What we are finding is that the permanent impairment allowance is put together to track a man's or a woman's career as it would go forward in the military after they have suffered an illness or injury. To be honest, we weren't doing a very good job of tracking those numbers. In fact, most people who came into Veterans Affairs Canada found themselves not progressing along any career path changes.
What we did was secure money from the Treasury Board in the last budget to do a better job of adequately assessing a person's career and to make sure they are getting the incremental changes to their earnings that they would have received should their career not have been cut short by illness or injury. This will allow them to recognize their success and understand that their inability to serve in the military has not impacted them in a financial way. We looked at it in a more fair and fulsome fashion that recognizes more what their outcomes would have been but for the injury.