Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, fundamentally, I will not get involved in anything partisan. I am at the disposal of any of our senior leadership to help them understand the plight of our veterans, but I will not be involved in any way, shape, or form in the politicking piece.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes--short answer.

Veterans Affairs committee  I.... That's--

Veterans Affairs committee  I would have to seek a definition of a “partisan photo opportunity”. If it's being photographed with somebody from another party, I don't care if they're NDP, Conservative, Liberal, black, white, or whatever--

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, yes. And no, I did not attend.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, Mr. Chair, regarding the employment of veterans in Veterans Affairs, I think quotas of any sort are counterproductive. I would submit that the culture at Veterans Affairs Canada is broken, despite the best efforts of a lot of good people working on behalf of veterans. It's

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, that's a very difficult question for me to answer, because fundamentally I don't know what information the department holds on the various issues. We encountered that. It has been a learning experience, but we encountered that with the homeless issue, for example. We w

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, two and a half years. My term is up in November.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, Mr. Chair. Regarding that MOU, we will definitely share it with committee members. I hasten to add, based on an honourable member's question regarding the correspondence that comes out of our office, that we are at the beck and call of any member of Parliament for any of tho

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much for that question, Mr. Chair. Regarding the charter and the discussion that my colleague engaged in regarding how long a piece of string is--and I say that in all seriousness regarding the discussion of what the earnings loss benefit should be--I think that f

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, sir.

Veterans Affairs committee  No, Mr. Chair. We don't have any power to compel the department to provide us with information regarding such things as homelessness, so we came to an understanding that in order for me to have any credibility as an ombudsman there will be a sharing of information, within certain

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, first, regarding the availability of long-term care to Canadian Forces veterans, one of the philosophical principles that should be retained throughout this discussion of the new Veterans Charter is that the commitment of the service person and his or her family to Can

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, regarding the sharing of information, it's still problematic; however, we are making inroads with the department. We're in the process now of creating a memorandum of understanding with respect to the sharing of information. Regarding the transparency of the tribunal,

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, my first mandate comes due on November 11 of this year. I'm anticipating that won't be the end date.