Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chadderton, I thank you for taking the time to come and to be with us today and, as all of us do, thank you for your commitment, like that of many other Canadians, to our country through the armed forces. It has been exemplary, and we thank you for it.
There's been a fair bit of discussion—Mr. Lévesque brought it up also—about the independent part of being an ombudsman, being an advocate basically for the client, as we may say, and yet reporting back to the minister and Parliament—being an arm of Parliament. I'm wondering if you can help me a little as to how, respecting the ombudsman, we can settle our minds that in fact it really would be a role as an ombudsman for the veteran, whether it's on pension issues or other complaints or issues that would come up for a person.
What can we do to give the level of comfort to the veterans that this would be a spokesperson for them and that in fact this person would deal fairly and adequately with their concerns?