There are privacy laws. We know that, and the member knows it as well. We respectfully agree on that show.
One thing we have in Canada is an exhaustive process, which many jurisdictions don't, whereby we have an internal process of review. Eventually it can reach the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, where we actually provide legal advice to and support for the client. No other jurisdiction, no other country in the world, does what we do in terms of attempting to get a favourable resolution for the veteran. In many of these cases I would like to see a different outcome, but it is quasi-judicial, and we have to go by the act as it is written. Sometimes it would be a matter of changing the act to make the outcome different.
At the end of the day, you're dealing with thousands of cases, and most of us know full well, because we're all human beings, that we'd love to see a yes to every one of them. I would, personally. But in the real world we know that's not possible. What I can take a level of satisfaction in is knowing that we have a process that works, that it's exhaustive, and that it's better than that of any other jurisdiction in the world.
Every one of us in this room is a human being, and we're not perfect. And the system will never be perfect. That's what we have to work hard to achieve. In some of those individual cases where members of Parliament have intervened, there's still a possibility that they can be changed or the outcomes altered, depending on what stage they're at, because of new evidence that comes forward. That's one of the things we're often reminded of, that sometimes in cases that go to the Veterans Appeal and Review Board, if particular evidence had been present during the initial application, the outcome could have been and would have been favourable.
That's what happens when you work on individual cases. I know the level of frustration the member is experiencing. He's human, he represents these people, and he cares about them.