I'm not very proud of it, but I don't have a tremendous amount to do with it. What turns a veteran off, what turns him to anger, is the sort of situation you describe, where the answer is that benefits won't be cut. Last October, we said we accept that benefits won't be cut. But if you cut first-line staff, you're going to hurt the veterans. Obviously we didn't succeed with that.
We know there are problems and we appreciate that there are people attempting to solve those problems. From our association's point of view, the biggest problem is that Veterans Affairs is not listening to veterans. You get a line in the presentation you were given last week that says something like, “This program will describe the results veterans and their families can expect to see.” Did anybody ask the veterans and their families what results they expected to see? I don't believe that happened.
One of the themes is sustaining the new Veterans Charter. I had to look up the word “sustaining”. There are six definitions of it in the Oxford dictionary. None of them includes words like “amend, change, improve”. They contain words like “support, keep alive, keep going, undergo”.
I'm sorry to be a little emotional. But I think it's starting to pass from a cooperative approach to a more confrontational approach, and this will never help veterans.