Mr. Chair, that is a very difficult question for me to address because I'm the one asking for the information, and there are a variety of reasons that are given that I can't quite comprehend from the other side of the table.
I think one of the issues that has been problematic is that within the order in council that describes my mandate, we are restricted from reviewing certain types of documentation, and there is a difference of opinion between our office and that of the department as to what the definition of “to review” is. It's rather complex, but if I can make it simple, we are prevented from reviewing documents such as legal judgments, court decisions, as well as legal advice to the department and decisions of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. The department views “to review” in the sense of “to have a look at”. We are prevented from having a look at a long list of things, including confidences of the Privy Council and internal legal decisions. If that were in fact true, the letter of the law in our mandate would prevent us from reading court judgments that are actually public information accessible to all.
So it's a mixing of apples and oranges. The definition of “to review” in both the Pension Act and the Veterans Review and Appeal Board Act is “to hear, determine and deal with”, to challenge and to make comment on these types of things. We're not looking for that when it comes to confidences of the Privy Council or legal advice that the department is using to make decisions. What we're looking at is understanding the perspective not only of the veterans, the people on the ground who I spend most of my time talking to and working with, but we want to have a balanced impression. We want to understand the department's perspective on things. The advantage for me, and I think one of the ways we could have avoided this latest confrontation between my office and the department, is that if the department is forthcoming and proactive in sharing information and letting us know what actions they are taking when we are seized of issues such as the homeless veterans issue, then I could qualify my comments, without ever revealing the source of that qualification. But I will never compromise my integrity to the veterans by ignoring open source material or evidence that I am gathering on the ground. I will only temper it by what I know to be information that's within the department that is out of public view.