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Canada’s veterans ombud, Nishika Jardine, is visiting Southwestern Ontario this week to hear from veterans about their concerns on such issues as health care, pensions and disability claims. The retired colonel, who spent almost 40 years as an officer in the Corps of Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, spoke with LFP reporter Beatriz Baleeiro.
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Q: How’s your visit to Southern Ontario going so far, and what was the reason behind it?
A: We’ve been doing outreach all across the country. Since I was appointed in 2020, it’s my sense that people don’t know about our office, serving members or veterans, so when the pandemic restrictions lifted, we started travelling to let people know what our office offers and, more importantly, hear from veterans and their families directly about the concerns they have with Veterans Affairs Canada.
Q: Can you talk about your role as a veterans ombud?
A: My role is to represent the work we do, to be the public face of the office. I meet with the deputy minister of veterans affairs to convey my concerns about what I hear from veterans directly. Our office provides a place for veterans to go when they feel that they’ve been treated unfairly by Veterans Affairs Canada and when they’re seeking to receive benefits. We’re neutral, independent and free. We’re a resource to veterans when they’re feeling frustrated.
Q: What are some concerns you’re hearing from veterans in London?
A: It’s not just in London or Hamilton that veterans struggle to find a family doctor when they leave the Canadian forces. As a result, they’re sometimes hampered in getting treatment benefits for mental health issues or a diagnosis so they can put in their disability claims to Veterans Affairs or even just get prescriptions filled. We’ve even heard that some family doctors don’t want to have veterans in their practice because they’re “too much trouble.” So it’s a real problem across the country.
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Q: What can be said to veterans who are frustrated with being unable to get treatment or struggling to get their health-benefit claims approved to deal with injuries they sustained while in service?
A: There are veterans whose claims don’t go through (Veterans Affairs Canada), and we see the frustration, or they have to wait a long time for their claims to get adjudicated. It means those veterans are going without treatment, particularly the ones with primary care, so we hear from those veterans, and that frustration is real.
Q: The House of Commons standing committee on veterans affairs developed a report in June called ‘Invisible No More: The Experiences of Canadian Women Veterans.’ It describes the experience of women veterans with sexual abuse while in the military over the past four decades. What are your thoughts?
A: I was pleased to see the number of recommendations, and certainly, in my office, we’d endorse and encourage the fullness of research into how service affects women differently than men. And to use that research to inform how benefits are designed for veterans. The report’s title really speaks to the hope that women in the forces have that their services will be equally recognized, and we look forward to seeing elements come to pass.
Q: What are some of your priorities for 2025?
A: We’ve been to every major Canadian Forces base and wing except for three places, and so we hope to get to those in 2025, and then, we’re going to reconsider where the focus of our continuing our outreach will be so we’re still working on what those plans will be.
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