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Her Excellency the Governor General recommends to the House of
Commons the appropriation of public revenue under the circumstances,
in the manner and for the purposes set out in a measure entitled ``An Act
to amend the statute law in relation to veterans' benefits''.
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This enactment amends various Acts governing veterans' benefits.
Specifically, it
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(a) amends the Civilian War-related Benefits Act to provide
access - equal to that of armed forces veterans - to benefits under
the Pension Act and the War Veterans Allowance Act, for civilian
groups that served overseas closely with, or under analogous
conditions to, the wartime forces, namely,
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(i) the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit,
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(ii) the Corps of (Civilian) Canadian Fire Fighters for Service in
the United Kingdom,
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(iii) nursing aids and other members of the Canadian Red Cross
and St. John's Ambulance who served in the Voluntary Aid
Detachment of the First World War or as overseas welfare
workers of the Second World War and the Korean War, and
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(iv) Ferry Command personnel;
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(b) amends the Pension Act to allow Canadian Forces members in the
regular force who have service-related disabilities to receive
disability pensions while still serving, thereby ensuring equality
with members whose disabilities arose in special duty area service
(i.e. peacekeeping) and reserve force service;
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(c) permits veteran disability pensioners who are married to, or
living common-law with, each other to both receive the married rate;
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(d) extends remission authority to all types of overpayments of
veterans' benefits, while improving the ability to collect without
causing hardship;
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(e) reformulates the provisions governing the assessment of outside
disability benefits (e.g. workers' compensation, United Nations
disability compensation, court-awarded damages for personal
injury);
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(f) provides for a one-year continuation of a deceased veteran's
pension to the guardian of the veteran's orphaned children;
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(g) changes the pension indexation formula to accommodate
declines in the Consumer Price Index;
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(h) consolidates the provisions relating to service in special duty
areas (i.e. peacekeeping), as well as those relating to Korean War
service, directly into the Pension Act;
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(i) clarifies the rules governing the exchange and use of client
information, both within the Department of Veterans Affairs and
between the Department of Veterans Affairs and other departments;
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(j) protects client information from having to be disclosed by public
servants in non-criminal, non-appellate legal proceedings;
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(k) reformulates the provisions governing the amount of income
support under the War Veterans Allowance Act when income has
declined since the previous year;
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(l) allows compassionate awards to be continued to survivors
without the necessity of a high-level re-adjudication;
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(m) makes organizational changes in the veterans' land program;
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(n) deletes penal provisions from veterans' legislation where the
provisions are either unnecessary or are substantially duplicated by
the Criminal Code; and
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(o) makes technical housekeeping changes to clarify
regulation-making authorities, improve wording, ensure the use of
gender-neutral language in English, correct cross-references,
correct the French name of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and
repeal obsolete Acts and provisions.
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