Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here on a very important subject.
I'd like to start off with a few comments about the office of ombudsman for veterans. I listened carefully to my colleagues, and I agree that we want to avoid the silos and the isolating of one ombudsman from another. Not only does it add cost, but it also maybe prevents the sharing of best practices and so on.
That said, I personally believe there should be an ombudsman dedicated solely to veterans, and that function should not be added to the Defence ombudsman, simply because veterans' issues are different from those of active service personnel, and the full attention of an ombudsman I think is required.
Although whether in support of an ombudsman at Veterans Affairs and an ombudsman at DND and an ombudsman in the different departments, there needs to be some kind of an ombudsman's secretariat or ombudsman general, I don't know. I think fundamentally we need to have one dedicated to the veterans, and then the issues of how we resource them, to me, are important but secondary after we focus on the veterans.
Among the different models you've researched elsewhere, have you seen both a DND/veterans ombudsman and a veterans-only ombudsman?