Thanks very much for the question.
I would say that the awareness of veteran benefits and programs over the past five years has really improved just because of the nature of great programs like the education and training benefit or the career transition service. A lot more veterans are aware of them, so over this past five years, as the minister indicated, we've seen a 90% increase in first applications and a 60% increase in all applications across the board. Because of the number of additional programs, we have had to wade in and do a lot of additional work on all those additional programs, which is absolutely fabulous, but we're now trying to leverage technology to make it much simpler for folks to get a decision.
For example, I've heard of circumstances where a veteran will apply for the career transition service and get the answer and approval within a half-hour, and then a counsellor calls him later on in the day and makes an appointment. An education and training benefit decision is made within a couple of weeks. We also know that something that is making it challenging on the applications, especially for disability, is that frequently the injury or condition may not be fully documented in the medical file. Whether that person is in the forces or has left the Canadian Armed Forces, in some cases the documentation is not clear.
In the perfect circumstance, if you get injured on an operation, on a training exercise, your injury is fully diagnosed and is in there. Then the decision can be made very easily.
I'll ask Rick to wade in here.