Veterans Affairs committee  With the advent of the bill of rights and the new veterans ombudsman, the board realized that we should have perhaps a more formalized process for individuals dissatisfied with the manner in which they were treated by VRAB employees or members, and one that would also give them a

Veterans Affairs committee  And we'll use video conferencing for those lawyers who are spread out across the country.

Veterans Affairs committee  I can perhaps speak to that. In the department, when they introduced the new Veterans Charter, which changed for the modern-day veterans to go from a pension to an award, they had a great influx of applications coming in prior to the introduction of the disability award. People

Veterans Affairs committee  With respect to the reconsiderations, I think when you look at the timeframes there, the chair referred to the fact that we were probably not working with a full board membership, and we were really trying to focus much of our effort on the very first level of review, where many

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a challenging question, because in the first part of the process, whereby applicants come in and contact their representatives and wish to have their cases prepared, so many factors are not within the control of the representatives. It takes a long time to get a medical op

Veterans Affairs committee  I can explain very quickly. In 2006 there was a large increase in first applications with the department. Our workload is sometimes dependent on the increases that come in to the department and flow through, like a bubble that goes through the system.

Veterans Affairs committee  I would say it was a bubble of people that moved through the system. We've seen an increase go through the system. It resulted in an increase over about two years, and the increase is slightly going down now. We're seeing that in this current fiscal year.

Veterans Affairs committee  I have those numbers right here. At review, 183 of the claims were PTSD, and at appeal, 57 of the claims were PTSD. We can add those numbers up: it's 240, if my math is correct.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes; 240 claims were PTSD, and the rest were major depressive disorder.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's about 68% at review, and 42% at appeal.

Veterans Affairs committee  That's for PTSD and major depressive.

Veterans Affairs committee  They were pretty good at keeping records for the Second World War veterans too. It's surprising; I think they had a lot more administrative resources throughout the years, but I think we have more paper today.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, exactly. They're more accessible.

Veterans Affairs committee  I can answer that. Yes, it's the same challenge for us, because we're seeking the same medical service records. Oftentimes they do exist in the department, so we're able to access them if the appeal is made close enough to the time that they're still retained within the departme

Veterans Affairs committee  I can speak on behalf of the public service side in terms of the staff. It's one of the things that we've looked at in our own human resources planning, to include the Canadian Forces members as part of our area selection whenever we do internal staffing so that we're opening it