Veterans Affairs committee  We introduced legislation in 2011 to provide veterans with the option of either taking a lump sum award or taking annual payments. In addition, they can take a lump sum award in combination with annual payments. Since that time, the uptake has not been extremely high. I do not h

Veterans Affairs committee  We haven't analyzed it at this point, so I really can't offer an opinion, other than certainly when you provide a veteran with a lump sum award, there is opportunity, in particular because we provide financial counselling. It's $500 for each award and there is an opportunity for

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. Very quickly, the disability pension that is administered by Veterans Affairs Canada is provided to either serving members or veterans when they release for disabilities that are related to service. Veterans can apply at any point in time. In fact, we

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm certainly not a finance expert, so I can't speak to that.

Veterans Affairs committee  Certainly, the budget of approximately $3.3 billion goes out to veterans directly in the form of benefits and services through the department—

Veterans Affairs committee  Perhaps I'll answer the first part.

Veterans Affairs committee  Three seconds?

Veterans Affairs committee  A written response, but I do want to make it clear that we have the same concern. That's why we have implemented new programs for veterans who are transitioning from the military with the new Veterans Charter, which in my view and in the view of the department hopefully will prev

Veterans Affairs committee  We could certainly get back to you on the question.

Veterans Affairs committee  Good morning, everyone. My name is Janice Burke. I am the director of strategic policy in the policy division of Veterans Affairs Canada. I'm very happy to be appearing before you today. As some of you may recall, I was last here in October 2012 and was providing an update on th

Veterans Affairs committee  Currently we're very committed to multi-channel service and we've been providing service to veterans via the telephone, via walking into offices to obtain the information, through email, and through written communication, and this is simply another channel. Having said that, agai

Veterans Affairs committee  No, exactly. Perhaps I could add as well that not only have we improved the online component, but our colleagues here previously were talking about cutting red tape. I believe at our call centres, for example, we're now down to waiting two minutes to receive a live voice, so we a

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, that's absolutely the case. I believe home visits are unique to Veterans Affairs Canada. Our case managers go out and visit veterans and their families. They do assessments. They work with veterans. They provide information through that kind of face-to-face interaction. In

Veterans Affairs committee  Maybe I could start, and Sheri may want to respond. The information that you see on the benefits browser is essentially the kind of information that our folks in call centres will provide to veterans and their families when they call. It's essentially trying to provide this info

Veterans Affairs committee  I think our motto at Veterans Affairs Canada is to continuously improve. If there's opportunity to improve our services and programs, including our online system, we want to do that, in consultation, obviously, with our stakeholders and with our veterans in terms of what the need