Veterans Affairs committee  That's pretty much correct. The insurance principle underlies them, but there's also the alignment with SISIP, the service income security insurance plan, which is an insurance-backed and insurance-based system. I think it's Manulife. Veterans Affairs aligns their programs with the constraint and restraints that are inherent in the SISIP program, which is an insurance program.

Veterans Affairs committee  To be quite honest with you, I'm not entirely sure if there is a published study. Patrick may have a better sense of that. The statistics we used actually came through Brian Forbes, who is a lawyer working with War Amps. What he was doing was comparing the average settlement to the average payment out for similar injuries in the Canadian Forces.

Veterans Affairs committee  Except he uses his every afternoon from two to four.

Veterans Affairs committee  The earnings loss benefit is not considered earned income, but it is taxed, which is interesting. That's another one of our concerns, that we tax these benefits. It's not considered earned income for the purposes of the CPP, or for your registered retirement savings plan. Quite frankly, our sense is that this is wrong.

Veterans Affairs committee  In fact one of the advantages of the way the Department of Veterans Affairs works with this committee is that some of the ideas, as they came up around the table, were taken back into the organization and have subsequently been introduced, and are being introduced, as changes. In fact, from the economic needs side of it, I found Veterans Affairs to be extremely open and receptive to these ideas.

Veterans Affairs committee  Just very briefly, one of the issues that we did identify was there is a $500 figure that is granted to provide financial advice, which I think is probably too little too late in terms of the process. This is coming back to the earlier issue when we were talking about transition between military life and civilian life.

Veterans Affairs committee  Tracking veterans when they go presents a serious problem. There are challenges, and the bureaucracy will tell you about a lot of them. I circulated an e-mail this week. We've been beating up on the system a bit, particularly on the mental health side. Young Frédéric was one of the reasons we've been doing that.

Veterans Affairs committee  The only comment I would add to that is we have Tim Hortons in Kandahar, and it's a neat thing to be able to go down and get your coffee and bagel in the morning. I think we could probably benefit from having a VAC presence in Kandahar. Kudos to what has happened. It has come a long way, but I don't think we should ever stop pushing for what we think we need.

Veterans Affairs committee  One of the members of our subcommittee who is very well versed in this area and has done a lot of personal research into it is Brian Forbes. Quite frankly, some of our suggested solutions are based on best practices, if I can use that term. It's not necessarily just in the military but in the broad spectrum.

Veterans Affairs committee  I won't go into too great a detail because I recognize the time constraints. The one we've called “Tom” is a personal involvement. I've been involved with this chap for a number of years. Quite frankly, it's one that really, really bothers me, and that's why it's in here. We don't tell the whole story.

Veterans Affairs committee  If I could just talk on two issues, then you can follow up with Don. You really raise two issues here: one is that dealing with mental health issues in general is not a medical issue, it's a leadership issue. It's a chain of command issue. That's a drum we've been beating from the mental health advisory committee for a bit of time with the Canadian Forces.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll keep my comments fairly brief. None of us have a grudge against the insurance industry, by any stretch of the imagination. Our concern is that the principles that are inherent in an insurance approach work well for houses, cars, and things like that, but they don't work very well for people, partly because it's very difficult to put an accurate cost figure on things, but it also renders, if I can use the term, the individual who's the subject of this sort of claim into a victim, almost, into somebody who has to defend the approach.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.