Thank you for the question.
Additional staff, for sure, have improved the services, whether it is the nine offices or the additional case managers we've hired and put into the offices, or the additional adjudicators. All the additional resources and the additional programming—because it's not just people, we have received a lot of new programming in the last couple of years—have helped veterans in general. That doesn't mean that we don't have veterans struggling. We do. The downside effect is that I have backlogs, which I keep trying to figure out. However, it has helped.
As a case in point, I've been coming to this committee now for five years. It has been the hardest job I've ever had. Every single day, I would have three to four messages, often from people in various locations, receiving complaints from veterans in crisis—I call it crisis. I still get 20 emails a day from various constituency offices. They go through the minister's office, but they all come to me and I read them all. I have a team working on it, but I actually read them because I want to know what's happening out there.
The reality is that 19 of the 20 are because of the timelines. I won't break down that some are legitimate and some are not. You can go through the whole.... However, it is much better.
That said, as the deputy mentioned, there are still 32% who are having a hard time in transition. We have to do better, and that's why we're working closely with the Canadian Armed Forces on better transition. If we can do a good transition, hopefully it's a better landing.
I think the money and the programming have come a long way. We can still do better, but they've come a long way.