Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question.
Our government recognizes the notable contributions that veterans and Canadian Armed Forces members have made and continue to make to preserve the peace and protect the safety of Canadians here and around the world. Our top priority is to ensure that veterans and their families get the support that they need.
As the member knows, we cannot comment on specific cases for privacy reasons. However, I can discuss how Veterans Affairs provides many programs and services for the mental, as well as physical, health of our veterans.
Canada's veterans now receive more local, in-person government services, as well as better access to case managers than under the previous government. Last summer, Veterans Affairs Canada began reopening the nine Veterans Affairs offices that had been closed across the country by the previous government. We are on track to have every office reopened by spring 2017.
Moreover, we will also open a new office in Surrey, B.C. in May of this year.
Veterans Affairs Canada is currently hiring 400 new front-line employees to help veterans, Canadian Armed Forces members, and RCMP members and their families to get the best possible service in their own community.
This includes new caseworkers, which will allow us to get to a 25:1 ratio.
In budget 2016, we kept our promise to improve benefits for veterans, including by providing them with better compensation, more choices, and more support for planning their financial future.
We are giving more money to veterans who are sick or injured by increasing the disability award to a maximum of $360,000.
We increased the earnings lost benefit to 90% of an eligible veteran's salary at the time of his or her release to ensure stable financial security during rehabilitation.
We also expanded access to the permanent impairment allowance to better support veterans who had their career options limited by a service-related illness or injury and renamed the benefit the career impact allowance to better reflects its intention.
The Department of Veterans Affairs service standard for disability benefits is to process the first application within 16 weeks, and it is taking a hard look at the disability application process to expedite decision-making and to respond to the needs pf veterans promptly. Delivering timely benefit decisions is an area where we can and we must do better. In 2016, we saw a 19% increase in the number of disability claims. This is actually a good thing. It means more veterans are coming forward for help.
We are working at putting in measures to decrease the backlog, simplify decision-making processes, and transfer of medical records.
Veterans Affairs Canada is working diligently with the Canadian Armed Forces to ensure that all veterans and their families receive the support and the programs they deserve.