Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Nova Scotia. If I may say in a non-partisan way, he does an excellent job as chair of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs and for that I am greatly appreciative.
He said that we need to do more and we could never do enough. He is right. The reality is that in some cases the disabled veteran or family member is 86 years old, 90 years old, 97 years old. I raised the case of Mr. Dionne from North Vancouver in the House. Does the member honestly think for a second that a 97-year-old veteran who just had a pacemaker put in at a hospital and his 89-year-old wife should be told that the department will get back to them in 16 weeks if it may help them? This is just one of thousands of issues we deal with on a regular basis.
Does the member not think the answer should be that the department will help them immediately and that the paperwork can be filled in later? Does he not think that would be a much better way to go?