Right now, when a member is medically releasing, the first thing that has to happen is that they have to adjudicate the file to determine whether or not the illness was caused by service or the malady has been aggravated by service. Veterans Affairs Canada does that adjudication. They have a 16-week service standard. During those weeks they have to wait, and there are another three weeks to wait until they get their medical files from the Department of National Defence. If you add that to the 16 weeks, now we're at 19 weeks and looking forward.
If the adjudication is done, the question at Veterans Affairs is yes or no: is he in or out? The question now is on the impact. What is the impact on quality of life? Now we can start having a conversation on how we bring benefits and services to bear for that particular member's need.
Right now we waste an inordinate amount of time doing work that has already been done. My premise is that if we take the adjudication piece off the table, it should reduce that service standard by half.