Veterans Affairs committee  The people who are responsible for that branch. So there is Mr. Harris, as the assistant deputy minister, and the director general, who is responsible for all of our interactions with veterans in that branch.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think the point is whether there is evidence that is well established in this regard. Our undertaking and our review of this is very much in terms of the operations under which we function as a department, and the guidelines and the policy by which we function, as well as the l

Veterans Affairs committee  The issue in this case is the situation of the individual employee raising the issue of MAID with the veteran, which we have identified and acknowledged as highly inappropriate. That's been well established.

Veterans Affairs committee  We have not been able to verify or establish those as the situation in this case. We have been able to establish and verify that the employee has acknowledged, and certainly the veteran has identified, that this issue was raised with them unprompted, which was highly inappropriat

Veterans Affairs committee  No, the minister does not.

Veterans Affairs committee  The minister is not in a position, and frankly other senior people in the department aren't in a position, to engage directly on files and interactions between the veterans and those who are established in our department to professionally engage and support those veterans. The mi

Veterans Affairs committee  No, they're not. Case managers work with 14,000 or 14,500 veterans who have complex issues and who are identified as requiring intensive case management. Veterans service agents work with veterans who have less complex issues and needs, and that was the case in this situation.

Veterans Affairs committee  I appreciate the question very much, and the particular aspect that you're raising. As part of our review and our investigation into this, we're looking at all aspects, including the seriousness of the issues as you are raising them. In this case, this was a conversation and no

Veterans Affairs committee  We provide regular and advanced training for our managers and our senior people who are supervising and providing oversight for other officials. As I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of training around suicide prevention, suicide awareness and trauma-informed training as well tha

Veterans Affairs committee  If I could, I'll ask my colleague, Mr. Steven Harris, who is responsible for this whole area, to speak about that issue.

Veterans Affairs committee  In no other case that we've been able to ascertain has an employee of Veterans Affairs Canada encouraged and engaged in the conversation about MAID without the issue being raised first by the veteran.

Veterans Affairs committee  As I've indicated and will say again, our investigation and a thorough review of this situation suggest that this was a single, isolated situation in which the issue was raised, unprompted, by the employee with the veteran. Any other case has been a case of a veteran getting clar

Veterans Affairs committee  As much as we can, yes, we follow those stats. We also, if there is an incident—

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll defer this question to my colleague who, in his area, tracks these things more closely. There will be a lag in terms of the reporting on this, of course.

Veterans Affairs committee  We should be clear that this reference, this policy and these guidelines have been in place. There has been training in reference to this for some time, but this incident has augmented the focus of this aspect in the training. It is mandatory. It will be mandatory for all new an