Question Period Note: CRITICAL INJURY BENEFIT

The Government is fully committed to the health and well-being of Canadian Armed Forces members, Veterans and their families; this includes mental health.
• The Government places the highest priority on ensuring members, Veterans and their families have the support and services they need, when and where they need it.
• The Critical Injury Benefit provides a tax-free lump-sum of $90,368.09 (2025 rate) to members and Veterans to recognize the immediate impact of the most severe and traumatic physical and mental health service-related injuries or diseases, regardless of whether they resulted in a permanent disability.
• The Critical Injury Benefit policy was updated as of December 21, 2023, to clarify the language that describes benefit eligibility, paying particular attention to descriptions of psychological injuries.
• The Critical Injury Benefit is designed to address a very specific need and is one of a range of benefits and services provided by VAC to support ill and injured Veterans. It is not intended to duplicate the Pain and Suffering Compensation which compensates for permanent disabilities.

The Critical Injury Benefit (CIB) came into force on July 1, 2015. It is a tax-free lump sum amount of $90,368.09 (2025 rate) payable to members or Veterans that have sustained a severe and traumatic injury or developed an acute disease that is:
• Service-related,
• The result of a sudden single incident (after March 31, 2006), and
• Immediately caused a severe impairment and severe interference in their quality of life.
The program was designed to compensate only the most seriously injured members and Veterans for the immediate consequences of their severe and traumatic injuries – both physical and mental. It is very restrictive and designed to not duplicate the purpose of the Pain and Suffering Compensation which is to compensate for permanent disabilities (chronic conditions, e.g. hearing loss and PTSD).
There has been stakeholder criticism against the CIB as some believe that it is not available to members and Veterans with mental health injuries as the Regulatory criteria for a traumatic injury or an acute disease includes specific physical injuries such as amputations but no specific mental health injuries.
On October 27, 2022, the Entitlement Review Panel of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board reversed a Departmental decision and granted CIB entitlement to an applicant for their psychological injury. This decision highlighted the need for additional clarity with respect to how Parliament intended the CIB provisions to be applied (when the benefit was approved and funded) in situations where a mental health injury or illness is the primary cause of a severe impairment (chronic illness vs acute illness).
Veterans Affairs Canada published updates to the Critical Injury Benefit policy, effective December 21, 2023. These updates include:
• Clarifying that a member or Veteran suffering from a severe impairment and severe interference in quality of life would not be able to attend work;
• Updating the definition of “traumatic injury” to include a mental or psychological injury that occurs in response to a psychologically traumatic event;
• Expanding upon the definition of “sudden and single incident” to ensure traumatic events, such as: experiencing actual or threatened death, serious injury, or an incident of sexual assault; and witnessing incidents of a horrific nature are being considered;
• Clarifying how the term “immediately” should be applied in cases of psychological injuries – meaning that the severe impairment and severe interference in quality of life is evident in the acute or early stage of the traumatic injury which spans from the initial point of injury up to 7 days following the sudden and single incident; and
• Providing guidance based on what constitutes “complex treatment” in instances of mental health or psychological injury.

QUICK FACTS & FIGURES
Critical Injury Benefit
• From July 1, 2015, to March 31, 2024, the Critical Injury Benefit has been granted to 243 individuals.
• Between fiscal year 2021-22 and 2023-24, expenditures for the Critical Injury Benefit were approximately $1.1 million per year.
Military Sexual Trauma
• When the Critical Injury Benefit policy was updated, it was clarified that a “sudden and single incident” may include an incident of sexual assault.
• The Critical Injury Benefit is not awarded for the incident alone but rather for the immediate and severe impacts the incident has on an individual. It is possible that two people could experience a similar incident but have different impacts so that one individual might receive the Critical Injury Benefit whereas the other may not.