Veterans Affairs committee  Well, let me say at first that it's all anecdotal because, at the bureau, we are simply concerned with disability awards and reviews. We don't do the other stuff that the department does. From a veteran's perspective, I would imagine that the suite of benefits that are offered now are more widespread than under the old Pension Act.

Veterans Affairs committee  The other one that has changed more recently is the one related to cumulative joint trauma. In the past, the department and the board were always looking for the one incident—the one accident, the one event—that caused your injury. We would often argue and say, “Well, you know what, you might be a tanker wearing a heavy helmet with night vision goggles, and over time that continued bouncing around with the weight on your head is going to affect your neck.”

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, I do. Out of the 10,000 to 10,500 cases we do, we counsel out about 4,500, which leaves about 5,500. Of those 5,500 cases, about 2,500 are departmental reviews, which we solve without having to go to the board. The other roughly 3,300 are cases that we take to both review and appeal before the Veterans Review and Appeal Board.

Veterans Affairs committee  No. It could be any range of issues, from the way the veteran presented his or her application form and how they filled it out to the fact that there might be an incident in their past that they're aware of but didn't think was important. Then, when their lawyer looks at it, they realize that, and say, “We think that if you presented this information back to the department, they would grant...”.

Veterans Affairs committee  I know that in recent months they have in fact been.... When they receive an application, they actually call the client when they see that, gee, they're pretty close to crossing that line. They call them to suss it out and to see if there's anything else that supports the claim.

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a good question. The distinction I can make between this happening in private practice and what's happening here is that, as I said before, when the department renders its decision on the first application, at the bottom of the decision they have that little note that says if you're not happy with the decision you have the opportunity to consult with a lawyer for free.

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely.

Veterans Affairs committee  The medical service records come from DND. That can take a little while, but it doesn't take as long as it used to. The real delay is in obtaining medical reports. It may be because of the growing complexity of cases. In the past, the vast majority of cases were musculoskeletal.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  I am not sure exactly what the department's situation is. I know, though, that we have to have our own system because of the solicitor-client relationship of protected information. In fact, we are in the midst of developing what we call an “electronic case management system”, which will do precisely that.

Veterans Affairs committee  I believe so, but again, as you say, that is beyond my scope of knowledge.

Veterans Affairs committee  I can tell you anecdotally, from what we have noticed over the last while, that the system, certainly at first application, seems to have become more generous. I can give you a couple of concrete examples, one that is more immediate and one that has taken a little more time. I will use the issue of sexual harassment.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think as of about eight or 10 months ago, the department did start to do that. It is actually calling clients with those questions. In a departmental review, when we send something back to the department and we say to the client, “You know what? We can help you find this little piece of paper that you're missing, and the department will probably grant you this instead of it having to go through the Veterans Review and Appeal Board”.

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a good number of questions. I'll start with attracting lawyers. It can be a challenge, depending on where you need them and depending on what the linguistic profiles for the positions are. We have made it simpler to find lawyers with the appropriate linguistic profiles by establishing the initiative that I mentioned in my opening remarks, the advocates without borders initiative.