Thanks.
What we have seen is that the number of applications from women veterans over the course of the last little while is a little bit above what we would see normally from their representation in the Canadian Armed Forces.
About 16% of the applications with us at the moment come from women veterans, and they do wait a little bit longer. It has been noted both by the ombudsman and in our internal reviews that they wait a little bit longer.
We are currently undertaking reviews of the program to better understand from a GBA+ point of view how our current practices may have impacted that, and what we need to do to ensure equitable treatment for everybody across the board.
When we see large-scale applications that are often specific to male veterans, we build up patterns and approaches that recognize those patterns and we make decisions much more easily for things that are common to us. When women veterans have a condition that may differ from the traditional pattern of a male veteran, that case ends up being looked at differently in the system. We need to adjust the system so that they have the same approach, standard of treatment and outcome. We have work in progress to ensure we're aware of that. We're monitoring very closely the length of time it takes for women veterans' applications to be processed, and we're making adjustments to make sure we can address that.