Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses and thank you to the General for appearing before the committee.
As Peter said, I come from Newfoundland and Labrador, with a proud history of fighting Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. I attended a Remembrance Day service on November 11 in a town in an outport called Petty Harbour. It's about 20 minutes outside of St. John's. It was held in a church because the weather was pretty motley that day. In the church it was blocked to the rafters; there were 600 people there. There were children, there were middle-aged people, there were the elderly, and there were veterans. I have to say it was absolutely inspiring. The respect that we have for our veterans in Newfoundland and Labrador, again, is inspiring. But not all our veterans feel respected.
In Newfoundland and Labrador we will see the closure of one of those nine Veterans Affairs offices across Canada. I have two questions.
The first question comes from a quote from a veteran near Corner Brook, on the west coast of Newfoundland. He says:
A lot of these [veterans] are deaf, old and crippled and can’t understand anything they hear on the telephone. They need one-on-one service. That’s the way it has got to be.
What do you say to the senior, General, in terms of the closure of the Corner Brook Veterans Affairs offices? He and up to 1,500 people like him rely on that office for the services they need as veterans. What do you say to him about the closure of that office?