Minister, I would like to add a statement on the Persian Gulf conflict. Around 400 ground troops were part of one Canadian field hospital in the Royal Canadian Regiment, of which I was a member, so I promise you I will put that over here.

Second, I want to follow up on the point about determining what is conflict versus what is war. It brings up two points.

One point is that we lost 158 people in Afghanistan. I do believe that was a conflict. We lost quite a number in the Balkans, Somalia and Rwanda. The most important part of this next study is to look through conflict with a different lens than the impact it leaves on those who have survived those events. That’s my statement.

My question to you is this. What is a veteran? A veteran in many people’s eyes is someone from World War I or World War II and what that represents. One of the biggest barriers to accessing veterans’ benefits for retiring modern military people is that they do not identify through that or get through the door. What can VAC do —

Thank you so much for that question. First and foremost, many Canadians, when you ask them about their perception of a veteran, will say they think of someone at Remembrance Day events with a walker or in a wheelchair at the nation’s capital. But I think we all recognize that when it comes to the definition of a veteran, there is a lot more. Sure, we have our senior veterans, but we also have our modern-day veterans.

We have to recognize that, in Canada, we have more than 450,000 veterans. How do we identify veterans? Well, the simple definition is someone who has completed basic training and is honourably discharged, they qualify as a veteran.

I’ll share with you this anecdote from Christmastime with my family. We have a new benefit for veterans; they will have a free pass to our national parks this year. My nephew is a veteran, having served in the Canadian Armed Forces for five years. I just made the comment to him, “Look, you will qualify for the national parks pass.” My nephew looked at me and said, “Well, Ginette, I’m not a veteran” and he had served five years in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Again, we must do a better job identifying these veterans and making sure they self-evaluate and see themselves as veterans. We must ensure they know what services they are entitled to. We still have some work to do in that area, but, again, that is something with which I’m absolutely seized.