Thank you very much.
Yes, without question, when we formed government, we had to hire a lot of people and we had to train a lot of people. When I became minister, I indicated that my number one, main priority was to address the backlog, and we have done that to an extent. It's not good enough, but we have invested millions of dollars in making sure that we brought it down. As you know, it was at 23,000 and it's now at around 8,500. We hope to bring it to the national standard. It won't be zero, because there are a lot of complicated cases that take time, and everybody understands that, but we must make sure that we continue on the path we're on.
Yes, there were a lot of reasons for people to apply, and new applications have increased by 50% now. Sometimes it's higher, but now it's about 50%. People feel very comfortable coming to Veterans Affairs Canada, and we want to make sure that they continue to feel comfortable coming to Veterans Affairs Canada, because they deserve to receive the programs that we've put in place in order to make sure they have as good a life as they can, because they stood up for us when we needed them.