I can give you a few, but one of my newest issues is the treatment authorization centre, and that follows up on what Louise and Perry are saying. What happens is that Blue Cross is a contracted service for your treatment benefits, your medications, and all those benefits once you get your card. A lot of the problems are that we have chronic conditions, some severe, and some not so severe, but in any case, they're chronic, and every year there's a reapplication. You go to a service provider and let them know you're a veteran and they... Most people go in there with a credit card and get their treatment, but with us, there are forms, they're waiting for funding payments, and the treatment authorization centres just don't have the information.
I was injured in 1991. They have a couple of pieces of information on me about my initial injury diagnosis, but they don't even know that I have a cervical spine fusion. They don't have any of the information. These are the people making the economic decisions on your aids to daily living, your prescriptions, and your treatment benefits. It has to be re-examined. You need to have people in the department, or the decision has to go to the case manager or your counsellor, who may know a little more about your case, because it's extremely frustrating every year when you have to go back for treatment benefits.
I was 38 when I got injured and I'm now 46, and every year... I get denials all the time. It simply blows my mind. I bring it back to the policy-makers, like Darragh and the people I sit on the committee with. “Oh, that can't be”, they say. I bring them the letters your department sends me and they're like, “Oh, yeah.” And a lot of the issues, decentralization... They need a better communication structure. We can go on and on.
Communication would be my next point. It's great to dust off the Prime Minister and the minister and get them out there when they have PR issues with regard to veterans on Remembrance Day, but for communication on veterans issues and benefit grids to their clients, it's almost a don't ask and don't tell attitude. That's kind of from the Second World War, when you weren't allowed to have any money, and that ideology kind of transferred over into the department, right? It's not an income test any more, but back in the old days, for the Second World War vets, it was. That's why some of them are still hiding out in the woods. You mention VAC and they run, because they still think they're going to lose something.