Reform Education and Training Benefit

AI summary

The petitioners say the Education and Training Benefit (ETB) is meant to help veterans transition to civilian life and cite a 2022 Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) evaluation that identified opportunities to improve short-course funding and access. They ask the House of Commons to reform the ETB by creating a single flexible entitlement for multiple approved education and training types, allowing transfer of unused entitlement to eligible family members, making ETB payments non-taxable and excluding them from certain income-tested federal calculations, preserving eligibility while VAC adjudicates timely applications, protecting eligibility time affected by VAC rehabilitation, and reviewing service thresholds including Reserve service toward a graduated entitlement model. No government response is included with the petition.

AI summaries describe petitioners’ requests and claims. Consult the official record for the full text.

Official petition

Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament assembled The Education and Training Benefit is intended to help Veterans transition successfully to post-service life, achieve education and employment goals, and compete in the civilian workforce; Veterans Affairs Canada's 2022 evaluation identified opportunities to improve ETB short-course funding and access to appropriate education and training; and The ETB's current structure can limit Veterans' practical ability to use the benefit for education and training suited to their post-service goals. We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons in Parliament assembled to reform the Education and Training Benefit to: 1. Establish one flexible entitlement allowing approved formal, technical, vocational, professional, certified and industry-recognized education and training, including multiple programs or courses, to draw from a Veteran's available ETB entitlement; 2. Permit Veterans to transfer unused ETB entitlement to an eligible spouse, common-law partner or child for approved education and training; 3. Make ETB education and training payments non-taxable and, where federally possible, exclude them from unrelated income-tested federal calculations; 4. Ensure a substantially complete application submitted before training begins preserves eligibility while VAC adjudicates it, with reasonable exceptions for circumstances outside the Veteran's control; 5. Protect usable ETB eligibility time where participation in VAC rehabilitation prevents reasonable use of the benefit; and 6. Review the ETB's existing service thresholds, particularly their application to Reserve Force service, and examine a graduated entitlement model that more proportionately recognizes qualifying service below and between the existing thresholds.

Government response

No government response is available yet.