It's a good question. I never thought I was going to be asked that, but it's very similar to becoming a member of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. There are a number of ex-military people, including one from our regiment who was taken on board a week ago in the official announcement.
It's a two-edged sword. One of the points we made during our deliberations in CFAC, when we were “pinging” on VRAB, the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, which really was out of our mandate, was that there are not enough ex-military people there. We were then reminded that sometimes when there are military people, as in the past on VRAB, they're even harder on the military than those who haven't had military experience.
In the case of the ombudsman, we're talking about one individual, not a team of thirty, as is the case in VRAB. The selection of that individual is going to have to be very important. I don't think the selection of the individual should dwell on whether he or she has had military experience. It would make life a lot easier for him or her if they understood what a company was, or a platoon attack, or an attack profile by a ship, or something like that.
Having said that, he or she has investigators, similar to the ombudsman from DND. Some of them are permanent, some of them are what I think they term on-call specialists. They, from different walks of the military, could provide advice to the ombudsman who didn't have that background.
That's a long answer that amounts to a definite maybe.