Veterans Affairs committee  They would be considered civilian, I believe, and that's why they gain entrance to our legislation. We do have claims. I've dealt with some myself.

Veterans Affairs committee  We would treat the employer as we would treat anyone else. There's an agreement that wherever the worker is injured, the laws of that province, regardless of whether or not the employer is federal, would take precedence. We require the same thing from the accident employer, the federal government in this case.

Veterans Affairs committee  We do connect regularly. We have an association of compensation boards across Canada. Yes, we would have that.

Veterans Affairs committee  In the whole compensation system?

Veterans Affairs committee  Someone would, yes. I'm sure I could find it or get someone to do it. Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  You know, I'm not overly familiar with that part of our large organization.

Veterans Affairs committee  I do know that there's a certain amount of rigour around anything we do with respect to our drug formulary and what's accepted or not. We look at research, and I know that there's a department that specifically drills into it. On medical marijuana, I've seen some discussion around that and where the world is going, so to speak, but we're sticking to the clinical evidence so far and the top research says about whether it really makes a difference or not.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  Right, of course. They would follow a treatment plan, but we won't necessarily pay for the drug.

Veterans Affairs committee  Okay. I'm not overly familiar with that. I know that it's a nuance for this type of injury and—

Veterans Affairs committee  —it's not the norm, but since this legislation came to us in 2016, it was recognized in this program that many of the clients who wanted to apply didn't meet the standard of having that diagnosis. They couldn't. They had been treated by their family physician for a year and the mark hadn't been achieved, so in order for us to facilitate the administration of the claim quickly, particularly for cases on that list of first responders, we thought it was....

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't have a comprehensive answer other than that.

Veterans Affairs committee  Well, we are already civilians, so if you're injured on the job in Ontario, you are already a civilian; you're not within the military. Maybe I'd look at it from a different perspective. My lens is employment and employers, so who's the employer here? I guess in this case, it's the government.

Veterans Affairs committee  I would look at the government and say if you can't work in this department of the government or you can't work on this line at GM, then why can't you work on this other line at GM? GM is paying the cost for this claim, so if you can't build tires, then maybe you can fix the radio.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, there's employment counselling and planning, but we're always working on the rehabilitation side, in terms of their going back to work, and goal setting. We collaboratively set a goal. For example, if it's not going to work with their employer, if they have shut down and the worker can't go back to work in construction, now what are we going to do?