Absolutely. I think the new veterans charter was created to try to focus on wellness. Each year we have about 1,200 men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces who are released from service for medical reasons. In some cases it's from a service injury. In a very small number of cases, thankfully, it's a very serious injury. It could be in a theatre of operations or in training.
In the old system, it was very important to be in a special duty area and injured. That's not the case now. At the end of the day, the goal has to be getting those people to a good place after their military careers. The more ability they have to recover, to rehabilitate, and to find new purpose and meaning in a second career, the more we have to facilitate that. The goal of the new veterans charter was to focus that financial support and rehabilitation quickly to help with transition. Because if transition goes well, they leverage their military careers into great careers after service.
There are some who will have a very difficult time transitioning, whether from physical or mental injury from service. Those people need additional supports, clearly. That's why in 2011, our government introduced the permanent impairment allowance supplement. It's why Bill C-58 has the retirement income security benefit. It's why we're looking at the critical injury benefit.
This committee, in its report last June, said that there should be a focus on moderately to seriously injured veterans because they have the hardest time transitioning. I have essentially followed the advice of this committee, of the ombudsman, and others to try and target that. The less serious the injury, the greater the ability of the vocational rehabilitation training, up to $75,000, to get that person into a new career.
As I say to a lot of veterans, there are three pillars of recovery. There's the health of the veteran, the wellness of their family, and the second career. I put family in the middle because it's critical. If the second career doesn't go well, it affects the other two. The living charter concept we built into Bill C-58 with the purpose clause in proposed section 2.1 is very similar to recommendation 2 of your report in terms of our ongoing obligation to our veterans and their families.