Thank you, Ms. Hughes. You've touched on the crux of the problem in Veterans Affairs.
Veterans Affairs has designed a host of programs. They are programs designed by bureaucrats to satisfy bureaucratic processes; they're not programs designed by veterans in conjunction with bureaucrats or medical experts. They're meant to satisfy Treasury Board demands. Treasury Board demands do not necessarily equate to the demands or needs of disabled veterans and their families.
What has happened is that Veterans Affairs is now an incredibly top-heavy organization that is far too isolated in Charlottetown, and whenever a problem occurs, you know the expression: it rolls downhill. It falls upon the front-line workers. The front-line workers have been given 45 pieces of legislation to administer for war veterans, and on top of that they've been given a whole new host of very complex programs. The charter is an incredible burden to the front-line workers. They're not given any extra staffing. They're meant to administer all of these programs all at once, while still providing what they say is case management.
An area counsellor, for example, has anywhere from 900 to 1,500 cases. It doesn't take a genius mathematician to realize that given the paperwork they're required to fill out by head office as they come up with new processes--which they do all the time--they can actually only devote approximately 10% to a maximum of 20% of their time to true case management. That means we're looking at probably 95% of their clientele not being served.
In addition, they have no authority to actually approve a lot of these processes. They can recommend them, but they have to go through another chain of command.
What do I recommend? Do away with the regional offices. Do away with the majority of positions in head office, because a lot of those are merely approving things that can be approved by the front-line workers. Enhance a lot of those positions in the district office with the vacated positions in head office and regional office, and also provide them with clerical staff so that area counsellors and client service agents aren't inputting these incredibly burdensome processes.
That should remain until we can actually have some veterans in place who can say that a particular process doesn't work, or have a medical person in place at Veterans Affairs who can decide that since some process isn't going to help a disabled veteran, the process should be gotten rid of.