Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to everybody for coming.
I would like to follow up on that, Ms. Tining, as some background for those at home and for our veterans. There have been reports in the past on depleted uranium and the department didn't previously recognize this factor, so the committee that the minister has established is a significant step forward. I thank the minister for taking those steps, and I thank the department and yourselves for the leadership you have shown in helping facilitate this. It is a good thing that we have the necessary budget. This is a new project, so we'll continue to monitor it.
I should like to thank Ms. Tining. My riding is from Cold Lake to Edmonton, where a lot of my veterans access their services. There is a significant amount of travel. I brought this up with a number of department officials over the last year—the issue of mileage reimbursements, and Google Maps, and the problems it was creating. This has been taken care of. I have been critical in the past, and I wanted to thank you very much for that.
I want to follow up with a question on the VIP program. I'd like you to elaborate not only on the supplementary estimates, but also on how they're going to be used to give our veterans easier access to the VIP program and to help them get reimbursed more quickly.