Mr. Chairman, that's a very broad question. In my experience, particularly in my capacity as an ombudsman, because people come to me with their problems, more often than not the problem is that the money has disappeared. It has vaporized.
Bearing in mind that there are other financial aspects to the new Veterans Charter and that they should be viewed comprehensively, there's one principle that I feel is very important in this--I don't like talking about lump sum versus pension, because I don't think it's that black and white--and that is peace of mind, and it's differentiation, in that every veteran is different.
You can combine the type of disability they might have when they're leaving with the culture shock, and I can say personally that there is a huge culture shock when life no longer is a battle drill and you have to suddenly adapt to normal civilian life. If you add an operational stress injury on top of that and then give a young soldier a lump sum, which is for pain and suffering, the best way to get rid of pain and suffering is.... Well, we all know what young soldiers would like to do.
So we should be looking at it from that perspective. No soldier coming home from operations, particularly one who has been injured, is going to sit down and take financial counselling when they have a mitt full of money.
They have to relate to the kind of people who join the Canadian Forces.