Mr. Chairman, thank you very much

To Barry and Medric, thank you both very, very much for coming here. I personally want to thank both of you.

Medric, thank you for your Paws Fur Thought, and the tremendous work your organization and you have done in getting service dogs for veterans across the country, because as you so rightfully claim, for every single person who receives a service dog the suicide number is zero.

To Barry, and especially to Jim Lowther and the boys down in Nova Scotia, it's a tremendous job you do, on a shoestring, looking for the homeless veterans and assisting them to reintegrate into some form of normalcy as they try to get on with their lives.

My question to you is on the lump sum itself. In 2005, when these were all discussed, the lump sum payment was for pain and suffering at a certain amount which was to be determined by either VRAB or the government in that particular regard. It was to determine the extent of the injury you had, either mental or physical, or a combination of both, and to give you enough moneys in that regard as compared to a workmen's compensation benefit, or something on a provincial level, or basically on an insurance level.

The key to it, though, the selling point of this, was that this wasn't the only payment they were supposed to receive. If they were permanently impaired or had ongoing issues, they could apply, or their family could apply, for a permanent impairment allowance and an earnings loss benefit. But what we have found, unfortunately, is to apply for those additional benefits and to receive those additional benefits over and above the lump sum was very difficult to achieve.

Now, you're correct. A 21-year-old getting $200,000 would be a mistake in my personal view, but a 58-year-old receiving that amount of money may be something they want to look at. What we've been arguing for is making the lump sum possibly optional, but to ensure the fact that if there are additional payments to the veterans, they should be followed for immediately upon consultation and furtherance with the doctors, and with the individual in that case.

I'd like you to elaborate just a bit more on the additional payments, because bear in mind the previous payment was just a certain amount of money per month, and that was it. It was found in many cases that it was nowhere near enough to look after the veteran and their family in terms of what they received.

I'd like you to follow up on that just a bit more and I thank you both very much for coming here today.

Peter Stoffer

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