Our mandate is actually very complex, in that we're not allowed to dabble in areas of solicitor-client privilege between the Bureau of Pension Advocates and some of the parties that complain to us. We're not allowed to address individual decisions that are made in the review and appeals process. We are there to address systemic issues. So we can't approach our business in quite the same sort of free-style manner as other ombudsmen can.
Adding to that, the problems our veterans are facing are very complex. We have World War II veterans under one set of conditions; we have those who served on so-called peacekeeping operations, who are often forgot about as veterans; and then we have the current situation in Afghanistan.
When I arrived in the office I had two options in front of me. The recommendation was that we not open our doors until this fall, as was the case when the DND ombudsman stood up. I felt that would do a disservice to many of the veterans who were sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to bring their complaints to somebody. So we opened the doors. We have no staff. I've just taken on my senior staff right now because of the public service hiring process. We're in the process now of hiring the front-line operators who will actually deal with individual grievances from the veterans.
We are light years ahead of where we would be had I taken the second approach. We have war-gamed out 500 different types of cases legally, morally, and ethically--according to me--to identify how we can, within our mandate, address these things to the best advantage of our veterans.