Veterans Affairs committee  That's an excellent point, Mr. McColeman. First of all, we have to show the veterans, in this committee's rewrite of the charter and recommendations, that there are going to be programs and processes in place. Only you can do that in Parliament. Only you can force Veterans Affairs to implement the programs that establish trust and build confidence once again.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Stoffer. I just want to validate what you said. If it weren't for Carolina, then much of this advocacy work and the support would not be possible. In fact, I think I've grown over the years undoubtedly because of her. Just to clarify, between the gerontological....

Veterans Affairs committee  I found my car keys, by the way. As well, for me, my wife is a separate human being, and yet Veterans Affairs doesn't have a separate card for her. We've heard witnesses testify that wives and spouses and family members, if they qualify, should be allowed to deal directly with Veterans Affairs and be provided with a ticket right in; they shouldn't have to go through my benefits.

Veterans Affairs committee  Sure. How to deal with files at VAC...? We've all heard the complaints from veterans and veterans organizations that we have non-medical persons adjudicating over files. This is simple. You start getting some trained, educated people with qualifications that require that whoever is reviewing a file have a rehabilitation background, have case management study, and have a workload such that they can really look at that file and process it quickly, as opposed to making clients wait six to eight weeks.

Veterans Affairs committee  You're absolutely right. It's not something new that we're learning. I remember that my wife and I watched a movie a few months back called The Best Years of Our Lives. It was produced before the end of World War II. It understood that you needed to combine all the factors of government, community, and family and bring them together to help these veterans transition out of the mentality that they had to be trained in order to carry out the job.

Veterans Affairs committee  That's right.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Oliphant. Yes, in terms of the report and my ideas not being mine alone, I wouldn't claim to own those ideas. In fact, more than 90% of Canadian Forces veterans do not belong to an organization. We're talking about more than 400,000 veterans who have no affiliation whatsoever.

Veterans Affairs committee  Sorry, Chair, my wife wanted to enter a statement again.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Chair. Good morning, Chair, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for inviting me back to testify. More importantly, thank you for continuing your extensive study on the new Veterans Charter and the well-being of disabled CF members, veterans, and the families of all. I am grateful to the committee for ensuring that my initial report and 40 accompanying recommendations on the new Veterans Charter and Veterans Affairs in general has been officially tabled and entered into the parliamentary record.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Ms. Sgro. In the military--I joined at age 17--I was taught very quickly that I was responsible for other persons' lives and that they were also responsible for mine. They fulfilled their duty looking after me while I was in the military; it's still my duty to help look after them now.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm sorry; for the record, I didn't put forward those 299 recommendations. Those are a combination of all the recommendations from both the special needs advisory group and the new Veterans Charter advisory group. Of those, about 200 are non-overlapping recommendations, so they're highly unique.

Veterans Affairs committee  Do you mean benefits for myself?

Veterans Affairs committee  Benefits for myself were non-existent, and I mean that. They were absolutely non-existent. I was not even briefed about SISIP long-term disability. The dark decade of the 1990s was a real shambles. Having said that, please let me give credit to Veterans Affairs in terms of their front-line employees.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think there are a couple of questions. Would people be immediately happy if they received all their money up front? Probably, and I would think they'd be happier than if they were receiving just a small monthly cheque. However, the big question has to be asked: how will they feel five years from now, when they realize that veterans who were disabled the day before they applied for the program--because it was March 30, 2006--are still receiving monthly money that they'll receive until they die?

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, I'm well aware of that. I'm sure the committee is familiar with the Pension Act. The fact is that there are mandatory increases that have nothing to do with government. Whatever government sits, those spending increases will occur, and in fact it was, I believe, in 2007 that there was a 7% mandatory increase for all veterans' benefits, precisely because the CPI wasn't keeping pace with the equivalent in the public service for employees' salaries.