Thank you. It's a very pertinent subject.

There's a saying amongst veterans that if you don't have PTSD while you're serving, Veterans Affairs will cause it, because it's very traumatizing. It's very intimidating.

Soldiers are proud. We follow what we're to do. We follow mission. We don't complain. We just march on, so when we are the ones reaching out for help, that's hard for us.

One thing that I've realized in dealing with Veterans Affairs personally is, number one, there's no continuity. There's no continuity on the phone, at a district office or an office. It's never the same person. You need to repeat your story every single time. You're hoping that the person you spoke to prior to this one now took notes and took them correctly.

I agree with Sean that we don't have enough local support. It was sad when the Conservatives closed all those offices. We're grateful for them reopening, but it's not enough.

I know Mr. Sean Casey is offended about Charlottetown, and I understand it's your area, but there are major issues when it comes to Charlottetown.

I was privileged to serve on the SNAG, the special needs advisory group that was created in 2005, prior to the new veterans charter coming in on April Fool's Day in 2006. We were very privileged to have spent time in Charlottetown and we went through the headquarters in Charlottetown. I was appalled at what I saw. Walking in there, the attitude of people, first of all, was.... They never see veterans, they never speak to veterans and they don't understand the needs. It's all just paper, files, policy, legislation, more legislation, changes and amendments.

In certain areas of the headquarters, it's like walking into a grocery store. It's aisle after aisle of files. It's not structured in a manner of, “This gentleman just lost a leg. He is critical and needs care and help yesterday.” They don't have a system of prioritizing the care and the needs. If he applies for a job and his file arrived yesterday, he might wait eight months until they get to this file. A more minor situation—a leg injury, a knee problem or something—that's straightforward and cut and dried will be addressed quickly. It seems that the more complex the files, the longer the delay.

The other thing that I noticed in Charlottetown was that people did not have that sense of urgency. It was just a file. I got upset at a few of them. I said, “Do you realize these are people?”

These people have families and children. They're hurting and they need care. They need help. They need money. They need benefits. They need care, but the way the system is organized, you don't receive care until they have decided that actually, yes, you do have this disability, so they'll give you whatever. Then you're entitled to getting care.

That's fine, but they are very detached from the reality of the world of a veteran and of the needs. It is more policy and procedure versus anything else.

The other thing that I was just shocked about was.... My mother came with me to Charlottetown on this one trip. She was staying at the hotel one afternoon, and she was in the hot tub having a cocktail. Great. These three gentlemen came into the hot tub and joined her. She started chatting and asked them if they were there on a trip or just for fun. They replied that they worked for Veterans Affairs.

Here they were sitting in the hot tub enjoying a cocktail while we were in the headquarters looking at all these pending files, pending needs and pending decisions. These are lives on the line here where people are depressed or suicidal. They've lost their identity, their career and their income. Many don't know what's going on. They don't have the medical knowledge. They're stuck in a paper warfare nightmare that they don't understand. Very few are there to help guide.

There again, it takes courage to even reach out to ask for help. Where would you go? Who would you turn to?

What I witnessed, not only in 2005 with SNAG, but with the new veterans charter—or as it's called now, the Veterans Well-being Act—a decision was made finally shortly after that an ombudsman's office would be created.

Thank you, Sean, for spearheading that. It's thanks to Sean that this gained momentum and came to fruition.

I was privileged to have been selected to be a sitting member with Pat Stogran on the ombudsman's committee. We were back again in Charlottetown this time. I didn't see any change at all.

Now, since COVID, what I've been approached about and what veterans are reaching out to me about is that, sadly, with COVID, a lot of people work from home. What happens to all these files? What happens then?

I, myself, have problems going on the Internet to deal with My VAC Account. I struggle with that.

There's also the trust factor of it. That was the other thing in Charlottetown: Where's the confidentiality?

We're forced to find doctors because Veterans Affairs does not have any VA hospital. We have nowhere to go, so we have to depend on civilian doctors who are, God forbid, hopefully willing to take us. As soon as they hear you're a Veterans Affairs client, they don't want to deal with you. There are the assessments, the paperwork, the denials, the appeals and, oh gosh, the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. It is endless.

Every time you go through these levels of administrative nightmares, you need more fresh documentation to justify what they've denied. Who's going to pay for that?

Because the veteran chooses to appeal the decision, it's up to that person now to find a new doctor and fresh documentation that they have to pay for. Doctors do not write reports freely. Some specialist reports can cost up to $5,000. I've had to borrow money for my own fight with Veterans Affairs.

Here we are begging for help where policy, procedure and legislation all overrule the needs of the veteran. The veteran is left on their own to fight this. I apologize, but to me, Charlottetown can no longer be there. Veterans Affairs headquarters can no longer hide its head in sand and get away with too much, not being accountable and just no sense of urgency. It has to stop. Almost half of the Veterans Affairs staff across our nation are in Charlottetown.

We need areas speckled across our nation where we can go in physically, speak to someone, create a bond, a trust, have a sense of continuity, a sense of understanding. It doesn't do it to call 1-866-522-2122 and speak to whomever yet again, repeat your story again, hope to be heard again. How are they interpreting all this legislation and all these policies? They don't understand it themselves.

When I was with the special needs advisory group, we were thrown into these huge workshops, along with Veterans Affairs staff, with binders and binders of this is how the policy is, this is how it's to be applied. Well, if he misses one finger, this is there. If he's missing three, well, that's where that goes. We need to stop looking at a veteran's needs as a sliver of a pie. We are mind, body, soul. We are one.

For the young man who got his leg blown off, are we just going to look at him as missing a limb? Don't you think he's traumatized by that? What about his colleagues who witnessed this horror? What about the soldier who's firing this weapon all day long? What about the traumatic brain injuries happening here?

We were in the most toxic battlefield in modern history—the Gulf War. Many are dead now. They've died with weird cancers, tumours and lesions, and Veterans Affairs does not have an active research department. What is Veterans Affairs judging me upon to deny me a condition that the United States sure the heck recognizes? So many things have to change here, and the first thing is Charlottetown.

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