Veterans Affairs committee  It certainly is. Under the new Veterans Charter it's a transition concept in trying to facilitate a good transition—psycho-social, financial, and vocational. That is the idea. Obviously some people will not be able to achieve that. You talked about lifetime dependency. Of cours

Veterans Affairs committee  The reason we recommend 90%, which is equivalent to net income before release, is the fact that the family and the veteran are going through a very traumatic period of their lives because they are leaving a culture of being well looked after and going into civilian life. Before

Veterans Affairs committee  First of all, I'd like to offer our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to the families of those deceased soldiers. Obviously, it's a very important issue. I think the reason we're here today, and the reason we published this report, is to help people have hope that there is somethi

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, of course.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think what's important to realize here is the fact that the very reason we separated the economic benefits from non-economic benefits was to make sure that this amount that is allocated for pain and suffering, which is the lump-sum award, should not be taken into consideration

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. You are correct. We focused on those veterans who are totally and permanently incapacitated. If they are not entitled to a pension from the Canadian Forces because they served for less than 10 years then they may receive a permanent impairment allowan

Veterans Affairs committee  Correct.

Veterans Affairs committee  Many of our recommendations would solve this situation, such as, for example, providing better access to impairment allowances, as we stated in our report. Even though Bill C-55, the Enhanced New Veterans Charter Act made improvements to the impairment allowance, access is still

Veterans Affairs committee  Could you please repeat the question?

Veterans Affairs committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair and committee members. Mr. Chairman, committee members, good morning. Since my team members have already been introduced— and I would like to add that Retired Colonel Denys Guérin is the head of the team tasked with reviewing the New Veterans Charter A

Veterans Affairs committee  If I may add something, I did mention already that there will be upcoming reports that will fill the void between the Veterans Review and Appeal Board and the adjudication decision letter. Some of those reports have to do with process and with the rules of evidence. In those repo

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a very good question. It goes back to not having an instrument to actually have some lessons learned from the process. There are no mechanisms in place. There haven't been, to date, mechanisms in place that review the decisions all the way down and back to adjudication,

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's a good question. I alluded to that earlier. What's important is not necessarily the numbers, but if cases are returned for the same reasons over a period of time, that means there are no mechanisms in place to recognize what are the weaknesses or the challenges of the boar

Veterans Affairs committee  Again, that's a good question. What's important here, again, is that there needs to be a presumptive judgment that anybody who serves in the Canadian Forces or the RCMP is subject to being hurt by their service; it's the type of work that they do, and that we do, because I was pa