The one biggest change that I could see immediately would be that as veterans, we would be allowed to converse with different members of Veterans Affairs Canada. One of the biggest problems that I see for myself—as well as for other veterans and members of the military, actually, who are trying to access Veterans Affairs Canada—is that we are allowed one contact point, and that is it. That contact point is the 1-800 number. We are not allowed under any circumstances to go to a person's supervisor. We cannot talk to anyone who has sent us a letter. We have the person's name at the bottom, but it says, “If you have any issues, please contact this 1-800 number.” When we call the number, we are not allowed to talk to that person.
I have been very fortunate to be able to talk to two different individuals within Veterans Affairs on a couple of different subjects. For both individuals I've managed to go through a back-door system to get to them. One individual had...I want to say “the audacity”, but it was worse than that. She told me that I was “privileged” to be allowed to talk to her and I was “privileged” to be allowed to phone her directly, and that this was a singular situation and I would never be allowed to do it again. That is disgusting. That is rude, and that is diminishing to who I am.
Women veterans, I have to say, are kind of special. We take on situations that most people can't even imagine. I signed a blank cheque. Even today I am willing to give my life for my country. That has never changed. My call to service has never changed, and yet I am being told that I am “allowed” to talk to somebody and that this is a great honour for me to talk to somebody who is supposed to be working for me and with me. That is insulting and rude.
The biggest change I would suggest right now, today, would be to our conversations and our way of contacting every single person within the ministry of veterans affairs. I would suggest that we be allowed to see who is where and what is where. As service members, we are trained very intensely on chain of command. We do not go above the next person in our chain of command without an actual requirement to do so, yet with the ministry we are not allowed to do that. I can't even talk to a person's supervisor to get information. I'm allowed to talk only to the person at the end of the 1-800 number. At some point, if I have time, I would love to discuss the My VAC Account, which I have been challenging for the last three years as being without a doubt one of the most horrible systems of communication I've ever experienced. It puts me at the bottom of a pile, and I don't even have another way to describe that. I feel as though I'm at the bottom of a bucket. Every single time I open up the My VAC Account in order to have a conversation with anyone, I feel diminished.