Veterans Affairs committee  Perfect. On the study that we worked on with Statistics Canada, the focus there was on living survivors of a deceased veteran who were in receipt of a CAF pension before death and who married on or after the veteran's 60th birthday. What we wanted was basically the number of sur

Veterans Affairs committee  No, it's 4,500 survivors who did not receive a pension.

Veterans Affairs committee  I would have to defer to my colleague at National Defence, but based on our research that was done, as of the end date on the research it was 4,490 survivors.

Veterans Affairs committee  Starting, as I mentioned earlier, when budget 2019 was announced, we engaged Statistics Canada to explore how to identify veterans who marry after the age of 60, and in the coming months that work was.... We really launched what we needed to look at here, while working with DND a

Veterans Affairs committee  Over the coming months, we continued to work with Statistics Canada and CAF on those data linkages. Subsequently, in March 2020, when the pandemic occurred, all non-mission critical work at Statistics Canada had to be halted until further notice, including this project, and this

Veterans Affairs committee  When we received the data from Statistics Canada in February 2021, we—

Veterans Affairs committee  We worked with Statistics Canada for two months on analyzing the data to ensure we understood it and were getting the information we needed.

Veterans Affairs committee  We went to Statistics Canada, and what they were able to share with us is the number of veterans who received a CAF superannuation pension between 1938 and 2016. They were then able to break that out and give us the number of survivors with a CAF pension as of December 2018, and

Veterans Affairs committee  The department has a memorandum of understanding with the RCMP to administer disability pensions on their behalf under the RCMP Superannuation Act, so we do provide that support. The RCMP are not eligible for some of the other supports I mentioned today such as the income replac

Veterans Affairs committee  When we're developing these programs and services, there is costing done, along with a forecasting of how many veterans and family members that we know will benefit from it. For example, in budget 2021, a new mental health benefit was announced, which launched on April 1, 2022.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you. If you are referring to the Pension Act, the new veterans charter and pension for life, the advantage of pension for life—and the new Veterans Charter, which was the precursor to pension for life—is that we now have a suite of benefits and services that can be provide

Veterans Affairs committee  The department has been focused on the qualitative and quantitative research to inform what we're doing, and that is what we are looking at right now. What's the way forward for the veterans survivors fund, taking into consideration other supports that the department is providing

Veterans Affairs committee  We are not looking at getting rid of any benefits. The focus here is on the needs of this population, taking into consideration what was stated in budget 2019. The focus is on taking the research that we have received and looking at that to determine where the needs are and what

Veterans Affairs committee  The information that I have articulated today, and that I will be sharing with you, is what we learned from Statistics Canada in terms of the characteristics of this population, which we are using to determine the way forward for the veterans survivors fund. Budget 2019 provided

Veterans Affairs committee  Budget 2019 provided $150 million to develop a veterans survivors fund. That fund, to be clear, will not—