Mr. Chair, committee members, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ray Kokkonen. I'm the national president of the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association. With me are two gentlemen: the patron of the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association, retired Brigadier General Larry Gollner and retired Colonel John Eggenberger, vice-president of research for our organization.
The aim of this presentation is to provide insight into how Canada's veterans perceive the current Veterans Review and Appeal Board and why it is failing them.
We decided on a very low-tech approach, because we knew there were some heavy presenters here, such as the Legion and a few others. We thought we would keep it simple and within our capability, and we simply compiled all of the common issues and complaints we have heard from veterans over the years. In fact, we did a canvass when we got the invitation. We then classified them into categories, and we ended up with seven categories. We'll be getting into those a little further.
I'm not going to read our presentation. I invite you to look at what our organization is about—veterans, obligations, and service—and to pay particular attention to the Veterans Bill of Rights, which is on the second page, and particularly to the first statement. That is our case: that through all of these examples of issues and complaints, that is the one most often being violated. Larry will be giving an in-depth case study of that.
Then on the third page is our main presentation, and that's on the seven major issues or complaints that we have gained from veterans.
We are not going to read out those issues—that's why I invited everybody to look at them now—and we're not going to present a case study for each one. We're going to present one example that covers about four of those points.
I will now turn it over to Larry.