Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would answer that quite simply by saying that you have to remember the Veterans Review and Appeal Board only hears cases that affect the Pension Act and the allowances under that act. Under the new regular force charter, the VRAB will not be hearing cases affecting a large part of the department's work in the area of earnings, lost benefits, rehabilitation, job placement.
The role of the ombudsman in that context would be invaluable, because the ombudsman would be the only independent authority outside of the system that would review those types of departmental decisions. The VRAB's jurisdiction has been severely narrowed by the new regular force charter, and even under the old act had nothing to do with health care benefits and so on. Without wandering too far afield, if you're looking at a bill of rights, isn't that a concept that the ombudsman would be looking at as well?
Maybe to answer your direct question, I think the VRAB still has a role with regard to individual disputes, but one of our concerns over the years has been that if you do not get a satisfactory decision out of the VRAB, you're faced now with having to go to the Federal Court of Canada. The Federal Court of Canada has produced, in my humble judgment, a lot of rather bizarre decisions affecting veterans over the last ten to fifteen years.
I would suggest to you that an ombudsman would produce a much more lucid type of decision, hopefully being someone who is more knowledgeable of the veterans field, someone who has a unique knowledge. As a lawyer, going to the Federal Court, putting it badly, is a bit of a crap shoot, because you don't know whether the judge has ever looked at the veterans Pension Act and whether he's going to give you a decision that's going to be helpful for the system.
I've given you a rather long answer, but those are my thoughts.