Mr. Chairman, my view on this is that the ombudsman for Veterans Affairs should have jurisdiction over people or issues that come to bear because people are not happy with the manner in which a department has served them. So to the extent that RCMP members would make an application for a pension or benefits, for example, and they were dissatisfied with the responses they were getting, it would seem to me that, yes, the ombudsman should have jurisdiction to handle those complaints.
On November 22nd, 2006. See this statement in context.