Absolutely, Mr. Harris. I'll answer you with two examples. I was in New Brunswick last summer, and I went into one of those joint veterans-Canadian Forces centres. We were having a discussion. At one point, the member for the Canadian Forces said that when he meets with a veteran and needs to get the veteran's data, he has to sign one form—it's a privacy sheet. He said that he found it a little bit complicated.
I asked him why. He said it's that we have five forms. Is it necessary for a veteran to fill out five forms once he has agreed to give the department access? I think that we should work towards one form, and I can tell you that we're working on that. This is an example of what we call a hassle-free service, cutting and streamlining our processes. There were good reasons for each of those forms, but at the end of the day, we have five forms for a veteran to access a veteran's data. This is four too many.
That's an example. If we take the veterans and dependants program—and I mentioned this week how the uptake for this program is big from our veterans—another example would be that every veteran is asked to submit every bill for every type of activity, and these have to be processed by some civil servant. We have some civil servants doing paperwork, and we have veterans who are asked to provide red tape.
I think these are areas that we could explore, that we should explore, and that we have to explore. Will it result in a more efficient service so that maybe some employees will be released from doing some tedious work? I hope so. I think that's the goal.
To get back, I think there are two goals in this department. Remembrance is important, Mr. Harris. I think this department is accomplishing that well. We got good feedback for our campaign—the "I am a Veteran" campaign. It's important for every veteran—and especially wounded veterans—to know of the recognition that society is giving them. It's part of the healing process, and that's why we need to emphasize, as much as possible, what we call “remembrance”—meeting the needs of modern veterans.