Our country owes a debt of gratitude to all Canadian Veterans. Our focus is on continuing to support their well-being and recognizing the sacrifices both they and their families have made. A Veteran experiencing well-being is a Veteran with purpose, financial security, safe housing, good physical and mental health, the ability to adapt to change, a sense of belonging to their community, pride and awareness of their legacy, and is also valued and celebrated.
Our main priorities for 2023–24 are:
Service Excellence
Reduce processing times.
Our top priority continues to be ensuring that Veterans receive their benefits in a timely manner, and we remain committed to reducing the processing times for disability benefits applications. We have made tangible progress, but have more to do. We will continue to work diligently so we can continue making decisions faster.
As outlined under Modernization, we will continue to modernize our tools, to improve the automated transfer and input of information, to learn from our partners and to leverage existing research to expedite processing.
Support our most vulnerable Veterans (e.g., those who are struggling with mental illness, unemployment, or homelessness; or who belong to other underrepresented or marginalized groups).
We do not take our commitment to equality lightly as we seek to integrate Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA Plus) into our work and to advance gender equality, respect diversity, and promote inclusion for all Veterans. We do this by recognizing the differential impacts of policies, programs and services based on gender identity and expression, biological sex, and/or sexual orientation, as well as intersecting identity factors such as age, disability, indigeneity, race/ethnicity, religion, and language.
Commemorate Veterans and their families.
Veterans and their families have earned the respect and gratitude of all Canadians. We are committed to honouring the sacrifices and achievements of all those who served in Canada’s military efforts. We will continue to make sure that memorials, cemeteries and gravemarkers are preserved and cared for, and engage Canadians in remembrance through various national and international events, learning resources and commemorative projects.
Modernization
Increase use of automation/ digitization and update legacy systems.
We are committed to innovating and making the changes required to modernize the way we do business.
We will continue to explore automation and digitization opportunities which will increase efficiency and productivity in all areas of our work.
We are committed to investing in the modernization of our benefits processing system in support of timely decision making for Veterans. We are embarking on a multi-year effort to update legacy system components to ensure we have a consistent modernized approach to systems used by decision-makers within the Department.
Improve business processes, including effective data management.
The volume of data that governments produce is growing exponentially. We will continue to review and adapt our business models, build new expertise and devise new ways of managing and using our data. We will continue to streamline our processes so that they are easier to follow.
Support a hybrid work model.
During the pandemic, federal public servants proved their ability to adapt to new ways of working both on-site and remotely while delivering results for Canadians. We are learning from this experience and embracing a hybrid workforce as part of how and where we work in the future.
We recognize and look forward to exploring the interconnections among people, talent, diversity, management practices and organizational structures as we support this transition.
Care for our People
Support employees’ health and well-being.
Healthy employees have better quality of life. They benefit from a lower risk of illness and injury and have a greater likelihood of contributing to their communities.
We are committed to advancing the well-being of our staff through the promotion of year-round wellness initiatives aimed at physical and psychological health. As we move toward a hybrid work model, we will continue to be as flexible as possible and provide support related to accessibility and our duty to accommodate.
Cultivate a highly skilled, diverse and inclusive workforce.
Building a diverse, equitable and inclusive public service requires continually looking for ways to identify and overcome the systemic barriers that have made it difficult for some to enter the public service and to progress within it.
We will renew our commitment to maintaining a diverse and inclusive workplace, one that empowers and develops employees with a goal of recruiting, developing, and retaining top talent. It is the collective impact of retaining staff with the right skills, along with our modernization efforts, that will help us reach our goals. Our departmental culture, which engages and inspires employees to their highest possible levels of performance, makes VAC a workplace of choice.
Empower and equip employees for success.
Remote work has allowed us to continue operations and deliver services to Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic. As we move toward a post-pandemic environment, this experience will shape the future of a flexible, agile and inclusive public service. We will design work environments to optimize performance, make learning a fundamental part of the job and explore technology and tools to be more effective and to enable employee success.
We are committed to fostering a workplace that empowers employees with authority to make decisions and gives them the tools they need to provide excellent service.
For more information on our plans, priorities and planned results, see the “Core responsibilities: planned results and resources” section of this report.