Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank all of the witnesses today, especially our veterans who served and who continue to live with some of the challenges.
Mr. Meincke, I can't thank you enough for sharing, for your strength, and for building a podcast to help more veterans around the country and maybe around the world. That's extremely positive and very important, and I thank you for your continued service in that area.
This is a very difficult topic of discussion, and it should never, ever have happened. It's really unacceptable that it happened, and I thank all those who are sharing some particular information around that.
It is also very important to note that it is not a service offered by Veterans Affairs to speak to MAID. The minister made it very clear that more training, immediately, was needed, and is in effect being done as we speak. We need to know some suggestions of other things that we can do to make it right.
I want to ask a question of all presenters today, and maybe we can start with the same row of presenters: Colonel Conrad, Corporal Meincke, Carolyn and then our final speaker as well.
Back in 2021, we brought forward a program, $140 million, to ensure immediate mental health support for veterans, meaning that you didn't have to wait for your application to be processed. You could make an application right off the top and you'd have the services right away. That's what was shared by a number of you today, that we need to make sure there is no wait time when talking about mental health.
I'd like to hear from you quickly whether you know if people have accessed that and if you have any comments to make. It is crucial. We need to do more. We need to be immediate in our services, and that's the objective of that. Even if your application is denied, you still have two years of service.
We'll start with Colonel Conrad, please, and then Corporate Meincke.