National Defence committee  We continue to have people in place—clinical psychologists—who are supporting veterans across all aspects of their well-being and mental health. I'm happy to follow up with the specifics on JTF members with you.

National Defence committee  That's not correct. If anybody's having that experience of calling our VAC assistance line, which is available 24-7, and being told it's not for them, it is for veterans, for family members and for extended family as well. I would like to have any examples of that, so I can get that corrected as well.

National Defence committee  I'd have to defer you to our Canadian Armed Forces representatives to explain the role the Canadian Armed Forces' doctors have, which is not about medical assessment in terms of pension conditions. We have doctors who are in place and medical advisory that is in place to help support that, because we assess both the service relationship, which is important and which we're discussing here today, and the actual impact, the severity of it: What does that mean from a limitation point of view for that individual over the course of a lifetime beyond their military service?

National Defence committee  There's a benefit of doubt principle there that, even if it does not appear in a medical record from the Canadian Armed Forces, if there's a likelihood, based on the description of the injury, that it is the case. There's a benefit of doubt principle in our own legislation and the way in which we pursue disability adjudication.

National Defence committee  I was going to ask my colleague Ms. Hicks to answer, but in the interest of time, our providers were consulted. Veterans were consulted. Our staff were consulted. This is a continuation of what we were doing on a rehabilitation contract to ensure that we have the proper, professional supports in place to help meet veterans' needs.

National Defence committee  Yes, the medical record does follow military personnel to some extent. It depends on their particular needs and the services they require. If members leave the Canadian Armed Forces and they don’t require the services provided by Veterans Affairs, their medical file doesn’t follow them and it’s not provided to us.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chairman, I’d like to thank the member for mentioning that the department has just changed the designation to "vétérane". That’s a very important change. I’ll ask Mr. Roy to answer your question, because he works with both Veterans Affairs Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces to support veterans in their transition to civilian life.

National Defence committee  Maybe I'll just start briefly to say that we have a lot of contact with veterans or Canadian Armed Forces members going through the transition process. We use assessment tools to understand what they may be facing in terms of issues or concerns. Some of those are occupational stress injury issues.

National Defence committee  Sure. Once again, the Canadian Armed Forces would deliver health care services to members as they transition from one location geographically, provincially or otherwise. That would be its responsibility. When a veteran leaves the service, how long would it take for them to access benefits and services?

National Defence committee  The process is a bit different. The Canadian Armed Forces assesses its active personnel as to their capacity to fulfill the role that they're in. When it's been determined that they would be required to medically release—in other words, they can no longer perform the duties necessary—they would leave.

National Defence committee  There are a couple of different ways this might happen. When you're talking about members during their service transferring between different postings, it's the responsibility of the Canadian Armed Forces to make sure their health information follows them. When they release from the Canadian Armed Forces, then it becomes work between Veterans Affairs Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces to ensure that Veterans Affairs can access medical records, where appropriate, to be able to establish eligibility criteria or compensation that might be required for veterans.

National Defence committee  Chair, it will be me. I'll do the remarks. Good morning, and thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for inviting us to appear on transition. I'm Steven Harris. I'm the assistant deputy minister for service delivery, and I'm joined today by my colleagues Jane Hicks and Mark Roy.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much for the question. The current caseload average across the case managers is 30:1. You're quite right. There are people who go on leave for any number of reasons. When they go on leave, we try to replace them and make sure there's a case manager, whether that's somebody who's acting in a position or someone else we've recruited in on a temporary basis to fill that.

Veterans Affairs committee  We have a couple of programs that run differently. If a veteran needs a case manager, they will get a case manager. There are some wait times that exist within disability benefits applications. We've been speaking about that and our need to improve some of our turnaround times on that front.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thanks very much. Very quickly, we have seen an increase in the number of veterans coming to use the education and training benefit. It allows them an opportunity to follow a short course up to a little over $5,000, or to use an entire $80,000 allotment for a more formal education program.