I don't think it's important: I think it's essential. I think it's critical. There needs to be more work between the two departments so that in fact issues of transition and tracking, for instance, are handled right from the start to finish. There have been a lot of stopgap measures and bridging measures, but nothing, really, to take somebody who maintains an identity from the time he leaves the forces until he gets into Veterans Affairs Canada. In fact, the transition centre, for the TPS user, is an ideal place to actually give somebody a veteran's identity.
In fact, in the Canadian Forces, we have the service card that identifies us as having been members of the service and for how many years, but it's really a useless document, whereas in fact if DND and Veterans Affairs actually worked together, they could make that a very good opportunity. It could be a very good opportunity for them to track every veteran as they come to the transition centre, to give them an identification card, and to say, “You are now a veteran of Canada and now you can be identified for all of the other programs”. The tracking would be immediate. There would be no transition.
Again, all of these things should be looked at between DND and Veterans Affairs Canada to facilitate what is really a cradle-to-grave type of support.