Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Colonel Stogran, for coming here.
First, I want to commend you for your courage and forthrightness in making public the concerns you have about veterans. We hear a lot about supporting our troops, but supporting our veterans, in my books...as my colleague Peter Stoffer keeps saying, supporting our troops when they come home, when they're veterans, is as important as supporting troops in the field. So thank you for your forthrightness about this.
In looking at the mandate that was given to you, it seems to be adequate, and maybe you can comment: to review and address complaints by clients, to identify and review emerging systems, to facilitate access by clients to programs. The role has been called an ombudsman or an ombudsperson, which is a recognized international office that democracies are engaged in. But it seems you're being treated like an employee of the deputy minister. Is that your conclusion?