Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

Louise indicates that she's not aware of that. I think Louise has answered the first problem, which was that stakeholders, meaning veterans themselves, were never consulted on this. As well, advisory groups were never consulted on this and frontline employees were never consulted on this. That's the first problem.

The second problem is that I have a tough time validating my sacrifice and my worth to our nation when I'm being cared for by a for-profit company. It really strikes at the heart of what it means to be a veteran and to care for my nation that when I get back I'm farmed out to a for-profit company.

I can tell you from my personal experience that I have insisted that I don't be put on that model with Veterans Affairs, and so far that has come to pass, but what about those who are? I can tell you that the people who are being put on that model are being put through eight-hour interviews by this for-profit model, and you've heard about the suffering of dealing with paperwork and the procedures they clearly can't handle. I have veterans calling me in tears saying they had to walk out on the second day after 16 hours of questioning by a psychologist who didn't know them and whom they had never met. It's inexcusable that this is being allowed to occur. We don't even know the price or details of this program, as the contract has been kept confidential. How is that in any way a democratic value of transparency?

I can tell you that the practitioners whom I see have been aggressively pursued to sell their clinics to this company. They would be paid large moneys as owners, but they were clearly informed that their employees would take a cut in pay. Why am I not given the best value practitioner who gets paid what they're worth? I don't understand it.

For me, it's anathema to my service and it's really horrific that this is the way that government chooses to handle this problem.

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