Veterans Affairs committee  Darragh is one of the godfathers of the VIP.

Veterans Affairs committee  Certainly if they feel they could use the VIP, they should do that. In fact, I was going to make a comment prior to that that one of the things we're doing under the veterans health services review, which we shouldn't forget, that we've mentioned is this health promotion aspect.

Veterans Affairs committee  In actual fact, we're dealing with it through another mechanism. I don't think it's a fundamental, transformational item for the review, although it's an extremely important issue for us. In other words, we have an ongoing relationship with the Department of National Defence. We

Veterans Affairs committee  That's not entirely—

Veterans Affairs committee  With respect to the asbestos issue, we are doing our best to ensure that generally veterans are aware of their rights to access the Department of Veterans Affairs for services, so that we have as much general outreach as we possibly can give to them within our communications stra

Veterans Affairs committee  Generally, there are two basic types. One is that the widow or widower is entitled to a continuing pension if his or her spouse had been in receipt of a government pension from Veterans Affairs. A percentage of that pension would continue for the spouse. That's one benefit they

Veterans Affairs committee  Our job placement program as well?

Veterans Affairs committee  Perhaps I could ask my colleague. Darragh, do you want to talk about the bed situation and I'll comment on the asbestos?

Veterans Affairs committee  To my knowledge, no, but certainly what I explained earlier is my understanding of how we work. I don't know whether, Darragh, you want to add anything to that, but as Darragh said, we have really good cooperation with our provincial colleagues. The fact that we've got 50 clien

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are two aspects to a response. One is that we are well connected to a number of countries and we work continuously with them. In fact, the U.S., the U.K., New Zealand, Australia, and Canada have formed what is called the Senior International Forum. It's been operating for a

Veterans Affairs committee  Even if you wanted to give us something on an interim basis, it would at least give us a sense of your direction so that we could actually utilize it sooner rather than later.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, and that was a system that ended, actually, when the new Veterans Charter came into being on April 1, 2006. They're still eligible for a disability award, but the pension system that existed prior to that no longer exists for anybody applying for a disability benefit. So t

Veterans Affairs committee  That's correct.

Veterans Affairs committee  Now, it ended for new applications, but the people who had already gotten into the previous system were grandfathered. So there would be continuing pension benefits going to anybody who actually had received a pension prior to that date.