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L'Association des anciens
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Update On Federal Court Judicial Reviews and VRAB
This information on the Federal Court Judicial Reviews and Veterans Review and Appeal Board (VRAB) is provided to you by Eric Rebiere, RCMP Veterans' Association Member of Kingston RCMP Veterans' Association. If any of the enclosed information affects you or someone you have knowledge of please feel free to contract Eric or put them in touch with Eric.
This is an update in regards to gathering Injured Vets Federal Court Judicial Reviews and VRAB response to them. I know their is one case where an RCMP veteran has had to go to the Federal Courts in regards to a claim. If anyone in the RCMP Veterans Association know of any members active or retired that has had to spend money on a lawyer for a Judicial Review and the VRAB did not follow the courts direction please have them contact me. The rest is self explanatory. Regards Eric Rebiere
I have been in touch with the Ottawa Lawyer who is looking at producing VRAB decisions or lack their of in regards to Judicial Reviews you have all had to pay for. I have told him that I have been contacted by 6 injured vets who paid a lot of money they could not afford for lawyer in order to get help at the Federal Court Level with all getting positive decisions sent back to the VRAB who have done nothing. As it stand now I explained to the Ottawa Lawyer of producing the VRAB responses to the Federal Court Judicial Reviews as evidence the VRAB is not following the Federal Court Act direction. This is new territory that has not been tried before in Federal Court and if properly presented with the right case (one of yours) would set a new president and open the door for other injured vets. This case will provide the Federal Courts feed back through your VRAB replies to the Judicial Reviews which are the only records published and will give the Federal Courts a reason to take action directing by court order rather than providing direction to the VRAB. The question of accountability by the VRAB will be in the open.
I told the lawyer that it is important to surface the fact to the Federal Courts that if the VRAB had done their jobs in the first place (respected the Benefit of the Doubt clause) that a lot of injured Veterans Military and RCMP should not have had to go to the huge expense of a Judaical Review (some of you twice) and that the money needlessly spent on these Judicial Review should be ordered paid back to you all that are victims of the VRAB. This is my hope that reimbursement of lawyers fees will be an aspect of taking a case to the Federal Courts.
This Ottawa Lawyer who reviewing the information that I am putting together is a no nonsense lawyer and if this was a waste of time he would have told me a long time ago. He is taking cautious approach to this and is still in the assessment phase prior to committing to representing us and go to trial. He being the lawyer will of course take the most prudent approach. Because this is still in the assessment phase I am not going to announce the name of the firm and the lawyer in Ottawa until a case has been identified.
My Commitment other than gathering all the VRAB decisions, Judicial Reviews etc. is to put together a Court Brief (like I did when I was working with the RCMP) compiling all your information i.e. Judicial Reviews, VRAB replies to the Judicial Reviews, your synopsis of events starting at your injury, VRABappeals and denials etc and the physical, psychological and financial impact on you and your families (Its very important to express how this has needlessly affected you all). I will supply the lawyer a hard copy and DVD of all this information..
So the idea so far is to pick the best case that we can be successful with and file the rest of those cases with Judicial Reviews and VRAB decisions with the Federal Courts to show the Judges that their are other similar cases pending.
To set the VRAB strait for all injured vets and open the door to getting your lawyers fees back I would say is worth this effort that in the end will benefit all injured Vets -Military and RCMP.
I am committed to this because its dealing directly with the VRAB problem which as you know is governed by the Federal Court Act. I have been in touch with Mike Blais President and Founder of the Canadian Veterans Advocacy and once a case is ready to go forward the CVA will start a fund raiser to pay to pay for this case. The lawyer has expressed his interest in looking at this by spending a good number of his own time for free and I feel is the right lawyer to represent this legal initiative.
I have asked Mike Blais the President of the Canadian Veterans Advocacy to disseminate this to all Veterans organizations in order to surface more injured vets who had Judicial Reviews and VRAB decisions. We have 6 possibly 7 injured Vets on the list so far with Judicial Reviews. The more the better.
Federal Court site (link http://decisions..fct-cf.gc.ca/fc-eliisa/search?language=EN&courtScope=fc&all=VRAB&title=&citation= ) look under decisions and type in VRAB. You will see approx. 77 judicial Reviews involving the VRAB. If you know any of these injured vets and can get in touch with them, send them this email I have sent you and have them contact me.
Eric Rebiere (Former Cst. RCMP 37515)
Charter Member Canadian Veterans Advocacy
Director of legal initiatives
The following is my analysis of the VRAB Act and how it is governed by the Federal Court Act.. Most of all it explains why injured veterans have to push a rock up a hill even after getting a favourable Judicial Review and why the VRAB are getting away with ignoring these Judicial Reviews. Click here to see article.