Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. You are the minister of the day, and you're doing a fine job, I might add.
I appreciated your coming out to the community at the sod turning for our cenotaph. It's now dedicated and well respected by the community and appreciated by all veterans, young and old. I know my colleague from the south, Minister Day, just had an announcement last week, and the veterans were greatly appreciative of that. So thank you to you and your department for the great work you're doing.
I also just wanted to make note of a personal issue in the riding. May 8 was a flag-day ceremony in my community, and my wife was there representing me. There was a horrific accident. A member of our community, a veteran in his eighties, was making a turn off the highway into the memorial service. He was a member of the colour guard. He got hit in an accident and died. So Mr. Robinson, rest in peace. It was a tragic incident.
We think of the men and women who are serving and the work that they do, and coming back from our travels I think of the great country and freedoms that we take for granted. So I thank you for all the work that we do in the community as a committee.
One of the things that we've done--and I know it was elaborated on by Mr. Sweet, who briefly touched on it--is that in April 2006 the Prime Minister announced the new Veterans Charter. I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on some of the programs now offered under the new Veterans Charter.