Veterans Affairs committee  That's a great question as well. I think as we move forward, those third party organizations that I mentioned before are going to be really critical, especially for female veterans. I can't say who we're working with right now, but we have a couple of bidders that we're working with through a competitive process.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are a couple of different initiatives on the go. There's an education consortium that's been on the go with community colleges and is now being extended to universities, so that if people need to go back to school or if they need to expand their credentials in that regard, they can do that through this consortium and get advanced standing.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think even women who are in deployable occupations are able to balance that much better with having a family than they were 20 years ago. There are certain measures we take to ensure that this balance occurs, regardless of the occupation. Let's say they decide, because they want to devote more time to their family, that they want an occupation that deploys less frequently, perhaps, than the one they're currently in.

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a great idea. I'm not sure if that's been looked at. One of the things we are doing is working with Military Family Services, MFS. They're kind of a co-partner with us and VAC in setting up the transition centres. There is a family transition adviser who works as early as possible with each of the military releasing members, whether they're female or male.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, they're located on our primary bases and wings as well.

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely. We have a communications plan for each of the transition centres as they roll out that also lets all the members in the local region know. If you want more information on it, we can provide that through the clerk.

Veterans Affairs committee  There is a transition centre cadre in Moose Jaw. It just got implemented about a week ago. The regional headquarters is in Winnipeg. There are some regional programs that are run out of Winnipeg, but, depending on the population because it's a fairly small releasing number from Moose Jaw, they may either send a team to travel to Moose Jaw to run some of those programs or some of the Moose Jaw people may come to Winnipeg, but it's very much overseen by Winnipeg.

Veterans Affairs committee  That's the great thing about the digital transition centres. There can be virtual appointments with a transition adviser either in Moose Jaw or, if they prefer to go to Winnipeg, that could be arranged as well. We try to keep within the regions, people referred within that region.

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely. I think anything we can do to erase that feeling of invisibility is very important.

Veterans Affairs committee  I agree that women need to see themselves represented. We're establishing a digital transition centre, DTC, through the canada.ca transition site. There's a portal that goes to the DTC. We will have there the ability for individuals to access anything transition-wise. We will have pictures there of both men and women in uniform with their families.

Veterans Affairs committee  I can't comment on whatever research that was, but in terms of our research in CAF TG that we're doing with VAC, our research unit and sometimes health services as well, we are definitely looking at the demographic issues. There are questions even specifically on our transition support and well-being survey that are targeted to women in terms of the kinds of issues while making the release but also the kinds of experiences they're having.

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a very big question. From a CAF TG perspective, I can give you my input on that. We're looking, whenever possible, to make sure that, if someone comes—let's say it's a female veteran who wants to voluntary release, and it's very early on in her career—that we would really sit down and make sure it's not a knee-jerk reaction, find out what the triggers are that are making her want to release early and see if there's some kind of mitigating action that we can take to help prevent that release.

Veterans Affairs committee  On the CAF side, Manulife, because it's an insurance company, does the kind of eligibility piece. They will make the determination as to whether it's service-attributable—that's what they call it, SA—or non-service-attributable. The criteria VAC uses for its benefits are different from those that Manulife uses from an insurance perspective.

Veterans Affairs committee  Some of it's already under way. There's an LTD modernization with eight different lines of effort that the CAF is currently engaged in right now. There's a lot of additional funding. Really, the VAC benefits are even more generous, to be honest with you, than the CAF LTD ones. There's an alignment occurring along these eight different lines of effort in order to ensure that those gaps don't exist, or exist as little as possible, and there is that seamless hand-off.

Veterans Affairs committee  On the timeline, they are going to Treasury Board for the additional funding and alignment I believe this fall, in 2023, so I would think that by 2024 you would start to see all of that kick in with regard to extra benefits.