Ottawa – May 1, 2008

Last week I had a meeting with Admiral Murray, the Chair of our Advisory Committee. We reviewed all of the nominations that we’d received and had an excellent discussion about the role that the Committee would play within the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman. Suffice it to say that I found it very encouraging. The Admiral has tremendous experience with Veterans’ issues and I found that we were pretty much in sync on just about everything to do with the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman thus far, particularly the relationship that we’ll have with the Advisory Committee.

Yes, we did go through the list of nominees and we did select the members of the Committee. It was a tough job because there were so many very, very good people who were nominated or applied for a place at the table. The Admiral was very inclusive in his approach to selection. Not only did he look to balance individual experience across the various demographics that make up the Veterans’ community, but he also considered a balance of gender, official languages, services and several other criteria. In the end, some very good people were not selected for any reason other than the size of the committee. I mentioned that the Admiral was very inclusive, as inclusive as I think could ever be expected. We are looking at sixteen members, not including the Admiral and me, Louise and others like us who will come along to help. We are contacting everyone concerned to advise them of the outcome. The letters are in the mail!

You are truly getting an A-Class team in your corner and I assure you that it won’t be too much longer before we make a mark!

Take care,

P@ (Pat)

Date Modified: 2009-06-17