Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to report back on a couple of items that were raised and also to provide a clarification to this committee. After reviewing the transcript, and I refer particularly to an exchange, Mr. Chair, that you and I had towards the end of the meeting, I'd like to clarify. There seemed to be some question around reports and observation papers and such things. I would like to put on the record a clarification.
First of all, as I noted in response to your question, the ombudsman contacted me in the vicinity of the late summer or fall, and that was via telephone. During the fall months, the department was working on an analysis, or what one might call a decision/policy paper, with respect to homelessness. At that time, the communication between me and the ombudsman was by phone. As things developed, there were ongoing discussions between the ombudsman's staff, as I understand, and staff of the department. In fact, it was in February 2009 that the ombudsman submitted a paper to the department through the policy arm of the department, and the department provided a response to the ombudsman in March.
I want to clarify, just for greater certainty, that among the numbers of papers we have received from the ombudsman we received a paper with respect to exceptional incapacity, the SISIP, occupational stress injuries, and homelessness, and a report that the ombudsman has referred to on funerals and burials. When you posed the questions to me, I was responding on the basis of when I became involved and of what had been submitted to me. I wanted to clarify with respect to that.
With respect to the issue of the number of calls being handed off to the department, I went back to my staff. It's very difficult to give any number—I don't want to mislead the committee, Mr. Chairman—because there are no statistics kept. These calls are ongoing on what I would call a rather informal basis. The ombudsman's staff have the phone directory of the staff. They have the names of the particular experts.