Veterans Affairs committee  Many of our members are already retired and many are already considered disabled, so they have been dealing with Veterans Affairs for a year, two years, three years, or ten years, since the new Veterans Charter and beyond. I'm very glad that they contacted the Conservative critic, who is also a veteran.

Veterans Affairs committee  It would be nice if the service was the same for everybody, sir.

Veterans Affairs committee  Okay. The next question is: How do veterans evaluate the services provided in the operational stress injuries clinics setup by Veterans Affairs Canada? There were 96 responses from our membership, of which 40% said they didn't know. The quote was “I have never been asked to evaluate OSI set up by VAC.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much for this invitation to speak to the ACVA committee on service delivery. I'd also like to say hello to my colleagues and friends in the room. The study on delivery of service to veterans suggested questions, so I polled the 8,000 members of Veterans Canada on three of these questions.

Veterans Affairs committee  I can't give you other names. I'll give you my name.

Veterans Affairs committee  I understand they are. I was just reiterating that it wasn't completed yet.

Veterans Affairs committee  We used to have a saying in the military, “Did it, done it, got the t-shirt”. While the theory is nice, I qualified for university. In fact, in my testing through CanVet, the organization in Calgary that you go to for testing to see if you can go back to a rehabilitation program and education, I came in the top 2% of the testing in Canada.

Veterans Affairs committee  Because they said I wasn't allowed to do one.

Veterans Affairs committee  Veterans Affairs Canada. So I was taking courses within Mount Royal until they kicked me out because of my PTSD. I was taking courses but they would not let me do a degree program.

Veterans Affairs committee  They told me that reason was that it's only a two-year program. A degree program isn't two years. Tim could finish it because he had already started it. I was starting fresh in university and I could not do a four-year program. So it's a thing called “Did it, done it, got the t-shirt”.

Veterans Affairs committee  If there's one, there are many.

Veterans Affairs committee  Okay. That's why I brought it up. We brought this up last time and recently with the announcement of the priority hiring in the public service, his concern was the length of time it's going to take. Remember, this program is five years to get a public service job.

Veterans Affairs committee  I am very familiar with them, but they haven't been implemented.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm very familiar with the progress, Mr. Hawn. The fact is that Veterans Affairs is still readjudicating a case that medical doctors have given a medical release for. Yes, there is a transition now from National Defence to Veterans Affairs, where your paperwork, your medical records, will be moved as you work towards it, but there's still the readjudication, where a team from Veterans Affairs, instead of just giving the doctor the benefit of the doubt that he's the expert on the injuries....

Veterans Affairs committee  But, again, the National Defence ombudsman even brought this point up recently.