Letter to MND: Follow-up to Service Delivery Letter

17 November 2017

The Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan, PC, OMM, MSM, CD, MP
Minister of National Defence
National Defence Headquarters
Major-General George R. Pearkes Building
101 Colonel By Drive, 13th Floor, North Tower
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0K2

 

Dear Minister Sajjan:

As you know, in September 2016 my Office released the following report:

  • Simplifying the Service Delivery Model for Medically Releasing Members of the Canadian Armed Forces, which contained three recommendations.

In our report, we recommended that the Canadian Armed Forces:

  1. Retain medically releasing members until such time as all benefits and services from the Canadian Armed Forces, Veterans Affairs Canada, and Service Income Security Insurance Plan have been confirmed and are put in place.
  2. Establish a Concierge Service for all medically releasing members.
  3. Leads, through a phased approach, the development of a secure web portal.

In response to our report, you indicated that there was merit in our recommendations, that ideas were being explored and that work was underway.

A year has now passed and, as part of my mandate, we are following up on progress made with respect to our recommendations. In doing so, we are conducting periodic assessments as to the status of individual recommendations, and will post these assessments on our website.

For each recommendation, I would be grateful if our Office could be provided the following information:

  1. Evidence of concrete actions (accomplishments, achievements, etc.) undertaken to date; and
  2. Anticipated next steps and action items for unresolved or ongoing recommendations.

As you may recall from our discussions my Office has taken the lead in collaboration with the Canadian Armed Forces with the development of a secure web portal.

I would be grateful to receive a detailed response by 12 December 2017.

Should your staff have any questions or concerns, they should feel free to communicate with Ms. Robyn Hynes, Director General – Operations at (613) 995-9504 or via e-mail at Robyn.Hynes@forces.gc.ca.

I appreciate your continued support and assistance in this matter.

 Sincerely,

 

Gary Walbourne
Ombudsman

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