Veterans Affairs committee  That's fine. Thank you. Shall I start?

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to you today, and a special thanks to Dr. Kitchen and Ms. Wagantall for restoring my faith in the political system, at least a little bit. Veterans Affairs Canada: that name strikes fear and anger into many, many injured veterans an

Veterans Affairs committee  The other thing is pot. I'm sorry, but there's a reason why the cost of pot and the number of veterans is increasing. It's really simple: it works. The reason more veterans are using it is that veterans talk. It works. My husband was on 31 pills a day. That's 900 pills a month.

Veterans Affairs committee  Hi, Robert. Thank you. In terms of education, it's things like mental health first aid, which even all VAC employees have, wound care, and proper lifting techniques. It's really obvious stuff, Robert. Dealing with PTSD, I wish I knew back then what I know now. Life would have

Veterans Affairs committee  Can you remind me of the question, please?

Veterans Affairs committee  Oh, yes, children; thank you, and thank you for bringing that up. It's one of my pet worries, children of divorced parents. When a serving member and their spouse divorce, the serving member has to sign off on the child's psychological visits. I think they get a regular 20 or so

Veterans Affairs committee  They call this high-speed, but it's basic high-speed. It's 1.4 on a really good day, and I mean a really good day, or maybe at 3 o'clock in the morning. I find that both Blue Cross and My VAC websites just don't work. They don't open, they don't process, and they time out. Even

Veterans Affairs committee  You absolutely have to have the face-to-face. Veterans are not going to like it, and I know they're not, but I've been doing this for 13 years. I was the one who was doing it and taking care of my husband before anything was offered. I call it the dark days. I learned everything

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm sorry, I just want to point out that Jenny and I are both saying that VAC is structurally broken. You don't understand how far that breakage has gone. They're getting worse now because they're doing a disconnect, so they are not connecting with veterans directly. Yes, the ca

Veterans Affairs committee  That you have no credibility. Start from scratch. Blow it up. Change the name. Change everything. You're asking employees who have been doing the same delay-and-deny culture for 10 years. You can't expect them to change. They're not going to change. Our veterans are suffering. M

Veterans Affairs committee  Go ahead, Jenny.

Veterans Affairs committee  The one thing I can say about going off the rails is that my husband had two major injuries in service. One was in Goose Bay, Labrador, and we were abandoned then, really abandoned. I have horrific stories to tell you about that. We finally got him better after unbelievable stori

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, totally.

Veterans Affairs committee  The paperwork is insane. The simple solution is to get VAC to do their own paperwork. Make them sit down with a veteran. Then we still get the face-to-face that I want, and they do the paperwork. You'll be amazed how quickly it will be simplified.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are veterans in crisis near me who aren't actually members of the Legion. When we approached the Legion to get help for them, they looked me in the face and told me the poppy fund is not for veterans; it's for the community. I know of all these veterans in huge need but the