First of all—and this is what I say at every town hall I go to—the people at Veterans Affairs care about what they do. I cannot believe and I will not believe that anyone would be retaliatory. I know that it may feel that way to some veterans, but it is not the case. In my heart I believe that. I believe they care deeply about the work they do.
In terms of confidentiality, when a veteran, their family or whoever is a client of the department comes to our office, we ask for their consent to look into their complaint. With their consent, we look into their file, because we have access to it. If we find that there has been unfairness, we need to go to the department to seek a resolution for that. In order to seek that resolution, we need to say who they are. In many of the cases, we're able to achieve that resolution.