A new report from the Auditor General of Canada released on Tuesday reveals that the federal government is struggling to make sure that disabled veterans, wounded military personnel and vulnerable Canadians receive the benefits they need.
Karen Hogan delivered four reports on Tuesday auditing the federal government’s efforts to: provide disability benefits to veterans; provide income and other benefits to vulnerable populations; use gender-based analysis to improve people’s lives and help various prison populations.
“These audits point to long-standing problems and barriers in a wide range of government activities,” Hogan told reporters Tuesday. “These barriers are unacceptable to both indigenous and black criminals, as well as low-income people and veterans who access the benefits.”
The report concluded that while Veterans Affairs Canada had taken steps to improve the disability benefit application process, its file management was ineffective and the department was unable to reduce waiting times. of veterans.
“Implementation of the initiatives has been slow,” the report says. “There is a lack of data to measure improvements. Both funding and almost half of the employees of the team responsible for processing applications were temporary.
“As a result, veterans waited too long to receive benefits to support their physical and mental health and the overall well-being of their families.”
Look, the Auditor General says the government is fighting to provide benefits to vulnerable populations:
The Auditor General of Canada reports that the government is struggling to provide benefits to vulnerable populations
Auditor General Karen Hogan says the government has known about profit barriers for a long time, but has done little to resolve the situation.
About 40 weeks of waiting
The report found that veterans waited nearly 40 weeks to make a decision on their first application for disability benefits, when the department’s average processing time for most other applications was only 16. weeks.
The report said the department had not met its standard for offering benefits for seven years.
The report also found that French-speaking women, women and injured RCMP agents had to wait longer than other Canadians to reap their benefits.
From April 2020 to September 2021, wounded RCMP officers had to wait 38% longer than members of the Canadian Armed Forces for benefits, women had to wait 24% more than men and francophones had to wait 21% longer than anglophones.
“I am left with the conclusion that the government has not fulfilled a promise it made to our veterans: that it would take care of them if they were injured in service,” Hogan said Tuesday.
“This has a real impact on the well-being of our veterans and their families.”
According to a new report from the Auditor General of Canada, the way Veterans Affairs manages disability benefits is ineffective and the department cannot reduce veterans ’waiting times. (Combat Camera / DND)
To address the department’s issues, the Auditor General recommended to Veterans Affairs that it renew the way it organizes its data so that the department can make better decisions. The report also advised the department to better plan resources so that it can process applications in a timely manner.
The department said it accepted the criticism and recommendations, but also blamed the delays on a 40% increase in overall applications and a 75% increase on first-time applications.
“By the end of March 2022, the department expects to halve the number of applications that expect more than our service standard,” the department said in its response.
Vulnerable populations and federal benefits
The Auditor General also looked at how the federal government provides benefits to hard-to-reach people and vulnerable populations, such as Indigenous people, the homeless, newcomers to Canada, including refugees, people with disabilities, people old and young.
The report found that government departments did not do enough to track the provision of certain benefits to these groups, such as the Canada Child Benefit, the Canada Workers Benefit, the Income Supplement. guaranteed and the Canadian learning voucher.
“The Canada Revenue Agency and the Canada Employment and Social Development Agency did not know whether most of their targeted outreach activities had helped increase profit-making rates for hard-to-reach populations,” he said. said Hogan in a statement.
“As a result, they do not improve the lives of some people and families who need these benefits the most.”
To address the issue, the Auditor General said that the Canada Revenue Agency and the Canada Employment and Social Development Agency should: better measure the use of benefits to understand the problem; reach vulnerable populations more effectively and work more efficiently with other government departments.
Correctional Service of Canada
Hogan’s look at the Correctional Service of Canada, CSC, found that the department had not adjusted its programs to respond to the growing diversity of the delinquent population.
This approach, according to the report, has contributed to a steady failure to remove systemic barriers that have “persistently disadvantaged certain groups of criminals in custody.”
“We raised similar issues in our audits in 2015, 2016, and 2017, but the Correctional Service of Canada has done little to change the policies, practices, tools, and approaches that produce these different outcomes,” Hogan said.
The report found that because systemic barriers have not been removed, visible minorities, women and indigenous criminals did not have access to programs that would help them successfully reintegrate into society once they left the country. prison.
Gender analysis
The report found, for example, that black criminals were placed at high security levels after being admitted to the system twice as many as other prisoners. This is significant, according to the report, because “the initial security placements of an offender affect his or her chances of parole and the length of his or her prison sentences.”
The audit also found that the CSC had failed to create a workforce that “reflected the diversity of its delinquent populations.”
The fourth report found that the federal government has not done enough to improve the results of gender equality for various groups of people.
“We concluded that since our 2015 audit, limited progress had been made in identifying and addressing barriers to implementing gender-based analysis,” the report said. “Challenges for implementation persisted, including some that were identified in our 2009 audit.”
The report said that the Office of the Privy Council, the Secretariat of the Treasury Board of Canada and Women and Gender Equality Canada must do a better job together to ensure that gender-based analysis of service delivery and government programs give results.