Veterans Affairs workers decry cuts, closure of regional offices.

By Jordan Press

Postmedia News

OTTAWA — The federal government is fooling itself if it believes that veterans will increasingly want to go online or on the phone to access services they need, department staff said Tuesday.

The union representing workers said one in three frontline service workers will be eliminated by 2015 as the result of spending cuts, and now veterans will have fewer chances to meet in person with Veterans Affairs Canada employees as the department closes nine regional offices in Windsor, Ont., Saskatoon, Kelowna, B.C., Prince George, B.C., Charlottetown, Thunder Bay, Ont., Brandon, Man., Sydney, N.S. and Corner Brook, N.L.

Instead, veterans are being directed to a toll-free number that allows them to speak with a representative from a private, American-based insurance company.

“Our clients will not be dealing with Veterans Affairs employees,” said Michelle Bradley, a client services worker from Saint John, N.B. “Personal relationships our clients have with us will soon be a thing of the past.”

Spending cuts announced in the 2012 budget will lead to the elimination of 252 jobs at Veterans Affairs Canada over the next three years, with 75 of those jobs being eliminated by the fall.

Those cuts don’t include the 552 jobs the department is eliminating over the coming three years resulting from its internal reshuffling of how it provides services to veterans.

“This is a cut in services,” said NDP veterans affairs critic Peter Stoffer. “Every single person that looks at this knows there will be drastic cuts to Veterans Affairs services.”

The government said that those cuts could be handled through attrition as 1,000 employees in the department are eligible to retire over by 2015.

“There will be no reduction to case managers who provide support to veterans in greatest need. We will continue to meet or exceed our service standard of one case manager for every 40 case-managed veterans,” said Codie Taylor, a spokeswoman for Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney.

“Our government will continue to ensure our nation’s heroes receive the best possible care.”

The department believes that 80 per cent of its clients will be able to handle the majority of their needs either through contact with the department online or on the phone by 2014.

“We don’t believe it’s feasible,” said Yvan Thauvette, president of the Union of Veterans Affairs Employees. “There won’t be any services anymore. They’ll have to serve themselves.”

The government’s decisions to make cuts to the department as the number of veterans continues to rise with the end of the Afghanistan mission, could lead to heated confrontations with Canada’s newest veterans, Stoffer said.

“The modern day veteran is much more aggressive” about accessing and demanding services than older veterans, he said. “They’re not taking no for an answer.”

While there are about 67,000 veterans who are departmental clients, that number is probably higher because there are an estimated 593,700 veterans in Canada, according to the Veterans Ombudsman.

jpress@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/jordan—press

PN 5/01/12 15:49:20