Thank you, Chair.
It's so good to see you again, Minister, and you, Mr. Ledwell. I appreciate your being here.
I hear from you that we have a problem in regard to national standards for service dogs. That problem developed...it imploded, actually, that committee, because of a conflict of interest that existed extensively across the board with not enough arm's length from those who were engaged in making those standards take place. I'm actually glad it's defunct. We do need another one. That's certainly something we're working on here as a committee. We're looking forward to presenting recommendations to VAC on that.
In the meantime, you did give funding to Wounded Warriors Canada. I did call them and talk to them, because they were part of that committee. They have a vested interest themselves as an organization in providing service dogs and training them. I saw that as a little bit disconcerting because of the dysfunctional state of that team.
I would like to ask you this. In that funding that was provided to them, they did use it to develop their own program and also did provide some funding to other organizations, but not to all. Again, I see that we really need to come up with standards that are fair across this nation for all of the providers.
Sir, I would just like to ask you if you can guarantee—not knowing what will work best, and hopefully looking at our recommendations—a standards board that is arm's length to take information from our veterans and these organizations. We need that decision-making to happen outside of the veterans service dog funding community. Can you assure me that the standards board will be arm's length from VAC and from the providers of service dogs?