Good afternoon, committee members. I want to start the meeting.
Before we get into the presentation, I want to tremendously thank the Australian high commissioner for appearing with us today.
Sir, I'm going to give you a kind of background in terms of what we're doing.
Since the new government has come into office, we've separated what used to be a national defence and veterans affairs standing committee into one that's national defence and, separately, veterans affairs. Having served on the previous committee, I think having a separate committee on veterans affairs allows us the ability to delve into veterans matters that often, compared to national defence issues, came across as less urgent. When government matters arose, oftentimes discussions were focused on the Department of National Defence and serving soldiers more than the veterans. So we've separated the committee.
We've just completed a health care review study, we've implemented a veterans charter, and we've instituted an ombudsman, for the creation of which we relied upon some of your country's testimony.
What we're looking at now is comparing ourselves in a broad swath of ways, other than just health care or ombudsman issues. We're looking at dealing with our other, in a sense, NATO or industrial or westernized, or whatever terms you want to use, allies—countries of comparable economic means—to see how we stack up and what we can do to improve.
One of the last groups we had in was the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. I was quite impressed with what they talked about in terms of the gravesites--105 going to 126 national gravesites they have for veterans, etc.
That is generally what's going on. You'll be given twenty minutes to split time as you see fit between the two of you. If one wants to take nineteen minutes and the other one minute, or whatever combination, that's fine. Then we have pre-assigned rotations for the first rotation and the second rotation for questions.
Once again, just for the committee members' benefit, I introduce William Fisher, the high commissioner for Australia.
It says “to be confirmed”, sir, but I see that your name is Adam Luckhurst, and we had the chance to meet just previously.
Gentlemen, now that you have a sense, the floor is yours. Thank you very much for coming on short notice.