First of all, Mr. Chair, the number of Service Canada locations, including their mobile locations, is close to 600. All Service Canada personnel have received training on VAC programs as they relate to disability benefits and the veterans independence program. This training was developed in cooperation between Veterans Affairs Canada and Service Canada.
With respect to the areas where the offices are closing, in addition to the services provided by Service Canada, a veteran will be able to bring in a copy of an application for a disability benefit or for the veterans independence program. It will be reviewed by the Service Canada officer to make sure it's complete. They will also authenticate that the veteran is who they say they are. There needs to be proof, and they can do that authentication and send it on to us. They will also help the veteran with what I would call general information, which they've been doing for many years, as they do for all government departments. In addition to this service, they can also help people get a My VAC account, etc. The key elements are reviewing and authenticating applications.
The other thing to bear in mind is that because of the reducing red tape initiatives, veterans no longer have as much need to go to offices as they once had. You don't have to take in your receipts for health-related travel to get them checked because you don't have to send them in anymore. With the VIP, you don't have to have all kinds of receipts for snow shovelling and everything because we moved to a grant system, and that grant system eliminated 2.5 million transactions.
As the minister announced last Thursday, in the Service Canada location that is nearest to the office we're closing, which in many cases across Canada is in the same building, we will have a client service agent from Veterans Affairs. That client service agent will be embedded in those eight Service Canada locations, and for inquiries that are beyond the scope of the Service Canada personnel, the client service agent will respond.
The big difference is that Service Canada officials have no access to the VAC database. They are not able to look at a veteran's file whereas a client service agent, who's a VAC employee, will have full access to our database and will be able to handle inquiries beyond that. We just want to make sure that veterans do not see any reduction in the level of service as we make the transition in those eight cities.