Veterans Affairs committee  You need a place, but you also need the competence to do it. We increasingly will have staff visiting remote areas or have contacts in those areas for people who are experiencing trouble. We want to make it widely known that we can be called at any time, 24/7, with a problem, and we'll try to solve it right away.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  The specific terms of reference are written in sort of bureaucratic language. I'll tell you what the problem was that we were trying to address. I think that's where your question is pointed. One is complex eligibility. If you look at our eligibility chart, there are 14 different groups and about 33 footnotes.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, it is.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are five countries involved: Canada, the U.S., the U.K., New Zealand, and Australia. The first meeting occurred in Charlottetown in 2001. I believe there have been six meetings since, and those are with senior officials. The next meeting is in the U.K. in September. This one, the one in Washington, will be, I believe, the third ministerial forum--in other words, the political supervisors of the senior executives.

Veterans Affairs committee  It certainly has enabled a great deal of sharing of best practices. It's more than sharing of best practices. We can use an online system. There's no charge to the Canadian taxpayer for getting this. We get all the intellectual property rights from these countries for all the practices they engage in, and they get ours.

Veterans Affairs committee  Our counselling and case management staff can do that, and they do now, but from what you're hearing and from what I'm hearing in this committee, things are better but not good enough. So we'll have a look at that. We do have a group called the special needs advisory group. That's made up of the most severely disabled Canadian Forces veterans, and those people are both psychologically and physically impaired.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are two elements to that. The Last Post Fund administers that program. If the death of the individual is related to military service in any way—in other words, in effect, if the individual is pensioned at a degree of 48% or higher—the burial is covered automatically and there's no income test.

Veterans Affairs committee  There's no reason, that I know of, why we wouldn't recognize that.

Veterans Affairs committee  If there's a specific case where you know that's happened, if you can send that to me, it won't happen a second time. There's no reason. If that person is a registered supplier with the province and is providing care to an individual, on contract or whatever, we will recognize that.

Veterans Affairs committee  If there is a problem, I would like to get the name of the veteran involved in order to try and resolve the situation. Based on what you are telling me, there is no reason why he should be having a problem.

Veterans Affairs committee  Le formulaire? We're always open to suggestions for simplifying our forms if they're too complicated. There are a lot of things we have to satisfy, of course. One is financial and the other is eligibility. Because our eligibility rules, unfortunately, are very complex, it's not always easy to guess whether a person is eligible or not, unless we know all the details.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, I've heard complaints about the 1-800 line. Frankly, we don't drop calls as a rule. We pick up 90% of the calls within 45 seconds. If there's any problem identified, it can be referred to a district office, and it often is. We have a proactive screening unit in Charlottetown that actually phones people.

Veterans Affairs committee  I would have to have some particulars to follow that up, because nobody should ever be phoning 12 times without an answer. This is unacceptable. I personally have phoned the 1-800 line. I've had staff phone it to check. It will depend on what time of the--

Veterans Affairs committee  I understand that. He keeps calling and calling. I'd have to see. I'm not saying it isn't happening; maybe it is. When you make a call, and when Madam Guarnieri makes a call, it's recorded on the client service delivery network system. That system is forwarded to the district office, so it's immediate--a call comes in.