Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I'm happy to be here in the committee, and it's nice to be here in your presence, Mr. Minister. I know one of your predecessors, George Hees, used to call it the best portfolio in government because you got to help out veterans. You seem to be in the same mode of thinking by your friendliness today here.
We missed you in St. John's, by the way, in December. Weather prevented you from coming to present the minister's awards for our service to veterans. I did offer to present them on your behalf, but it was graciously declined by your officials for protocol reasons, no doubt. But we did miss you and it was quite the event.
My good colleague and friend who I am replacing today, Peter Stoffer, has been advocating for veterans for many years, as you know. One of the things that has happened in recent days, in fact just a day or so ago, has been the rollout by Mr. MacKay--I guess also on your behalf because I'm sure the veterans are involved as well--of the integrated personnel support centres. Is this something that veterans have access to on a full basis, the same as in-service personnel do? Can you tell us whether the $21 million that's talked about is new money, or is it money from existing programs that are being rolled into these centres?
As a supplementary to that--this will show my Newfoundland and Labrador interest, I won't say bias--because of the large number of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians in the Canadian Forces and therefore among our veterans, we are well above our weight in terms of percentage of population. I think we're about 1.8% to 2% of the population, yet both our military personnel and veterans would be well above 10%, so why would it be that there isn't one of these centres in Newfoundland to service the needs of Canadian Forces veterans and members in Newfoundland and Labrador? We'd certainly like to see that, and veterans in Newfoundland and Labrador would like to see that.