Veterans Affairs committee  Speed up? Don't have the member pay it. That was the chunk of money that I got for my arm and my leg, and now you're asking me to pay it back again and separate myself from it? Oh, I just got this back, okay, that makes me feel secure for a little while, but now I have to pay out $70,000—

Veterans Affairs committee  I had to pay it with my money.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, but why should I have to pay for it?

Veterans Affairs committee  Thanks. I'm honoured. I'm just speaking my mind and speaking from the heart.

Veterans Affairs committee  No, we're going to Resolute Bay. We fly in there on the 16th. We're there for a day to acclimatize and then we're cross-country skiing. Some guys are snowshoeing—I have no idea why—but we're cross-country skiing to the North Pole.

Veterans Affairs committee  If you invite me back, I'll share it, absolutely.

Veterans Affairs committee  No, no. This is entirely through True Patriot Love. I've already accumulated some of the prosthetics and the gear over my recovery period. For example, we were skiing at Calabogie a couple of weeks ago. This is my third year of skiing so I already have the technology and then being able to work with it, working with my prosthetic guy to come up with an idea because my Bartlett knee—anyway I don't want to get too drawn into but there are some mods that have to happen.

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely.

Veterans Affairs committee  While you're still using the $76,000.

Veterans Affairs committee  So I'm happy to have just bought a $250,000 home and paid $75,000 to renovate it.

Veterans Affairs committee  The other point to that is that some of my other peers took their maximum payout all at once and they decided to build a home for themselves. You know what? That's totally fine. You can go and build yourself a home, but spending $400,000 or $425,000 on it.... I don't know. That's a little too much, let alone the property taxes, the heating costs, and everything else that's going to go into that house that you've just spent a huge chunk of your payout on.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are a couple of points on that, because as I mentioned with my own renovations, I paid about $70,000. So, yes, that's a little more than my year's salary, and it was within the first year and a half, almost two years, after my injury that I had to start paying that out. So having that money initially, say $75,000, would cover some of my current renovation expenses.

Veterans Affairs committee  I need nothing more than what I make now. I don't need to be a millionaire just because I'm missing a leg or anything. I'm happy with what I have. I don't worry about what I don't have anymore.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, because that is ridiculous.

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely. I think it's ridiculous that there is a barrier between the two elements. It's like the left hand not talking to the right. It is the same body. It's for veterans coming from an organization that promotes veterans. It's the government, right?