Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, thank you and the members of your committee for the great support to our veterans and serving members of the armed forces and the RCMP.

Veterans Affairs committee  Sir, I really appreciate the question because, in fact, I just put out an update—or, as we say in the military, a sitrep—to the employees to say that this is going to be a long haul. As we watch the news each day, achieving service excellence for our veterans is a key priority,

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, sir. It's great to see you again. I'll ask Steven to speak to the specifics.

Veterans Affairs committee  Sorry, sir. We have actually expanded access and the authority in the veterans emergency fund during the pandemic, so Steven's staff can now approve up to $10,000 based upon a veteran's need, even before a claim is submitted. It can be up to $10,000 in extenuating circumstances.

Veterans Affairs committee  Sir, thanks very much for the question. As the minister has said in front of committee when we were there last, other than providing day-to-day life-saving support to our veterans, addressing the wait time for our claims is the number one priority across the department. We have

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm not aware of that information.

Veterans Affairs committee  It would be very difficult to do that model, given the overhead and all those kinds of things. I'm just a tanker wearing civilian attire here, so I would have to go back to the specialists to consider that kind of notion, sir.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much for the question. As we move forward with the mandate that the minister has received, automatic approvals of claims are in that mandate. You will see the mandate commitment is to look at automatic approvals for the most common injuries and illnesses, such as

Veterans Affairs committee  Thanks very much. We are accepting applications for which a diagnosis might follow or for which, rather than a physician or a psychiatrist, a nurse or other medical professional might be able to fill out the paperwork, again working with medical professionals across all of the p

Veterans Affairs committee  Sir, when I showed up in this new posting that was Veterans Affairs, I looked at the history books and I saw that the first backlog in VAC happened in the early 1920s. If you look, you'll see there's a history in the Veterans Charter, and it talks about the massive problem of t

Veterans Affairs committee  We appreciate the work of the ombudsperson who has actually led us to this point. As we drill down to it—and you should be aware that we have posted three summits focused on women veteran issues in order to understand this even more and that the minister approved the creation of

Veterans Affairs committee  Again, we are making every effort in trying to bring veterans into our ranks in the right job, because you can't take an infantryman and make him a social worker right away. It's “I'm a tanker” kind of thing. As my kids who were all in the military will remind me, “Dad, you've

Veterans Affairs committee  If I may, I'll also remind that—

Veterans Affairs committee  Thanks so much for that question, because what we have found....Thank goodness we went through the turmoil of implementing pension for life, because for the first time we have an end-to-end digital platform. What we found in that first year—and Steven, just roll in here and corr

Veterans Affairs committee  Sir, Steven has such a tough job, as did Michel before him, because no matter how they push this, what I'm trying to tell them is that just as when I do my taxes and I use TurboTax, I want to see “TurboVet”—something that is intuitive, that is easy to navigate and that asks the r