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'Not acceptable'

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Canadian Veterans Forum :: Minister of Veterans Affairs Ginette Petitpas Taylor

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Post by Spider Thu 29 Nov 2018, 6:52 am

'Not acceptable': Thousands of disabled veterans wait more than a year for benefits

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CTVNews.ca Staff with files from Annie Bergeron-Oliver
Published Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Veterans Affairs Minister Seamus O’Regan says it’s unacceptable that thousands of veterans waited more than a year to have their benefits applications processed.

“Not acceptable to veterans. Not acceptable to me,” O’Regan told CTV News on Wednesday.

“We’ve had some significant challenges with backlogs and I’m reminded of that every time I go to a veterans’ town hall,” he added.

Figures show that 3,110 -- or nine per cent -- of the 36,437 applications received by Veterans Affairs in the 2017-18 fiscal year have taken more than a year to be reviewed. Only 15,949 -- 43 per cent -- were processed within the government’s 16-week target.

O’Regan blamed the delay on a 32 per cent increase in disability claims since the Liberals took office in 2015, and the fact that the Conservatives had cut about 1,000 workers from the department.

“I’m not making any excuses but I am trying to give an explanation as to why,” O’Regan said.

“These are benefits and services that these veterans and their families deserve,” he added. “They are owed these benefits and services.”

O’Regan said the government has allocated $42 million over two years to speed up processing but it takes time to hire people, in part because many of the positions require bilingualism. He said 470 front-line staff have already been added.

“What we can do is keep doing what we’re doing, which is keep it a priority, put as many resources there as we possibly can, and hire front line staff as quickly as we can,” he said.

“We’re also putting a lot of digitization effort behind the scenes so we can get stuff done quicker,” O’Regan added.

Spider
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Post by Alpha Sat 01 Dec 2018, 7:03 am

Liberal gov't making little progress on backlogged veterans' disability claims

Murray Brewster, Vassy Kapelos · CBC News · Posted: Nov 30, 2018

'Not acceptable' Veterans-pensions-20171220

Alpha
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Canadian Veterans Forum :: Minister of Veterans Affairs Ginette Petitpas Taylor

 
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