Veterans Affairs committee  I would like to thank you, once again, for this opportunity. If you have any questions for either Ms. Sharkey or myself, we are at your full disposal.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your invitation. I'm pleased to have an opportunity to speak with you today on behalf of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board and to give you an overview of the past year and the year to date, and to an

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. The files and the conditions being dealt with are more complex from a medical point of view. I think I alluded to that earlier. From the board's perspective, ultimately, on a mid-term basis, I would say that within the next few years, the board will progress and change becau

Veterans Affairs committee  I will quote the candidates themselves. More often than not, candidates at the interview have said, “This is a rigorous system. It was a learning process for me on how you define and review qualifications for people to be members of your board.” So far, the people who are in it

Veterans Affairs committee  The optimal number operationally is 28. With 30 I would have operational spares. It's logical, with the provision of 29 permanent members, that if I can have a turnover and maintain 28 board members perpetually, I'll be operationally safe from a capacity to hear cases. It may me

Veterans Affairs committee  No. The optimal complement is 28. It's the capacity of BPA to put the cases forward. At the point that I had 50 board members, I couldn't hear more cases if the cases weren't being brought to me by BPA.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think it would help the performance of the whole portfolio, not just of the board. If the whole portfolio feels the pressure is on to get the job done, to move, obviously it will also affect the board and VRAB. In that sense, VRAB is part of the portfolio and it will be there t

Veterans Affairs committee  I think the issue for BPA to be considering is the following. We could all ask ourselves what people want. Do they want independent lawyers, or do they want lawyers who work well and fast? If you have to choose between a management system.... The ideal is to get the two working i

Veterans Affairs committee  There are 8,000 cases registered in the system, some 4,200 of which are not with the board; they're with BPA at this juncture. At the board there are 700 pending cases for hearings, 700 cases in preparation, and 1,700 cases registered.

Veterans Affairs committee  You're speaking about the advocates?

Veterans Affairs committee  They aren't our advocates and they don't report to the board. Well, they report to the board in the sense that they're officers of the court. Often advocates will try to talk to board members about how they present their cases, how they could do better. Board members will tell

Veterans Affairs committee  They are all members of the bar.

Veterans Affairs committee  Of course they are--in each province. There were 40 of them at last count. I've often suggested that they be moved to the board, but nobody wants to manage lawyers, basically. They're not an easy group. I was at Air Canada for many years, and we had a huge law branch there. I

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, we have. As I stated earlier, the board is a quasi-judicial, arm's-length, independent board, so it would be inappropriate, to a certain degree, for an eventual ombudsman to get involved in the decision-making of its members. The member who hears and rules on a case has the

Veterans Affairs committee  The chair and deputy chair monitor the performance of our board members. We do not monitor the merit of their decisions. We make sure they show up for work on time. We make sure they put out their decisions in a timely fashion. We will maintain overall certain sets of statistics,