Okay. Thank you for that. It would have made it a little easier if I'd had them last night, but that's all right. I've got a clean piece of paper here.
Remember, these are my personal opinions only.
The ombudsman should report to the Minister of Veterans Affairs. He or she should be authorized to provide a confidential, unbiased, and neutral alternative to the existing redress system of VAC for both the veterans and their families. The ombudsman should obviously be neutral and unbiased and have a great degree of integrity and honesty. He or she should be an alternative to the existing VAC chain of command.
Using the research facilities of Veterans Affairs and other departments, the investigators assigned to the ombudsman's office should work on a specific time line and in accordance with a specific directive issued by the ombudsman. I'll come back to the investigators, because he or she cannot do it all at once and needs a team to do it.
A decision will have to be made about whether the ombudsman is going to look at just systemic changes or problems within the department, or individual cases. As you can appreciate, the individual cases are going to be very important to the individual cases that the DND ombudsman has looked at over the years.
The ombudsman should be responsive to complaints from veterans and their families. I looked at the word “complaints” and I much prefer “issues”.
The actions of the ombudsman should complement the existing systems and procedures in place for the veterans, remembering that the Veterans Review and Appeal Board is also a redress system. I doubt very much that the ombudsman would be in a position to criticize or comment on their decisions because that's almost a judicial system. However, I'm sure there may be some symptomatic things that the ombudsman could look at. So in my simple mind there's a problem between the ombudsman and the VRAB in regard to authorities.
On administrative points, the ombudsman should serve at the pleasure of the minister. All actions of the ombudsman's office should be classified confidential. The investigator's reports should be staffed or vetted through a divisional manager, depending on the structure--one for systemic complaints and one for individual complaints, if we're going to go that way--prior to submission to the ombudsman.
Specific terms of reference--that's an army term and I don't know whether it's used in Parliament or not--for the ombudsman, the directors, and the investigators should be drafted and approved.
Regular status reports should be prepared for the ombudsman, and routine or on-call reports should be provided to the ombudsman for the minister at his pleasure. I recommend that he or she report to the minister.
In addition to the selection of the right individual for the ombudsman, one of the key elements of success is the selection of the team of investigators, as you can appreciate, based on the DND ombudsman. They should preferably have a background of analytical thought and possible investigation--like my friend here, ex-Provost Corps, ex-OPP policeman. They should be neutral, understand they are not advocates, and be dedicated self-starters. They should have the necessary staff training, experience, and skills to operate within the federal government system, specifically the ombudsman's office. They should be prepared to undergo the appropriate training on the organization of programs available to both the traditional and modern-day veteran.
I'll digress a little right now. With the advent of the new Veterans Charter, you can appreciate the workload of the district officers in Veterans Affairs Canada. Sure, they hired 1,400 additional staff, but they're way behind on claims and so forth. You can't really fault them. The training process and workload for the traditional veterans and what they're entitled to, and what the new kids, including me, are entitled to under the new Veterans Charter is significant.
There are people at Veterans Affairs who are cross-trained, some who are new Veterans Charter and some who are old Veterans Charter. Sooner or later they'll be able to play from both sides of the sheet.
A tremendous amount of work has gone into that. The reason I mention that, of course, is that the investigators, if they're working for the veterans ombudsman, are going to have to understand both systems--I am not an expert on either. They should have the ability to work independently with minimum supervision and of course be accountable for their actions.
I think I'll stop there, Mr. Chairman, and respond to any questions you or your committee may have.