Our 2017–18 Departmental Plan provides parliamentarians and Canadians with information on what we do and the results we are trying to achieve during the upcoming year. To improve reporting to Canadians, we are introducing a new, simplified report to replace the Report on Plans and Priorities.
The title of the report has been changed to reflect its purpose: to communicate our annual performance goals and the financial and human resources forecast to deliver those results. The report has also been restructured to tell a clearer, more straightforward and balanced story of the actual results we are trying to achieve, while continuing to provide transparency on how tax payers’ dollars will be spent. We describe our programs and services for Canadians, our priorities for 2017–18, and how our work will fulfill our departmental mandate commitments and the government’s priorities.
Our course for the coming year will be driven by three basic principles—care, compassion, and respect. We will care for the men and women who have served Canada and their families. We will show compassion for their needs, and work hard to meet them. We will respect them and recognize their extraordinary service and sacrifices. Our plans to honour and commemorate Canadian Veterans and those who died in service include marking the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge and opening the new Vimy Visitor Education Centre, in France, as well as building a national memorial to Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, in Ottawa.
Our overall focus for 2017–18 is to always put the well-being of Veterans at the centre of everything we do. By making service excellence a priority, we will ensure that Veterans experience improved quality, timeliness and efficiency in the delivery of their services. We will increase the maximum of the Disability Award/Death Benefit and continue our longstanding and important work on mental health. We will strive to be proactive and to respond quickly and compassionately to the emerging needs of Veterans. We will open more offices to better serve Veterans in their communities, expand our online services and continue to hire more frontline staff.
We will work internally to implement our Workplace of Choice Action Plan–a call for cultural change and employee engagement–that lays out the Department’s plan to change its work culture and help employees feel supported, informed and actively engaged.
We will use performance measurement and gather feedback directly from Veterans to ensure our programs are meeting their needs. We will track our progress and report back to Veterans. We will continue to align our resources to get the real results that Veterans and their families deserve.
I am confident that the improvements we make over the coming year will help ensure that all of Canada’s Veterans and their families experience care, compassion and respect in all their dealings with the Department.
Sincerely,
The Honourable Kent Hehr, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence