Thank you, Chair.
Just in general, one of the things that's negatively affecting all veterans is that their own health records are being kept from them. In this whole process of a smooth transition, right from back in 2014, one issue that continually comes up is that they do not have access to their files. Health records cannot be shared with a third party in Canada, so when a member of the CAF releases from the forces and their medical files are sent to VAC, the member cannot access their own files since VAC is interpreting this policy strictly and considers the member to be a third party.
This is not acceptable. I don't know....
Dr. Courchesne, you have been in your role for a decade now, and this issue still persists. We had a witness very recently who was severely gang-raped and faced terrible circumstances. It took a long time to get VAC to respond, and eventually, it was the pension advocates who discovered that there were files associated with this that were hidden away from her in an area that was not accessible. She wasn't even aware that they existed.
This is very disconcerting, especially when we're talking about women and the whole issue of military sexual trauma. We know there's been a lot of cover-up, and they are not getting the care they need, I believe, because they do not have access to those files.
Dr. Courchesne, can you speak to that? I would then like to get the perspective of the acronym over there, please.