Mr. Chair, if I could, there are a few things.
First of all, as has been underlined and I'll repeat again, there has been a very significant increase in demand from the veteran community. I think we have to appreciate that there were many veterans serving our country in Afghanistan. More than 40,000 Canadians served in uniform there, many of those now having come forward to Veterans Affairs Canada for support. We've seen a marked increase in demand.
We have seen as well a marked increase in the availability of supports and programs for veterans—necessarily—in areas like mental health and in areas like identifying supports for women and other under-represented groups who have served as veterans to ensure we are there for them equally.
There has been a diversity of program offerings as well as a demand on service, and that has built up a real pressure on demand. We are seeing that pressure continue. There was a little dip during COVID-19, a small dip, but this year we are tracking to greater than 70,000 applications to Veterans Affairs Canada for disability supports. It's a large demand. We have worked hard with what has been $360 million in additional resources specifically for the backlog over the last three budgets to bring that down.