Veterans Affairs committee  Historically, intake has outstripped our ability to produce. It was by a small margin back in 2015-16 and the intake has continued to grow. It's obvious that to bring people in and train them to deal with these fluctuations is not enough. The lag to get people on board and trai

Veterans Affairs committee  Some of the things we're looking at, for instance in terms of presumptive or automatic hearing loss, are that if you joined the military and your hearing was fine and you left the military and your hearing wasn't fine, it's likely that it was caused by your military service. We'r

Veterans Affairs committee  In 2015, we expected the number of claims to decrease, but that's not what happened. Our partners or counterparts in other countries are facing the same issues in their programs. To clear the backlog, we need to be innovative on different fronts. We can't limit our efforts to hi

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't have a breakdown by province with me, but we can provide one to the committee after the meeting.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are a number of things. I don't think they are all in a document, but there are over 12 initiatives that we are working on right now to deal with the backlog. Staffing is only one element. It's things such as making sure that we reduce the number of hand-offs, nudging peopl

Veterans Affairs committee  There are a number of factors. This is a question I ask myself often. Why are we getting so many people coming forward? I think it has to do with the pace of operations in the Canadian Armed Forces, the number of people who are being released. There's the awareness. People are

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. The authority of the department is that we cannot provide psychological treatment to someone in their own right. What we did was make sure that people understood that we have to be consistent about this. That would have been the directive that went out.

Veterans Affairs committee  As well, all of our area offices have a case manager who is responsible for addressing the issues of homeless veterans. They have a whole network in the community to provide support through community groups, and to reach out to homeless individuals and offer them assistance. We a

Veterans Affairs committee  It's a combination of both things. Compared with 2015, when we had about 200 people working on the disability program—that's what we're talking about in terms of that particular volume in that program—we now have over 400 working on that. Some of them are temporary. Some of them

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. We have a lot of problems on the application side. If the signature is the only part of the application the veteran completes before mailing it in, the application is still accepted. We then have to follow up with the veteran numerous times, and if they aren't available, t

Veterans Affairs committee  There is a checklist, but it's more for the applicant at this point. We took to heart what the ombudsman said. I discussed it with the service excellence advisory group yesterday. It's about looking at those applications right away. That's the trouble. We have such an influx, suc

Veterans Affairs committee  We spent almost the entire day on Tuesday talking about the backlog and various approaches, so when we talked about incomplete applications, for instance, I was looking for their advice on the best way, the most compassionate way, to deal with these.

Veterans Affairs committee  We meet with the board formally quarterly, but there's also a lot of toing and froing when there are some particularly interesting types of cases that are coming forward. I want to add to Michel's point that you can bring something before the board if you're not satisfied with o

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't think it's due to any new or existing programs, without seeing the numbers and understanding each file and doing an in-depth analysis. I want to make sure that what we call incomplete is really where we're waiting for information. These are not adjudication ready. It mig

Veterans Affairs committee  We may process and examine a lot of jumps. Someone made a great suggestion earlier that we should be looking at them upon receipt and immediately reaching out.