I like that, and to me it's absolutely essential that any veterans ombudsman has exactly the same power--28 days, or it could be 21 days. I do think that a minister needs some time, but 28 days is not the big thing.
The second point is the issue of budget. Yes, I did say that we had a budget of about $6.3 million. It's very difficult for me to even guesstimate what would be the right amount or the right level of resources for a veterans ombudsman, but there are at least one or two things that I would like to put on the table. One is that it seems to me that when the government decides to go ahead on this, what we want to have is an effective ombudsman. We want to have an office that can take files, can answer the mail, make a difference, and produce results. What this means to me is that this has to be properly resourced. You can have the best mandate in the world with all the bells and whistles that anyone can imagine, but if you don't have the gas to put in the engine, so to speak, you won't go very far.
It seems to me that what should happen, once the new ombudsman has been appointed, is he or she should be given some time to consider what kinds of resources they may need. Speak to people in the department. Speak to people outside of the department. For example, I know they have a toll-free line within Veterans Affairs that people can phone 24 hours a day. Well, let's get a sense of how many calls they are getting and so on. And then it would be an iterative process in which the ombudsman would say, “Well, you know what, to start for the first year I think I may need, let's say, $10 million, but after that, it may have to be adjusted upwards or perhaps downwards. I don't know.” I think the department and the ombudsman should then engage in this healthy dialogue between the two of them so that the ombudsman gets the level of resources he or she needs in order to be what I think the ombudsman should be.
And as I think I mentioned earlier today, if there were to be disputes or disagreements between the ombudsman and the minister or the department on what would be the appropriate level of resourcing, then it seems to me that this committee could be brought to bear to listen to the various points of view and then perhaps issue a report or make a recommendation as to what should be the appropriate number of resources.