I would like to address a couple of comments that have been made.
This committee controls its own destiny; it always has. At the beginning we made a decision on three things that we were going to pursue: the ombudsman, the bill of rights, and the VIP program. I agree that PTSD is definitely a health care issue, and I found the witnesses most informative. If nothing else, I learned very clearly that there's a shortage of professionals who can handle the PTSD issue. That's something that's going to have to be addressed. There's no question about that, at all. I'm happy to listen to more witnesses, if that is what this committee wants to do, but we agreed, as a committee, to pursue the VIP program. That VIP program deals with traditional veterans, not modern-day veterans. My concern is that there are a number of traditional veterans out there who are waiting for some answers.
In answer to Mr. Stoffer's question, the department is in the process of trying to deal with this. It's also trying to do some costing. It can't complete that work unless the committee says we're not going to deal with this and go ahead and do it on your own. But if we're going to pursue the VIP process, we need to have witnesses. We need to hear from people as to what the actual needs are. As a government, how do you make improvements to a VIP program if you don't know what the needs are?
I'm happy to go whichever way you want. If you want to pursue the PTSD, I think the committee needs to say that clearly and allow the government to do the VIP program, without input from the committee. I'm just asking for a decision.