Thank you so much, Chair.
Hello, Lawrence. It's always good to see you.
I want to clarify first of all that there are, in fact, over 40,000 applications. You're saying it's under 20,000. I just want to make sure everybody understands that veterans can apply more than once, so there can be a great number of applications outstanding, with more than one belonging to a single veteran.
I think it's important that we don't confuse those messages. The reality is that there are a lot of applications that many veterans are still working on.
Minister, the last time you were here with us you talked about the reality that VAC could always use more money, but that money alone wouldn't solve the backlog issues. We know there have now been over 300 new hires in June. I am concerned they are still considered temporary.
Given that the PBO report says that without these additional employees the backlog would only worsen, when are we going to see these temporary employees called permanent?