Ottawa urged to approve all disability claims for veterans
Applications backlog was already a source of frustration pre-crisis
OTTAWA—One of Canada’s largest veterans organizations is urging the federal government to automatically approve the roughly 44,000 outstanding applications for disability benefits from injured veterans to help them better deal with the COVID-19 crisis.
The call from the National Council of Veteran Associations, which represents more than 60 veteran groups, comes amid fears about the financial and emotional toll the pandemic is taking on veterans struggling with mental and physical wounds.
Veterans Affairs Canada says staff are still processing claims as they work from home and that there are no immediate plans to automatically approve the backlog, which was already a source of frustration and anger for many veterans forced to wait years for support even before COVID-19.
But the COVID-19 crisis presents yet another barrier for veterans to get their applications approved, said council chairman Brian Forbes, who is also executive director of The War Amps Canada and a member of Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay’s policy advisory group.
“It was bad enough as far as the backlog and the delays and the number of new claims (before COVID-19),” Forbes said in an interview.
“And then when you put the coronavirus on top of it, you’ve got a perfect storm. Things are just not getting done.”
One of the issues facing some veterans is that they require a doctor’s assessment of their medical condition before their applications will be processed by Veterans Affairs. Yet many doctors are not seeing patients in person except in extreme circumstances, Forbes said.
Veterans Affairs recently reported more than 18,000 of the 44,000 applications in the backlog were “incomplete.”
The federal government has long faced pressure to automatically approve applications for disability benefits for veterans, with Veterans Affairs going back after the fact to conduct audits and verify eligibility.
Not only are approval rates for most categories of injuries extremely high, advocates warn delays add undue stress on veterans while potentially exacerbating difficult financial and medical conditions.
Yet Forbes suggests it doesn’t make sense for veterans to keep waiting months when the government is promising tens of billions of dollars in support to Canadians and companies to help with COVID-19 — much of which is expected to be disbursed quickly and verified later.
Veterans Affairs says the past week or so has seen more employees whose job is to process the disability claims continuing their work from home to ensure veterans are receiving decisions, especially those with the most urgent needs.