Veterans Affairs committee  No. With due respect, I would ask you to direct that question to the ombudsman.

Veterans Affairs committee  In the human resource files, in some cases people may or may not have indicated whether they had military service, but it would be inappropriate for me to access the files and provide information about employees.

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't know, because I haven't seen that. But let me respond in this way. First, staffing in the Government of Canada is based on the merit principle, and the watchdog for that is the Public Service Commission. Any time a job is open, all employees of the public service, within certain constraints such as location or experience, have an opportunity to apply.

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't know the number offhand. Some of these happen routinely. They're on a call and they switch the call over to an agent in a call centre. So I don't have a precise number. I know the 375 that were more formally transferred. In order to improve the service, we're moving to a system of having designated people.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll see what's available. I might be able to give the committee some idea of what they are, but it would be in an order of magnitude as opposed to a precise number.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  I wouldn't characterize it as adjudication. I would characterize it as a further review or a further advocate. The ombudsman does not have the authority to overturn the decisions of the department, but he does in fact have the authority to bring items to our attention. It's another level of review.

Veterans Affairs committee  No. The actual members of the board are GICs, the same as the ombudsman. The staff of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board are staff of the board. Without getting into all the mechanics of it, the quick answer to the question is that employees, other than GICs of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board....

Veterans Affairs committee  I couldn't answer that. I think it's between 30 and 40, but I don't have the exact number.

Veterans Affairs committee  If you look at the order in council, which really gives the ombudsman the authority, I can speak to it somewhat, having been the executive responsible for making recommendations to government on this particular file. The reality is that the ombudsman really operates on two levels.

Veterans Affairs committee  Not that I'm aware of. I haven't seen such a report. He did make reference to a document when he appeared before the senators some weeks ago, but I have not seen any such report, which probably, given the arm's-length nature, shouldn't be a surprise. Certainly from my standpoint, he has indicated that he has visited a number of homeless shelters across the country, and I think that's a good thing.

Veterans Affairs committee  In some cases, yes. In some cases, the veterans were not ready. I think again it's very important for us to understand that the people living on the street live in a very different world and a very different life from us, who generally have jobs and go to work every day. In some cases, we have made contact with veterans through our outreach.

Veterans Affairs committee  I would like to go back to the start. I think there's a clarification that's required. If I understood well, I don't recall something about there being an ability to remove the ombudsman. I don't think that was the nature of the discussion. Let me come at it this way. The ombudsman has been in place now for about a year and a half.

Veterans Affairs committee  First of all, clients will call numbers that they may choose to call. If somebody is calling and saying they didn't get their cheque, for example, it could be simply the fact that their last change of address wasn't processed before the cut-off time for the computer system. It's a very simple thing to fix.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think the first thing is that it's really important to make a connection with the veterans and try to establish a relationship based on trust, so when we say we have these programs and services, we are there to help veterans. Sadly, some of the people we're dealing with are in very desperate situations, where maybe they don't trust anybody in the world.