In terms of the gap that we see between male and female veterans when they come forward, the deputy and the Auditor General have pointed out correctly that the biggest issue we face is that how military service impacts women veterans is oftentimes different from how it impacts male veterans. Much of the medical research that is done in Canada and around the world is very much focused on the male anatomy. There's more research coming out every day, and we are accessing that research. That is one component. We are also at the very early stages of going through a GBA+ analysis process in order to better serve our female veterans.
I will also say that, when the Auditor General's report came out, there was a fairly sizable gap between the processing times of male and female veterans. Last fiscal year, we reduced that to 39 weeks for males and 40 weeks for females. As of this year, as of September 30, we have eliminated that gap between male and female veterans, and they are both being processed within the 28-week time frame. We acknowledge that it is still not close to our 16-week turnaround time, but, nonetheless, it is progress. We made that progress as a result of standing up a female veteran benefit team responsible for processing only female claims, and we were able to successfully close that gap.
Like I said, we continue to update the tools that we use to make our decisions on female veterans' claims and ensure that, for example, our table of disabilities, which provides all of the medical information that our decision-makers use, includes specific medical research with regard to women veterans.
Thank you.