Thank you for being here with us today, Minister.
Of course, I want to say thank you again for coming out to visit us in Comox on the 10th of February, when we celebrated the amazing plane of reconciliation project. I want to recognize the late Captain David Freeman, who spearheaded that project and wanted to acknowledge indigenous veterans in the area. It's just a beautiful plane in that area. Thank you again for supporting that project.
The wait times are a huge concern for me, and I'm happy to hear that they are for you as well. In fact, we've heard again and again from the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman, from department staff and from veterans themselves that this is the biggest issue and the issue that keeps coming up over and over again.
When I look at the supplementary estimates, it looks to me as though there's a bit of a transfer from the VAC operations to other programming. I understand the value of programming, and I think whenever we can give resources to the veterans, that's really important. However, I'm concerned about the fact that the wait times are a challenge. If you're taking money from operations and moving it to programming, I'm wondering how that is a strategy to address the wait times.