Veterans Affairs committee  I think a lot of people are doing that. That's okay.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll answer the first question. In three and half years as deputy ombudsman with Veterans Affairs, I built a lot of good relationships, a lot of people who've become almost colleagues, who helped me with advice and guidance. So I do keep those lines open. The Canadian Armed Forces members can get through to us in a multitude of ways.

Veterans Affairs committee  Personally, I probably would beat myself up the most. Robyn can confirm this number, but I think 95% of all investigations that come to us get turned around in favour of the member or we get the member on the right path. I think that's a pretty good track record. From our systemic perspective, I think the three recommendations we've made are going to be accepted by the department in one form or another.

Veterans Affairs committee  Well, I do know that if members are hurt while in service and if they're transitioning out, it is the responsibility of the Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Canada to ensure that the medical care will continue after release. Now how they do that, through the contracts they may have in place if they can't find a family doctor....

Veterans Affairs committee  In my process, once we've adjudicated that the member was hurt in service, the medical file can follow along. It doesn't have to be as rapid, because what the person needs to do is to determine what that malady's impact is on quality of life for the members, and determine where they would fall on the level of disability or service benefit.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think for it to be a holistic approach to helping the member transition, the families have to be involved. The military says that the family is strength behind the uniform. I'm a firm believer in that. To transition a member out and not have the family involved to understand what's next and what life looks like in the future, I think would be a hole in the service.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's fairly predictable. I think the number that was given to committee by another party was that there's an 8% attrition rate. Of that, I think about anywhere from 1,500 to 1,600 are medically released, and that's been a pretty constant number over the last number of years. Of those 1,500—I'll use that number—about 600 are attributable to service.

Veterans Affairs committee  As an ombudsman, I'm an evidence-based organization. I have my wishes and desires, but they're secondary to what I find when I go through the evidence. Those recommendations are based on strong evidence that we've received. That evidence is collected from people who are handling these cases, who are living through these cases.

Veterans Affairs committee  Philosophically, I think sometimes we become entrenched in what we know. We become very stubborn sometimes when it comes to change. We have a system that has moved us forward, not at the pace we like, or not as efficiently as we like, but sometimes hanging on to those things is safer than moving into the new.

Veterans Affairs committee  There's been absolutely no push-back. As I said, I'm extremely optimistic today. With the conversations I've heard from the chief of the defence staff and the chief of military personnel command, I don't think there's any resistance. I do believe, as I said, that there's a real desire inside the department to get this right.

Veterans Affairs committee  There goes my next systemic review. Exactly. I think even the chief of the defence staff has alluded to that. We need to get this in place for those who are our most vulnerable right now, to help those groups. But I do believe we can see extension across the forces on what type of service this could be, helping people get to second careers, or whatever it is that they have planned.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think everyone has to be involved. When we start talking about transitioning out, anything that's going to touch on that member as he's transitioning needs to be part of the conversation and involved.

Veterans Affairs committee  Exactly.

Veterans Affairs committee  I can't speak on behalf of Veterans Affairs, but from what I've heard from the chief of the defence staff and others, I think we can move fairly quickly. But no one has given me a timeline of when this could happen. There are policy reviews that have to be done and structures that have to be thought about and created, if necessary.

Veterans Affairs committee  The will is definitely there.