Senator Martin: I have another question about lapsed spending. In November 2018, the Trudeau government supported a motion in the other place that called upon the government to automatically carry forward all annual lapsed spending at Veterans Affairs to the next fiscal year, until the department meets its own service standards.

Instead of fixing the problem, this government has made the situation worse. Over the first four years of this Liberal government, about $477 million went unspent at Veterans Affairs Canada. The funding that lapsed at Veterans Affairs last year alone far exceeds that amount.

Leader, why did the Prime Minister not live up to his 2015 election promise to end this practice? And why hasn’t your government respected the motion passed in 2018? Does the Prime Minister still believe that veterans are asking for more than his government is willing to give?

Hon. Yonah Martin (Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, my question is for the government leader in the Senate.

As Senator Marshall noted recently, last year’s public accounts were not tabled by the Trudeau government until December 14, which is much later than usual. These public accounts showed the Department of Veterans Affairs lapsed over $634 million in spending last year. This is a tremendous amount of money to leave unspent at Veterans Affairs, especially in light of a backlog in processing disability claims that stood at over 40,000 applications at the end of June 2021.

Leader, given the long wait faced by our veterans for benefits they have earned by serving our country, why did the Trudeau government allow $634 million to go unspent at Veterans Affairs last year?

Hon. Yonah Martin (Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, my question is also for the government leader in the Senate. Last month, the Union of Veterans’ Affairs Employees wrote to Minister MacAulay regarding the workload of case managers at the department. In 2015, the Trudeau government promised that the ratio of veterans to case managers would be 25 to 1. However, the union says that as of this fall only a handful of case managers had fewer than 30 veterans to manage. The average caseload for case managers was between 40 and 45, with some case managers reporting over 50 veterans on their list.

Leader, this situation is negatively impacting not just the veterans waiting to receive care, but also the Veterans Affairs employees themselves. When will your government live up to its promise to lower the caseload ratio at Veterans Affairs and give our veterans the service they deserve?

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Hon. Yonah Martin (Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Leader, just before Remembrance Day, Minister Lawrence MacAulay gave an interview in which he promised once again that the Trudeau government would hire more staff at Veterans Affairs to deal with the high caseload at the department. However, the minister did not say how many workers would be hired or when. Almost a month has gone by and there are still no specifics from the Trudeau government. I know you’ve acknowledged that the caseloads have increased and that hiring is one of the priorities.

Leader, has Minister MacAulay or anyone from your government responded to the letter from the Union of Veterans’ Affairs Employees? What was the response? Could you find out how many of the temporary workers who were hired to deal with the backlog are scheduled to be let go by March 2022, which is only a few months away?