Mr. Chair, to clarify the situation with those 6,000, many of the people who come to our office are simply seeking information or referrals and are not coming to us with issues that need our immediate attention. The number of 6,000, I dare say, were satisfied customers and there is not investigative work pending on those.
We have accumulated a considerable backlog as a result of the length of time it takes to staff some of the problems, even the more minor ones. But now with our full complement...I'm very much encouraged by the work that's going on in Charlottetown right now to reduce that backlog. Suffice it to say, though, that the troops on the front lines within our organization do have a very high-intensity job dealing with the veterans on the phone as well as trying to resolve these issues, and I am very conscious of the resource constraints that we have there.
I would not be comfortable at this point in time forecasting the size of staff we would need because we're not at the point where we have established our steady state working procedures yet. We won't be until we really train the staff that we have on side now. We still have three investigators to come onto the team. It's going to be even a little more complicated because I want to make sure that our procedures are harmonious with the department's, so there will be some feedback going back and forth across the line.
What I will say is that when the government apportioned resources to the function of the Veterans Ombudsman, there were 10 full-time equivalent positions that were assigned to the department that are really misemployed right now. In terms of the balance sheet and the money that was assigned to the function of a veterans ombudsman, those positions would be hugely beneficial right now to us coming to terms with the task at hand. But I don't think the situation is as grave as those 6,000 might convey, and we are moving ahead.