Veterans Affairs committee  That's a very good question, Mr. Chair. The funeral and burial expenses, as you know, were the subject of the first official report of the office by my predecessor. To date, none of the recommendations have been addressed by the department. Some of the recommendations do not req

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you. That's a good question, Mr. Chair. There is often confusion about the difference between the DND ombudsman and the veterans ombudsman. We have a role to play, both sides, in fact. The DND ombudsman has jurisdiction on the veterans side as well. Any veteran that requir

Veterans Affairs committee  If this had an effect on the accessibility, the length of time it takes to get benefits, or the amount of time it takes to get somebody at the call centres, it would be something we'd be worried about.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's positive.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. I'm advocating for fairness for veterans and their families, and always for more fairness, easier access, and easier services and benefits.

Veterans Affairs committee  But my office is there, Mr. Chair, to be vigilant and to look at the impact of these changes.

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a good question. Mr. Chair, what we're looking at here is the fact that, like many other departments.... I worked at DND for many years. There were these types of layers or silos. It doesn't matter what you call them. That structure affects the capacity of the personnel w

Veterans Affairs committee  I can't really speak for the minister, but I made a statement publicly a few months back expressing my concern that Canada didn't look at their veteran population the same as other countries do. We are an evidence-based organization, so what impact the budget is going to have on

Veterans Affairs committee  We have assurances from the minister that the benefits will not be affected. However, as an evidence-based organization, we have to wait. We have mechanisms in place to gauge whether there will be an impact on veterans and their benefits. I go back to our pillars of fairness. Eff

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll leave that question to my director general of operations. He handles the funding, so I'm sure he can answer that.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's a good question. My first one would be the complexity of programs, to work with the department to try to simplify that as much as we can, and I think the “one veteran” concept would eliminate the majority of the complexity. There will always be some. Obviously, when you're

Veterans Affairs committee  Exactly: it's military service.

Veterans Affairs committee  That's exactly why, in my opening presentation, I spoke about the complexity of the programs as a very important factor when it comes to fairness. All the systematic reviews of certain benefits programs that we currently do are done from this perspective: we ask ourselves whether

Veterans Affairs committee  Right now we are in the process of looking at the options, at what other countries are doing, and at what that card would be like. Should it be a card with a chip? Should it be a card with a memory? We're just at the very basis right now of looking at those aspects of it. People

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a very good question. That's exactly why I chose the theme "One Veteran" for the duration of my mandate. In fact, over the years, we have created these different groups because the programs have been developed directly following missions, deployments and wars. After almos