Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I guess I'll be coming back to you, Mr. Matthews, because it sounds like we have some things to figure out here.
You may not know this, but of course I'm normally a member of the committee for veterans affairs, where we have just completed a study on the marriage after 60 clause, and I want to figure this out. Brigadier-General Tattersall came to our committee and said this. I will quote it:
The Minister of National Defence, under the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, is responsible for the overall management of the pension plan, including the financial management of Canadian Armed Forces pension funds.
I'm just wondering if you could clarify that.
One of the challenges I'm having right now is that we also heard from somebody who works in National Defence and who said in her statements to us that the minister has not yet been briefed specifically on this issue. We also heard from Veterans Affairs staff, multiple ones—and I'm willing to quote them as well—who said that the marriage after 60 clause belongs under National Defence. Now I'm here, sitting in this room, listening to you tell me that it's actually Veterans Affairs.
Now, I agree that there definitely is some confusion, so could you just clarify that?
The next question I have is, how do these things get worked out? I am not clear where they belong. There are a lot of people advocating for this to change. It has a huge impact on veterans and on members who are serving. It also has big impacts on people who are working for public services. All of these folks cannot get married after 60. If they do, they have no supportive benefits left for the survivor. This issue continues to go on and on, and nobody lays claim to it.
Could I just get clarity on how the multiple agencies communicate to one another in order to figure out who this belongs to so that people who are fighting to get it changed know who to speak to?