Thank you very much, Ms. Blaney.
What happened was that Craig Dalton—unlike the previous ombudsman, Guy Parent—thought it would be, and I agree, an excellent plan to have a more expeditious process of having recommendations acted upon.
What was happening under Guy Parent previously was that they were permitting the department to delay for years addressing recommendations from the ombudsman's office. He submitted recommendations to the minister on four files in April and May 2020. Previous to that, he gave the department three months to address those concerns. In all four files the department completely dismissed the ombudsman's concern. This really speaks to a fundamental problem in the culture of the senior leadership who think they can snub their noses at an oversight body like the ombudsman.
The ombudsman then decided, after three months, that he would send those four files off to the minister. If the department won't deal with it, then it's the minister's job to deal with it. Those four files went to the minister. They sat on the minister's desk until Allan Hunter wrote to the minister and to Walter Natynczyk and said that Sean Bruyea was going in for a heart procedure in the beginning of December 2020. Then, all of a sudden, all panic occurred in the minister's office, and three files were quickly addressed over the next four weeks. All three files ignored almost completely the ombudsman's recommendations. The fourth file was just released, almost a year after the minister had it, and it was a favourable decision.
It also begs the question. We have a department that is just burdened by these delays because of overbureaucratic processes, and the minister sat on those files when he could have personally had those addressed with the signing of a pen within a few weeks. He didn't do that. That's very disappointing and disillusioning for veterans in general and their families.