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Thank you, Mr. Chair.

At this time, I want to thank all the witnesses for their statements today. I know it's quite the testimony for you to go through, so thank you for being here.

First of all, I would like to follow up on my colleague's comments that we didn't get to finish about wait times and the issues around help. I will now afford time for answers.

It sounded like a few of you wanted to comment a bit more about wait times and perhaps about ways we could improve them.

Does anybody else have a comment that might help?

We're on Veterans Affairs, so we're here trying to find ways to improve the organization. We're mostly dealing with people who have left the military. Basically, they see them and they're gone quickly and move on. Really, we're actually the ones doing the exit strategy here, it seems like. We deal with what happened or transpired before this moment in time.

I'm just wondering about that. When you look at some of the situations here and see how many women in the military have been assaulted or abused, the numbers are astonishing. Really, in order to improve Veterans Affairs, we need to look at the time of service and the issues that come up there. Is there no input during the period of time when these issues are coming up?

Almost half the people are having problems, it sounds like, or issues. Are the other half speaking up for them? Why is that number so high and nobody is saying anything? Why is this not being improved upon?

The numbers are astronomical, as you're telling me, and I would think there would be other women in the military who would speak up who haven't had that extent.... I'm wondering why that might be.

Maybe Dawn might have a better idea, because you would think they'd be as frustrated as I am.

Do I have any more time?

The Chair: Yes, a bit.

Mr. Terry Dowdall: Okay.

Earlier it was stated that if there were any injuries or things that happened during your career with the CAF, it's really difficult to put those back into Veterans Affairs. Is that not something we should have to do? Shouldn't recognizing those symptoms or things that were happening just be mandatory?

I guess it's for all of you, because everyone deals with different people coming out of the military who have issues, whether they are with mental health or whatever they may be. There are different criteria. They should just be recognized from one to the next to make it simpler, I would think. Whatever the injury is, it should fall into the next category of Veterans Affairs.

Is that current too? Do you know?

That's terrible.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the individuals here for their testimony as well for their service. It's very much appreciated.

My first question is to Colonel Wright.

When you made your statement at the beginning, you said that there are basically four areas that you're going to focus on. The second one caught my ear a little bit, because it dealt more with medical care, clinical care and things of that nature.

Is there enough money in that budget to cover these types of ideas that are coming forward?

Okay, to follow up on that, one of the things that we heard commonly is that people have a hard time after leaving the armed forces, when they become a veteran, to get that medical care. As an example, the military base at Borden is actually in my riding, and I know that many of the individuals in the military in the medical field actually help at the local hospital, Stevenson Memorial, down in Alliston.

There have been opportunities or thoughts to perhaps expand together, and there just seem to be silos. I know some of it is provincial, but I think there are some ways that we could probably do a better job. I don't know if there's a way you could tie in with those veterans when they have those ties with those individuals during their time at the military base, because it's a big concern. I don't know, in your eyes, if you think that there are some opportunities there.

That's all I'm saying. I think there's probably a good opportunity as a collective to do a better job.

My next question, quickly, is for Captain Beck. I know we've heard time and again from veterans about their loss of purpose, all of a sudden, and loss of self-worth. They're done. Their career is done. They have a day. They're here, and then they don't hear it anymore.

I was wondering if anyone's ever thought outside the box a little bit to the fact that we do.... For students there are co-ops. In the last year that they happen to be in the military, are there opportunities where perhaps, instead of a quick cut-off point, they could almost be in a part-time scenario and still be part of the military? Could we give them that transition period so that they don't have that problem after that day that they're done? Maybe they might not have that mental stress.

You'd probably work better together on some of these issues, when we're looking at security clearances and things of that nature, if they were not done right away. You could probably come up with a better system for everyone.

I have one quick comment at the end. I was fortunate enough to be at a veterans' dinner on the weekend. There were 270 of them there who had served. Even though some of them did have different issues that were involved with their military time, every single one of them said that they would serve once again, which I thought was absolutely incredible.

That's it, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I love the way you say my name.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Terry Dowdall: I want to thank everyone for being here tonight and for your testimony.

In the first hour of testimony, one thing we heard was that female veterans seem to have a hard time finding employment after service and a lot of times it's part time. Does VAC have a hiring target for all veterans, first of all? If so, what is it?

As a follow-up to that, could you break it down for us? If there's a hiring target for females at Veterans Affairs, perhaps we could have a number on that for our study, because I think it's quite important. We have to lead by example, quite frankly. I come from the municipal world, where I was a volunteer firefighter. We made sure we said to everyone, because every other company wanted to.... We had to make sure we were doing the exact same thing. I want to make sure that we follow suit and hire as many women as we can, and hopefully we can hire more.

Another thing we heard in the first hour was something I can't quite understand. It seemed entirely illogical to me. DND and VAC have different standards for determining which injuries are service-related and which ones are not. I would think there would be a pretty seamless transition from one to the other. I wonder if you can give us the idea or thoughts behind that.

I'm just wondering if you've heard of that before. My ears perked up when I heard it earlier in testimony here. I thought it seemed quite strange. You'd think the two government ministries would be succinct in how someone is injured and how it would relate. Do you not get lots of complaints about that?