Thank you very, very much for coming here today.
I wanted to correct one thing, though. In your second paragraph, you say:
In the early to mid 1900s, Veterans returning from World War One, World War Two and the Korean War were greeted with a suite of benefits and services to help them successfully reintegrate into civilian society.
That was true for many veterans, but it wasn't true for aboriginal veterans. Many of them were left out. In fact, they went back to their units or reserves or wherever and really didn't get very much at all. So I would simply caution you on that, because if I were an aboriginal veteran who read it, I think I'd be a little perplexed by that.
You said something as well that I couldn't agree with more: “a Veteran is a Veteran is a Veteran”. I'd like to only add one thing to that and say: “a widow is a widow is a widow”.
I have repeated this many times. I have a letter that was written on June 28, 2005. It is signed by Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of the country, and it says:
A Conservative government would immediately extend the Veterans Independence Program services to all widows of all Second World War and Korean War veterans regardless of when the Veteran passed away or how long they had been receiving the benefit prior to passing away.
I have another letter written by, at that time, the opposition critic, saying “until the Conservative Party forms government I am unable to change the regulations to extend V.I.P. benefits to all Veterans' widows”.
The Conservatives are now government--it's been that way for over 15 months--so my question quite clearly is, have you been given instruction to extend immediately the VIP program to all widows of veterans, regardless of time of death or if they applied?