Yes, I can speak to that.
If I might just comment on your conclusion of the last question, I think what we expected is that the minister would have had proposals for your committee to consider at this time, implementing at least in part some of the recommendations of the earlier studies. I think, Deanna, you're correct, we were expecting something more than just further study. It would have been very useful, in our opinion, if the minister had brought forward, let's say, five or six proposals implementing earlier reports as part of the ongoing evaluation. That's what we'd like to see in the future, quite frankly.
Now as far as your current question is concerned, clearly our organization...and I believe the ANAVETS, of course, were consulted prior to the enactment of the charter. In fact, many of us sat on the Canadian Forces advisory council from about 2002 to 2005. Many of us sat on the new Veterans Charter advisory group from 2006 to 2009. We agreed with the philosophy—Deanna expressed it rather well earlier—of the need for a new Veterans Charter.
The Pension Act had problems. It wasn't a transitionary piece of legislation. It was no longer applicable to the modern-day veteran in many ways. But the reality is, the document that was produced as a charter, as I commented in my submission, was flawed, and we all knew it was flawed. People were sitting around this table; I know Mr. Peter Stoffer was, and others were. It was flawed and it was recognized as being imperfect.
The thing that was committed to, though, is that there would be an annual review. I remember very well Jack Stagg, and the minister of the day, and the hierarchy of the day...the Darragh Mogans, the Ken Millers of the day...it will be reviewed on an annual basis, and in that way we will catch up with the imperfections. We will rectify the problems with the SISIP program, we will rectify the problems with.... Well, let's not go on to all of the evidence. All of the submissions made today...we expected that to be done eight years ago, seven years ago, on an ongoing basis.