Mr. Speaker, back to the regularly scheduled programming, I want to thank the member for Yorkton—Melville. At the beginning of her speech when she described the statutory elements the minister goes through when administering the department, I appreciate that her comments were well researched and well done. She outlined the way we do things here. As a member of Parliament, in a non-partisan way, I thank her very much for that. However, in comparing the former administration with this one, there was a glaring omission.
I am reticent to say this, because I know a lot of people get into comments to the effect, “this is what you did and this is what we did”, and those sorts of thing. However, the glaring omission here, which should be looked at, is on the point of entry for a particular veteran.
I can say from experience, not as a veteran, but as someone who has dealt with veterans, that when they want to reach out to someone when they are going through major issues, there is always the element with a government department of where one goes. Many government departments are siloed into different areas, and a lot of people get confused with what direction to take if they do not get it from their local member of Parliament. Therefore, one of the things we did was to transition back to a point of entry that was more familiar to a veteran in the sense of having Veterans Affairs offices, as opposed to regular bureaucrats.
I am sorry if I am interrupting the NDP heckling, but the question is simply about what had to be done in that circumstance, and that was different from the last administration.