Thank you very much.
I think it's appropriate for me to say that we had a national women's conference for veterans. The first one was in 2019, I believe. I had just become minister and had indicated at the time that it would become an annual event. I think that's part of the way to understand this. We had some problems. Women veterans have different requirements from men veterans, and of course we have been working on all of these things over the last number of years.
That said, the investment of nearly $340 million gives the department the finances to basically do the research and find out just exactly what's needed and the people to deal with the files along with it. That's basically what we've done.
As you know, we have reduced the backlog by basically 50% or a little more, but again, that's not good enough, as everybody agrees. We have to continue to do that. Moreover, we have to continue to do research, and that's why this conference was put in place.
There are a number of veterans who have some different requirements, such as women and aboriginal veterans. After the Second World War, the majority of veterans were male. Of course, now things have changed substantially and the department is adjusting to that. We have a dedicated team—I think they call it a “spike team”—working on female applications, which is helping.
Luc asked a question on francophones. With francophone and women veterans we also have spike teams in place to help bring the numbers down.
Perhaps the deputy would like to add to that, but that's basically what we have been doing.