Perhaps I could start. When I was the chief pensions advocate at Veterans Affairs back in the nineties, we were dealing with backlogs back then, so it doesn't surprise me that we were dealing with backlogs in the twenties as well.
Basically, if you want to talk about a normal claim that could be decided reasonably quickly, you would be talking about a claim where you had “adequate” evidence of a disability—I put adequate in quotes, because to a certain extent adequate is in the eye of the beholder—that you were able to link back to military service or, in the case of the RCMP, RCMP service. The challenge with that is getting the documents together. The evidence of the disability is getting a doctor's opinion. Mr. Scott talked about his requirement to get a neurological assessment, which is very difficult at the best of times and is even worse now. There's the level of proof the system needs in order to accept that the medical diagnosis is acceptable, whether it needs to be from a specialist or from a family doctor, and then the link back to what your service was.
I think some of that can be done somewhat presumptively. It's not surprising that people with military service have hearing problems, because they've been exposed to loud noises over the course of their career. It's not surprising that people who jump out of airplanes or tanks may have knee problems. Some of the other areas are a little more complicated, but there is work that could be done there. The problem is even, in my own experience, making sure you have a normal file. You need all of that information. You need the flow of information from the Canadian Armed Forces into Veterans Affairs. You need the flow of information from the doctors.
You could also look, I would say, to what goes on in other countries and to what goes on in the workers’ compensation world. There are certain things where we know, if a person is exposed to this, then that is the natural result. It's not rocket science.