Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, CAVUNP, which is the short form for the Canadian Association of Veterans in United Nations Peacekeeping, has been around for roughly 25 years. The organization began essentially as a social organization, but we soon came to realize that no legislation or programs treated casualties of peacekeeping operations. We began to try to help each other informally as best we could, but we spent a lot of our early years on the remembrance side of things, commemorating actions that had been taken.
Two activities occurred that changed our minds. One was the development and implementation of the new Veterans Charter; the second was Afghanistan. With the grief and the suffering, along with the heroism, that flowed out of that distant battlefield, we accepted that the modern-day veteran was not being well-served by the new Veterans Charter and the programs associated with it. Change is required, and that brings us to transformation.
A week ago, three wise directors general from the east gave you some words on transformation. It's impossible to argue against what they were proposing. The ideas surely reflected ideas that veterans organizations and individuals have been longing for through the years, but you will forgive me if I am not ready to lead the cheerleading for transition just yet.
That may be due in part to the new Veterans Charter, that living document, which has been amended once in six years, and there are no amendments on the horizon of which I'm aware. It may be due to the dozens of recommendations made by many groups, including the unanimous recommendations of this very committee, which have not been implemented in whole or in part. It may be due to that deplorable report we recently got on the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. A 60% turnback from a court to that organization does not represent just a bunch of legal paperwork; it represents human beings who are suffering and did not get the help they needed. It may be due to the most recent shock from the closing of offices across the country.
Last fall the veterans community, almost without exception, pleaded that Canada follow the American and British initiatives to exempt veterans' matters from the requirements of the economic difficulties in which much of the world finds itself. You may well say that the economic difficulties face all of Canada, and the veterans must share the sacrifice. I suggest to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the veterans have already made the sacrifice, and now it's Canada's turn.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.