors for Pain and Suffering, which assesses the fairness of compensation provided under the New Veterans Charter (NVC) for non-economic loss.

I am pleased to publish Supporting Ill and Injured RCMP Members and their Families: A Review, which was prepared in consultation with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

I am pleased to publish Support to Military Families in Transition: A Review which was prepared in consultation with the Department of National Defence/Canadian Forces (DND/CF) Ombudsman.

I became Canada's Veterans Ombudsman on November 11, 2010: Remembrance Day. The morning started early with a series of television and radio interviews where there was little interest in what I wanted to do as Veterans Ombudsman but lots of interest in comparing me with my predecessor, Canada's first Veterans Ombudsman, Colonel (retired) Pat Stogran.

I embarked on the pursuit of procedural fairness for Veterans at the onset of my mandate and I am therefore pleased to publish the fifth and final report in this series, Veterans' Right to Disclosure and to Know Reasons for Decisions: The Follow-up Report. This combined report assesses the implementation of the recommendations put forth in Veterans' Right to Know Reasons for Decisions: A Matter of Procedural Fairness, produced in 2011, and Veterans' Right to Disclosure: A Matter of Procedural Fairness, produced in 2012. These reports identified areas of improvement related to the disability application and adjudication process at Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC).

I am pleased to publish Veterans’ Right to Fair Adjudication: The Follow-up Report, this Office’s first in a series of follow-up reports. This Report assesses the implementation of the recommendations put forth in Veterans’ Right to Fair Adjudication, published in 2012, which identified areas of improvement for the Veterans Review and Appeal Board (VRAB ) to ensure fairness in the redress process.

I am pleased to offer to you this report that examines two New Veterans Charter financial support benefits provided to the most severely impaired Veterans – the Permanent Impairment Allowance and the Permanent Impairment Allowance Supplement (the Supplement).

The content and findings of this paper were based on extensive open-source research and a review of available literature on Veterans health issues and the current state of Assisted Living in Canada, both in the public and private sectors.

This Review will examine the Veterans Independence Program and focus on three aspects that affect the way services are delivered to and received by clients. Specifically, we will look at the eligibility, accessibility and cost factors of the program and highlight areas of concern arising out of those elements. We will see that the Veterans Independence Program, as it currently exists, employs a complex set of eligibility criteria and applies different eligibility rules to the various categories of eligible Veterans. 

I am pleased to offer you this report as the third part of the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman’s four-part publication series Improving the New Veterans Charter: the Parliamentary Review. The report is a follow-up to the review paper, released on April 4, 2013, and is the culmination of an extensive research effort and Canada-wide consultation with Veterans and Veterans’ organizations.