Minister says extra staff led to cleared claim backlog

OTTAWA — Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay said Wednesday the government is making progress on clearing the backlog of claims for disability benefits from injured ex-soldiers thanks to the additions of hundreds of staff.

The minister’s comments came as new figures from Veterans Affairs Canada showed the department had around 43,000 outstanding claims in its possession at the end of March — 6,000 fewer than the previous year.

“The new trainees have been in place for a number of months now but are just really getting rolling, and the backlog has dropped down somewhat,” MacAulay said.

“The backlog is not as big as it was, but we’re going to make sure that we address that and make sure that veterans receive the compensation that Canadians want them to receive.”

Yet MacAulay also acknowledged the sheer presence of the backlog, which has left many veterans waiting sometimes years to find out whether they qualify for financial or medical assistance, is unacceptable.

The 43,000 outstanding claims included 15,000 that had been sitting in the queue for longer than four months, which is the timeline that Veterans Affairs is supposed to respond to process applications.

The clock also hadn’t started on more than 10,000 others because a staff member had not been assigned to them, while nearly 14,000 applications were listed as incomplete and needing more information.

The backlog has emerged as a major source of frustration for Canada’s veterans’ community, with advocates warning delays in processing claims add undue stress on injured ex-soldiers and exacerbate already difficult financial and medical conditions.

The Liberal government announced last year it would hire 300 additional adjudicators at a cost of $87.7 million to address the pile of nearly 50,000 unprocessed applications.

Those hires were in addition to 160 adjudicators hired more than two years ago, when the backlog first started to explode in size. Those employees were also supposed to be temporary, but officials said they would be retained.

Despite the apparent early progress of those additional hires, there remain concerns that the department will soon be overwhelmed again as veterans begin to apply in greater numbers following a lull during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Veterans Affairs received around 18,000 claims from injured ex-soldiers between April and September 2020, which was roughly half the number the department had been receiving before the pandemic.

Those numbers have since started to creep up again, and while Veterans Affairs has managed to keep pace, Canada War Amps executive director Brian Forbes said the department is about to be swamped with pent-up requests for help.

Forbes says many veterans were unable to apply for benefits during the pandemic because they couldn’t get the necessary medical papers.

Not only is that no longer as much of an obstacle, Forbes also said the Canadian Armed Forces allowed military personnel to delay their departures from the military for medical reasons during COVID-19.