Disability

Posted on by Pete Cross
Hacker in a hoodie working at a computer with a fraud alert and credit card data on screen

Considering the sensitive nature of this topic it seems likely that some of you will be upset with the overall theory of this blog, whose theme suggests that there are numerous ongoing claims of “disability” that —-dare I say, may be fraudulent. I will also apologize ahead of time for those of you readers who have “legitimate” claims. However, I am going to openly suggest that some “veterans” may in fact be milking the system. Even if you have doubts, do you not think it possible that a system that promises tax free monies often based on subjective evidence may be seen by some as an opportunity for fraud? None of you can deny of often hearing anecdotal stories from veterans claiming numerous medical issues and their pressing need, argument and demand for compensation. There are even web platforms dedicated to the subject.

On a singular and simple level any claim for a work related injury would and should be based on solid medical evidence and therefore assumed to be legitimate. But often when I would hear these stories, it was accompanied by the casual knowing smirk or smile in the persons telling of the story which so often drew my attention and raised a cynical eyebrow. I would also hear the word “entitled” a lot, a word that makes me shiver. So I thought I should inquire a little further.

Human nature being what it is, anytime the government offers up some tax free money I naturally assume there will be a lineup. The question is how long has that disability line become. Equally true is that there is no longer any stigma attached to claiming any disability. Offers of mental health assistance and help lines predominate the commercial air waves and are often aimed at military and policing circles. Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) although a serious ailment is almost in vogue. Do I think PTSD is real? I do. Do I think that the system is wide open to wide spread fraud? I do.

Here are some of the most recent available numbers. Between 2014 and 2019 there was a 69% increase in RCMP members claiming “psychiatric disability” and as a result receiving disability benefits. In March of 2019 there were 16,254 recipients of disability payments, by 2024/25 that number in the RCMP had increased to 21,000. And the applications keep coming. The backlog at Veterans Affairs Canada was 20,000 in March 2007 and that backlog in June of 2020 increased by 150% to 50,000. Another somewhat startling number is that the current rate of approval for these claims is 88% in the very first instance.

The Union for the RCMP, the National Police Federation estimates that for the last fourteen years there has been a 184% increase in long term sick leave.

All of this should raise several pertinent questions that should demand further examination. What are the underlying reasons for these dramatic increases in health issues? How much is this costing? What pressures are being exerted on the organization when faced with this level of claimed disabilities?

Veterans Affairs Canada oversees this program and also oversees the Canadian Armed Forces. The RCMP portion of the disability claims actually only amounts to 10% of the total. So in terms of overall costs to the government, the numbers grow quickly when you add in the military claimants. In total in Canada there are 177,000 individuals claiming disability benefits, of which 20,686 are members or former members of the RCMP. Overall those claims in 2021/2022 are growing at 2.1% per year and costing VAC $606.1 million for disability pension expenditures, another $352.5 million for survivor pensions, and then if you include “special awards” the total comes to $1,046.6 million. Keep in mind that War Service Veterans are declining during this period. The level of employees needed to process these claims in Veterans Affairs Canada is 4,200 employees based in Charlottetown Prince Edward Island.

When asked, the VAC officially attributes this massive rise in claims to four different things.

a) a growing need for mental health services

b) rising number of medically released Veterans

c) the introduction of the Pension for Life program and finally

d) “improved outreach” (which could be translated into people know the money is there now.)

The most common medical complaints which generate those benefits, currently : Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Tinnitus, and Hearing Loss.

Most of you will have guessed where I am going with this. There has to be some consideration given to the fact that there may be a lot of frauds being committed mixed in there with legitimate claims. Even Veterans Affairs say that the “VA system is considered vulnerable” mainly due to its reliance on “self-reporting” and “insufficient verification”. However, the Federal government at the same time clearly does not want to offend “veterans”. That is a public relations no-no and believed to be political voter suicide. So VAC officially says that actual fraud is “considered rare” that there are some faking or exaggerating conditions in a system where claims they readily admit are often based on “non-visible” injuries. One estimate they offer is that fraud in the VA system is less than 0.01%. Does that not seem inordinately low considering the type of system in place and the amount of anecdotal stories abounding about?

As it turns out, that is not the experience or the conclusion of the Americans who run a similar system, and one where they spend $193 billion a year on medical disability claims. There are 900 conditions in the U.S. system that can enable a claim; sleep apnea, migraines, and erectile dysfunction to name just a few. Getting a 100% disabled designation in their system is referred to by claimants as gaining “the holy grail”. The Department of Justice, unlike Canada, believes that there is massive fraud, especially in the PTSD claims, and their studies which they have undertaken show that 20-30% of claims are exaggerated or faked. In personal injury claims in the military they estimate the fraud runs at about 20%. They have investigated and found “fraud mills”, disabled benefit receivers holding and working full time jobs, and investigators and reporters talk openly about the “claim shark” industry.

The Americans have identified, like in Canada, that the biggest growth for claims is in the category of PTSD. They have 402,000 files in their database and point out the seemingly obvious, that the biggest problem is that PTSD is the most difficult to prove or nullify. PTSD diagnosis is also on a sliding scale and it is also problematic because some of the conditions that are being looked for are such things as “flashbacks”, “nightmares”, “negative thoughts mood swings, and detachment from others” which are difficult to define.

In Canada, to claim PTSD one merely needs some level of “diagnosis accompanied by a medical statement from a doctor, psychiatrist, or psychologist in support of that claim”. There clearly are many doctors signing off on these claims, and it would be an interesting investigation to see if some doctors are being “shopped” for their signatures. Once you go through the process, you’re usually “in” as in March of 2023 there was a 96% success rate of those claims of PTSD. Psychologists, as a matter of interest believe that 9.2 % of Canadians will have PTSD in some form in their lifetime.

Now, we could assume that the American experience is not ours. That the Americans just lie more, Canadians are just more trustworthy (which is I guess what the Feds in this country believe). But if we assume that there is some level of fraud in Canadian claims we shouldn’t worry because we believe that the system will monitor and go after the cheats.

Well, that too is a a bit of a problem, because like a lot of laws in Canada there is no real internal investigative support for fraud. The Federal government answer is that there are “several different bodies” tasked with fraud investigations. Service Canada has the Integrity Services Branch, but they only investigate EI, OAS, and CPP claims. Veterans Canada says that they have “internal mechanisms to “review and audit disability benefits”, but when you look further they are only looking across departments to see if there is duplication over various claims. Public Service and Procurement Canada has an “SIID” team, which tasks against “individuals defrauding federal benefits payments” although I could not uncover any specific cases of prosecution, except for one out of London, Ontario where they charged a woman for collecting a veterans survivor benefit long after the veteran had died.

The VAC does admit to there having been over 1,000 “over payments ” some as high as $65,000, caused by persons having failed to report additional income. So they have sent out letters to try and recoup the money, and obviously this also means that there is about 1,000 veterans who may or may not have been overly careful in their filings of received income. If this myriad of oversight agencies fail, the VA says they also refer any truly fraudulent criminal matters to the RCMP. Say no more.

At this point, let me again be the first to say that there are some very legitimate disability claims and that some people have suffered a great deal in terms of their ailments and physical damages as a result of being on the job and are needing taxpayer support. (in terms of full and frank disclosure, I receive a single disability payment of about $300 a month due to a spinal injury from VAC) But, I also believe that when a government opens up the coffers and points to and even advertises a pot of potential gold, some officers come out of the wood work and begin trying to figure out how they can “get me some of that”. When you combine this with an administrative inability to confirm “significant” impairments and you have willing doctors who can be manipulated to play the system, then there will undoubtedly be fraud. I don’t believe we are different than the Americans, the difference is that the Americans are more diligent in their oversight and investigation. When I ask various individuals why they are claiming for certain ailments, you often get part of the response which includes the words “entitled” and then they rationalize that the “money is there, might as well take it”.

For me this type of rationale leaves a bitter after taste. Anyone gouging this system should be ashamed, you are tainting your service and possibly taking from those that truly need it. The equally sad truth is that in Canada you are not going to get caught. So in the end it falls back to the individual and their personal level of integrity, something which unlike Federal monies seems to be at times rather limited.

Freedom and the Battle with Public Safety

Posted on by Pete Cross

As a person who once wore blue— it was often drummed into our cerebellum that civil libertarians were the devil; and if not the devil, then they were doing the devils work. 

So I am approaching this well established policing tenet with some trepidation. Somewhat shockingly, I have found myself in agreement with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (The Pivot Legal Society still remains way outside my new found conversion) This dark metamorphosis has come to me parallel with an over-riding feeling that we Canadians have become sheep.  We are following an eager and willing governmental shepherd –as we traverse the rolling hills of Covid.   

Our Liberal shepherds seemingly believe and voice in convincing fashion that they are part of the greater and principled good. Their stated goal is to insure that none of us fall into harms way, they are protecting us from ourselves. Our once personal decisions have now been taken over by an all knowing government, only they in a position to know what is right and guide us. To save us in their crusade, they are clearly willing to subjugate the many for the sake of the few. They are so convinced of their noble-mindedness that there is no apparent need for any evidence or justification.  Every question is met with a perfunctory rejoinder: “public safety”.

We, the unwashed masses, in return, have become wilfully blind to the trampling of our rights and freedoms. Seemingly ignorant as to the cost of that blindness. 

The “public safety” chorus is being used as a societal hammer to nail down those non-believers, the heretics who question any or all of the protocols. To question is to be labelled un-educated, selfish, or as one local media personality called those that dare to be contrary, the “knuckle draggers”. 

The strange symbolic flag of this righteous cause has become a cloth item that fits over the ears. Remember, it is not protecting you, it is protecting them from you. A grandiose symbol that conjures up fits of love or rage—ironically produced for a few pennies mainly in a communist China. 

The “health” ordered rules have led to police identification checks, roadblocks, warrantless searches and arrests. In the last few weeks there has been a hue and cry for increased charges and allusions to possible jail time. The ever changing restrictions, rules, regulations and creation of  anonymous tip lines are supported by the exhortation that the  government is “standing with us”. 

They deflect accountability, either financially or administratively with the axiom that they are only following the “science.” The fact every Province is gathering the science and interpreting that “science” differently seems to be lost to the many. Doctors can be found on every side of the issue, doctors signing letters to have children get back to school, other doctors insisting that they are kept away. Leaders hide behind the un-elected health officials when there is any sign of push back. 

 The right to life, liberty and security as enshrined under Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been pushed aside by medical mandates designed primarily to save an encumbered and clearly inadequate health care system. But the most mystifying element is how quickly the populace fell into acquiescence. Are we so complacent in our freedoms that the removal of them is met with a shrug of the shoulders. 

Did anyone foresee that it would be a flu virus that would lead to the subjugation of basic human rights in this country? A flu virus that would cause people to turn onto each other —willing to report often minor contraventions of a health order, yelling on Twitter for the jailing of their fellow citizens for gathering in a group of more than a totally subjective pre-determined few. 

Some of the more restrictive covenants have come out of the Maritimes. Newfoundland recently  placed an almost outright travel ban, completely contrary to the mobility rights outlined by Section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The CCLA decided that this was finally enough to act and brought the matter to court. They lost that case when Justice Burrage of the Newfoundland Supreme Court felt that it had been justified in the “name of public health”. (The CCLA is appealing.)

In Prince Edward Island after the revealing of four (4) new cases began closing gyms and dining rooms. There was a total of fourteen (14) cases at that time in the entire Province, which has a population of 157,000 people. That is a percentage of 0.00891%. They argued that they were being “precautionary”; the CCLA counters that in “terms of civil liberties..proportionality should trump precautionary”. 

The irresponsible media continues to fuel a rather perverse fear that non-compliance was associated with quick death. This continual marketing of fear in search of life giving headlines has played a massive role in the public acceptance of these ever increasing freedom restrictions. 

Doom scrolling has become a thing. Children afraid to leave their house, visit their friends. Suicide rates doubling, unbridled mental health issues, the education system put on hold, elective surgeries postponed possibly for years, unemployment the highest since the depression, and businesses collapsing. 

This is not to say that there was indeed a segment of the population, the elderly and the enfeebled, who with often numerous frailties would clearly be put in a struggle to survive if exposed to this particular flu variant. A drastic curtailing of those that were allowed to be near or intermingle with the vulnerable, seems more plausible and therefore more justifiable in these instances. 

For the others in society the presented justifications require a real stretching of the imagination. It is also become increasingly apparent that the battle against Covid is being waged by only 20% of the population. A large segment of the population remain unaffected. They didn’t see their income decrease, they did not lose their jobs, they were not forced to work in possible contamination. The responsibility for this fight against the virus has fallen directly on the most vulnerable and the financial underclass in Canada. The immigrant factory worker in the meat processing plant must get the product undisturbed to those of us trying out some new recipes at home. 

The mandarins making up the fight and speaking from the pulpit have not been touched by the virus in general terms. They speak to us from on high, above the tidal waters, above the possibility of drowning. The governor of California out with a group at the “French Laundry” restaurant, the Ontario finance Minister vacationing out of the country, the Kingston public servant raising a glass of cheer on her boat during the summer, another day off thanks to virus. School in, school out. Tickets to six persons playing poker, or to people not of the same residence having dinner together. 

In the news today, the clinics for the vaccine closed for the weekend in Ontario. Its a crisis for some, not for a lot of the others. It is easy to tell other people to conform, it is easy to be in the right, if the impinging on those rights does not have a palatable and economic effect on your personal circumstances. 

So with all these vagaries of cause and effect can we justify the breaching of our constitutional rights? Can we forego Section 2 which declares our fundamental freedoms of belief, expression, peaceful assembly and freedom of association? Can we forego Section 6 which encapsulates our mobility rights, the right to enter, remain and leave Canada, and the ability to move and take up residence in any Province? It is a fundamental question as to whether we should be trusting the government to make those decisions for us. Ask the people in Hong Kong.

As the years have gone by I have found myself moving from the left side of the political spectrum to the centre right; more libertarian, now wavering in my belief that the government had to play a significant role in our lives. My outlook is less philosophical and more practical, based almost exclusively on decades of observation rather then on some natural political bend in philosophy. 

Government just doesn’t do things well in many instances. This isn’t conspiratorial, this isn’t for lack of effort by sometimes well meaning government employees, but more a matter of structural logistics. (The RCMP in its current form is clear cut proof of a too big, often illogical and structurally inert governmental institution; able to see the problem, but just not capable of doing anything about it. ) The current rollout of the vaccine seems to be hell bent on proving this to be true. 

There are some instances when public safety could or may invoke restrictions on the right to life and liberty. But, at the same time, there needs to be justification with compelling and testable evidence of any governmental action. Any constriction of fundamental human rights needs to be seriously examined. It can not be based solely on possibilities. Most importantly it has to be proportional to the cause. (The latest stats: 1.625% of the population of Canada has contracted Covid—85 % of those have recovered; so 1.3% of the 1.6% have recovered. Currently there are 0.24% of the population with active Covid)

Where does this leave the police? It needs to be learned that discretion in law enforcement is always a fundamental determinant of policing.  The larger the discretionary factor in terms of law applicability, the more the difficult and subjective the job for the police. When you put in place ever-changing and questionable rules and regulations, enforcement becomes dangerous territory. The value of a police force is measured in its level of credibility and its demonstrated integrity. Moral and ethical reputation is crucial to the policing life-blood.

The arbitrary or discretionary use of force and rule applications has to be seen as consistent, practical, and effective. Otherwise, you are open to ridicule and cynicism, neither of which will be helpful when it comes to enforcing the laws. The inconsistencies in the health orders and proclamations are too numerous to mention. Should you be able to outlaw dining outside in a public space, or to attend church services, or to go to another Province, while at the same time allowing NHL hockey teams to gather in their local hockey rink, or wave the need for Blue Jays officials to quarantine or deeming liquor and cannabis stores as essential. 

 It is getting harder and harder to understand and believe in this all being a rational exercise. The din of apoplectic  doctors wanting more and more infringements of your rights in an effort to save their Intensive care units seems endless. Those same ICU units, which according to the authorities have been on the “brink” of collapse, every day, day in and day out for the last six months. 

We need to take some time, to pause and consider the obvious stomping on the Canadian Constitution which is now underway. For some it is their economic livelihood and ability to care for their families which is at stake, for others it is their mental and physical health and ability to carry on. For all of us it is our personal freedom. No one should like the direction this country is going in terms of human rights and the arbitrary and the often counter-intuitive enforcement of its laws. 

Somewhat apropos Benjamin Franklin said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”. Or if you would like something a little closer to our Canadian home, Pierre Trudeau said “I remember thinking that walking on the beach as a free man is pretty desirable”. 

Photo Courtesy of Edna Witni via Flickr Commons – Some Rights Reserved