Veterans Affairs committee  Certainly from having met with veterans organizations--and even some of what I might say are the longer-established veterans organizations do represent some of the modern-day veterans through their membership and through various affiliations and associations--what I see from talking to people is the fact that the modern-day veteran lives in a bit of a different world.

Veterans Affairs committee  I can share a thought with you. As Verna has mentioned, we haven't got any estimate of numbers, but at the end of the day—and I think there will be an initial surge—if we end up having to put more and more people in the office of the ombudsman, that's not necessarily the right direction to go, because it may be indicative of other issues.

Veterans Affairs committee  That decision hasn't been made, but it would have to be part of the organizational model. Again, from some very early research, there are offices of ombudsmen that are virtual offices in terms of having people who work for the office of the ombudsman in various geographic regions.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's been several months now.

Veterans Affairs committee  No, I really wouldn't be able to give you that estimate today. I think the consultation process is extremely important, and I certainly do not want those who are going to be consulted to feel that this is something that's being thrown at them. It's very difficult, and depending on what model is chosen at the end of the day, it might have a relationship in that regard.

Veterans Affairs committee  No, it certainly hasn't been decided. The one at Ste. Anne's has a very specific role. It is the only departmental hospital we operate, and it's very specific to the residents. The ombudsman we're looking at in terms of Veterans Affairs is much more general and would serve not just the people who are currently clients of Veterans Affairs Canada, but also those people out there who may feel they should be clients of Veterans Affairs Canada but who may have been refused a service or a benefit, etc.

Veterans Affairs committee  At present we've been dealing with the major veterans organizations. With regard to people who are members of the forces, we haven't developed a full consultation plan. As a matter of fact, we are going to be meeting...I have a multilateral meeting with veterans organizations next week.

Veterans Affairs committee  At the end of the day it's your best professional judgment. You'd certainly need to do research in terms of volumetrics that other people are getting, looking at the type of client base and at what the volume was on start-up. From that standpoint, the first thing is to really understand how many could come in, but it's also very important, particularly for start-up, to build a system that has some elasticity in it, because you may find that the volume may be greater, notwithstanding how good your research is or how good you thought your professional judgment was when you made those decisions.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's quite interesting. We've been in contact with the six major veterans organizations and I've done bilaterals with five of the six organizations. I think there are a couple of messages, and they can speak for themselves, but certainly when I sit back and reflect, they're talking about, first of all, keeping it simple: keep it very simple, in common language; make sure veterans can actually understand what it is.

Veterans Affairs committee  With respect to the powers of the ombudsman, of course those have not been developed. What the powers or the responsibilities of the ombudsman will be will form part of the consideration. That will be part of developing the model.

Veterans Affairs committee  Not to this date. What we've seen generally is a department-specific ombudsman or a government-wide ombudsman. If you look at the Australian model, it is one of the examples where there is a general ombudsman but there are specific things relevant to defence and veterans.

Veterans Affairs committee  No. I think if your constituents are using the word “advocate”, that refers to a group of lawyers we have. They're part of the department called the Bureau of Pensions Advocates. They represent the veteran at no cost to the veteran in cases of a pension adjudication. The Royal Canadian Legion has service officers who do the same function, but that's a matter within the legion.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are generally two models. Again, just using the Canadian situation, the ombudsman in some cases reports to the minister, and in other cases, if you look at what I would call a more systemic ombudsperson, such as the Commissioner of Official Languages or the Privacy Commissioner, they report to the House.

Veterans Affairs committee  From my standpoint, I can't comment on that position, but having said that, the reporting relationship is one thing; there is also the issue of how an ombudsman is created, whether it's created by statute or by regulation, or what have you. There are as many models of that as there are ombudsmen, but that is again part of the consideration.

Veterans Affairs committee  If I could just add to Verna's comments, in terms of looking at the resourcing, first of all you have to nail the model down, but we've really looked at resourcing with a two-pronged approach. It's important for the office of the ombudsman to have independent resourcing from the department, so that they can have their own financial controls, etc.