National Defence committee  We hope to be finished in the next couple of months and to get something over to the department to review. We hope to get done as quickly as we can.

National Defence committee  We made one recommendation on families in our original report, but certainly when we looked at the status of the 31 recommendations we made in 2002, we realized that operational realities had changed in the CF. Certainly one of the things we have found in the re-examination of th

National Defence committee  We are reviewing at this time if the government has implemented our recommendation. We have found that there is a lack of general governance, if only to make sure that services are available across the country. We have soldiers all over the country but services are not always ava

National Defence committee  That is a good question. The ombudsman is empowered to receive complaints from members of the Canadian Forces, ex-members and families. I'll say this in English so that I'm clear. We have a wide range of constituents where the grievance authority only looks at complaints from

National Defence committee  Yes.

National Defence committee  Again, our mandate deals with CF issues. So if it has to do with someone who's a serving member, that's our responsibility. When it goes over to VAC, we have no jurisdiction, but we certainly have talked about doing things together to make sure there is seamless service available

National Defence committee  Certainly in our office we've set up a team to deal with the PTSD investigation and to do the original follow-up. We have certain investigators who we find have developed an expertise in dealing with these issues and who are certainly better briefed at knowing where the person sh

National Defence committee  One of the recommendations we made with respect to accidental dismemberment was brought forward by Minister MacKay to make sure that...because as the policy now stands, if a reservist and a regular force member were in the same accident and had the same injury, the reservist coul

National Defence committee  No, we have not yet received the response of the Department.

National Defence committee  The Office of the Ombudsman has the power to make recommendations but not to order anyone to do something. Our power is to make our report public and, in so doing, to put pressure on the government to implement our recommendations.

National Defence committee  No, because the role of the Ombudsman is to put pressure on the government to do the right thing.

National Defence committee  Certainly we're in the process of re-examining our 31 original recommendations, and certainly I can make some general observations about what we've found. What we've found is that there is inconsistency in services, as you said, throughout Canada. It depends on where you are, w

National Defence committee  Certainly with reservists and how they're treated, from what we found they appear to be treated differently in general by the length of the contract they signed as opposed to whether or not they were injured as a result of their military duty. Certainly when you quoted the Surgeo

National Defence committee  Exactly what you have said is correct. If we are expecting them to take the same risks as regular force members, they should be treated the same way.

National Defence committee  The previous ombudsman, Yves Côté, left the position on January 7. He became associate deputy minister of justice. At that time Minister Peter MacKay appointed me as interim ombudsman, with the full powers of the office until they appoint a permanent ombudsman.