Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for having me and Janice Burke here today. My name is Sheri Ostridge, and I am senior director of e-comms, marketing, and transformation communications at Veterans Affairs Canada.
We're really excited to be here today. We're talking about an e-tool for veterans, for a gentleman like Mr. Swick and for others, that was launched only on Monday by Minister Blaney, by the parliamentary secretary, and by the Veterans Ombudsman.
We are here today to introduce you to a new online tool called the Benefits Browser. As the minister said on Monday, this tool provides information on programs and services based on the situation of the veteran using it.
The benefits browser is a key improvement in the way veterans will be able to access information about our department's services and benefits.
Mr. Chair, we've handed out copies-—I hope everyone has copies—of a deck in English and French of our presentation. I now invite committee members to the second slide.
I'll give a brief overview and clarify what the browser is. On the left is the French version and English is on the right of our screens. My colleague, Janice Burke, will explain a key new component that lies within the benefits browser and that our policies are now online for the first time. This is something that we're really thrilled to have. Following that we'll have a demonstration of the browser, and that will take about 10 to 15 minutes.
We'll go to slide number four. We'll skip right through the outline.
Improvements continue, and I know this committee has heard much about the progress that has been made at the department in improving services for veterans. We're very thrilled, and we feel this is part of the progress the department is making. We're working to offer more online options to communicate better and more simply through plain language and other initiatives.
We're streamlining internal processes and modernizing our policies so the veterans' experience is a good one, with less hassle and less bureaucracy, and we are really making some leaps forward .
To tell you about the development of the benefits browser is a true story of partnership. A prototype was developed as an internal tool by the office of the ombudsman. Their staff required fast and central access to specific VAC information, so there was much back-and-forth between our websites. It was providing a kind of platform for them to work off. Thus started the process of the benefits browser.
We worked with the OVO and we adopted their concept for our staff, so we started on an internal basis. We went through some pilots and redesigned and published the tool internally for our staff, who had different needs. As a result of the positive response to the internal browser, modifications were made. We also had to adapt, as per Government of Canada web standards, and we were able to make it available to the public, to veterans and their families, earlier this week, on Monday. It resides at veterans.gc.ca.
We'll get into how this works in the demo, but to give you a bit of a set-up, if you draw your attention to the front of the room and the screens, veterans can take two options—two paths, if you will—from the very front page. It's highly visible, and on the benefits browser you're seeing a silhouette of a soldier. “Benefits at a Glance” is one option that is seen on one page, then all of the services and benefits. Then “Browse your Benefits” is a self-guided series of questions. It's very quick. In under probably three minutes a veteran can get information that's relevant to him or her.
In addition to programs and services, acts and regulations and program policies have also been added within this, so I'll pass to my colleague, Janice, to give us a little bit of information about that.