Absolutely not.
I should say that we had a national management-union meeting with the deputy minister and senior management of Veterans Affairs Canada in Ottawa on 15 January, and no one told us that the bureau of pensions advocates was going to cut 44% of term employees. They knew that. We keep hearing that they want to work with us in the interest of veterans, our members and everyone, and they failed to be transparent and to let us know then. We heard the news from our members, and since then, we've had to deal with one crisis after another.
Mr. Richards, allow me to add something to what you said concerning the 90% appeal success rate. They told us that because 90% of the few pension claims that were initially denied and then appealed ended up being approved, these positions were being cut. They want to modernize the system. I told them that there was no problem planning for modernization, but that they could not cut positions and modernize afterwards. They don't have any plan right now.
For goodness' sake, can they extend these employees' contracts for at least one year, to reduce the workload and to see what plan will be put in place? Will it be another system like Phoenix, which won't work? That's why I'm very hesitant about a system that they want to look into but is not yet in place.
Thank you for allowing me to respond.