Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you all for being here. I want to make a couple of points first.
You know, when somebody passes away as a serving member, they get supplementary death benefit which is twice their salary and that happens immediately. The CDS authorizes a cheque and it's cut immediately.
With respect to the last point, veterans affairs programs are demand-driven. There is no $2 million limit on the $75,800. It is demand-driven. If more people apply and they qualify, they get it. There is no artificial $2 million limit. It is demand-driven like most veterans affairs benefits. So, let's please put that aside. It's not true.
Mr. Forbes, you mentioned the Brit system of up to a million dollars and so on. We had another group come in last meeting who suggested the lump sum needed to be $1.5 million and so on. You're suggesting roughly $350,000. You want to look more into that and I would encourage that.
Now, defining catastrophic, what is catastrophic? To me somebody like—you're familiar with Steven Fletcher, our quadriplegic MP who's effectively a quadruple amputee. He has this much movement. To me that's catastrophic. I don't think anybody would argue that. I don't want to get into splitting hairs here but somebody who has lost a couple of legs—which none of us could put ourselves in that position—but they have otherwise full capacity, would that be called catastrophic in terms of a potentially million-dollar settlement?