Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome to the committee and congratulations on your work. I took note of what you said in your presentation regarding the review and the appeal being made by the same persons—this is not the first time that I've heard about this. I think that the legal principles to be followed for all appeals by veterans should be based on accepting his claim.
Previously, I used to represent CSST workers who had been victims of accidents, before all the tribunals. The first question I put to the Minister of Veterans Affairs was about why the decisions of the Veterans Appeal Board were not published. I asked how we could get access to the jurisprudence that would apply to a given case, how we could find out what decisions are being made.
Did you know that this is the only tribunal that does not publish anything? All other tribunals have publications available on Internet. Now, because of the culture of secrecy of the Veterans Appeal Board, no decision is accessible. Thus, how can we go about finding out about the tribunal's preferences in this case or that case? No one can find this out, because the decisions are not being published.
With all this in mind, do you believe that appointing different persons to this tribunal should be the first thing to do for the Minister of Veterans Affairs? At this time, the same persons are in charge of reviews and appeals.
These decisions should at least be published so that we can know what is in them and find out what led to them. We could find out what reasons led to rejections. Moreover, if we can have access to cases that have been turned down following a review, and if we can know more or less what led to the decision, we could adjust our aim and fill in the gaps when making appeals. Currently, we cannot find out anything, there is nothing that we can take away.
What do you think?