Veterans Affairs committee  I couldn't speak for those particular individuals because I didn't ask them. I certainly support and promote an open moving back and forth between staff at the department and the ombudsman. It's nice to walk in the other person's shoes, as it were. In fact many of the people that

Veterans Affairs committee  No. Let me come at it in two ways. First, a lot of people haven't been coming back--maybe a handful or fewer. There are only about 27 to 30 people there. I think one of the challenges the office is facing is that as you move forward in an organization from ground zero, you have

Veterans Affairs committee  No, we're not. Essentially the ombudsman will be filing an annual report. The report will be with the minister, and the minister will table it. On an ongoing basis, when the office of the ombudsman sees some issues they send us a report. On funerals and burials, for example, the

Veterans Affairs committee  One of the differences lies with the responsibilities. As public servants, we are responsible for the government's programs and procedures. I believe that we also have a responsibility to make suggestions to the minister. On the other hand, the ombudsman can be critical of syste

Veterans Affairs committee  First of all, the ombudsman does report directly to the minister. That is quite clear in the order in council. Issues related to human resources and executives are actually the responsibility of the deputy minister. So it's clear that the ombudsman can make any recommendations

Veterans Affairs committee  The way I see it, it is a matter of communication. We have open discussions, but unfortunately— I think there has been some open discussion about some differences, but really, the communication goes on, and there are many things we do agree on. Of course, as is the nature of thi

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't think the employees of the department would classify the ombudsman as an irritant. I think they would see it as another person trying to help veterans. You know, there is a reality, and I'll speak of my own branch. I have 2,100 employees and over 60 service locations in

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. We provide the advice, we provide the technical, and we provide the infrastructure. If I could, I'd just like to explain the reason for that. If you look at various ombudsmen's offices, wherever they may be, they generally tend to be a small number of people. They're not h

Veterans Affairs committee  From my standpoint, when the government was elected and Mr. Thompson became the minister, I was asked to be the executive responsible for actually putting this forward. There have been people in the past who have said in the media that I was not in support of an ombudsman and VAC

Veterans Affairs committee  From what I have seen in the testimony, he does have a lot of cases. I don't know the complexity of the cases. Not all cases are equal. Some cases can be resolved in 30 seconds with a phone call. Others may take longer. But he does have a significant number of cases. I believe th

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll respond in two ways. First of all, you have to bear in mind that we do about 56,000 transactions a day. If the ombudsman has gotten 5,000 complaints--actually one complaint is too many, and we would like to be perfect--the reality is that when you're doing 56,000 transactio

Veterans Affairs committee  The two initiatives were developed somewhat in parallel, as you will recall from my previous testimony before this committee. One of the roles of the ombudsman is to ensure that the department is upholding the Veterans Bill of Rights. That's really to make sure veterans are treat

Veterans Affairs committee  I hope so, particularly since I'm the assistant deputy minister responsible for service to veterans. In a perfect world we may not need an ombudsman for individual complaints at some time, but at the end of the day we probably will. If you look at the Australian experience--and

Veterans Affairs committee  The general direction is to make contact with the shelters and/or the individuals who are responsible for the shelters. The issue of homelessness is not an easy issue, and the way of dealing with it may not be the same in every particular city or every particular province. If you

Veterans Affairs committee  There are a couple of things. First of all, I don't know the exact levels, but I can tell you that there is a difference in the classification levels between the DND ombudsman and the Veterans Affairs ombudsman. As to whether one is classified at level 2 or level 6, I couldn't g