Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Greg Owen, and I'm a vice-president of EF Educational Tours in Canada. I'm responsible for our event-based tours, which include those related to commemoration.
With me is Dave Robinson, a retired history teacher from Port Perry, Ontario. Some of you may be familiar with him. He has led thousands of students on tours since 2004 and is quite passionate and tireless in his ability to bring students abroad to learn about the history of various countries. I have some more background and materials here. We will be sharing our presentation time today.
For 45 years, it has been EF's mission to break down barriers of language, culture, and geography. We work with teachers to incorporate travel into their lessons, giving students the opportunity to learn it by living it.
We're the most experienced private education company in the world, with offices in 50 countries. Since 1965 we have had over three million students travel with us.
In Canada we have over 3,000 teachers and staff with whom we work. We have groups who travel almost every week of the year, choosing from 300 tours to various destinations around the world.
We're quite fond of saying that travel changes lives. After students experience a tour, you can see how they change and mature, coming home with a new understanding of another culture and a new perspective on Canada.
We have an extensive tour-based program that is based around Canada's history, providing students the opportunity to learn about Canada both at home and abroad. Teachers can travel with us during their school breaks, or to commemorate a particular anniversary.
Many teachers choose to travel with us to the places where our soldiers gave their lives, from the more well-known sites of Juno Beach and Passchendaele to the lesser-known ones like Bergen-op-Zoom in the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Italy, and Beaumont-Hamel. And of course, they choose to travel to Vimy as well.
In April of 2007, over 1,700 students came with EF to the 90th anniversary ceremonies at Vimy Ridge.
In May of last year, we led 2,400 students and teachers from 85 schools across Canada to participate in ceremonies commemorating the 65th anniversary of victory in Europe and the liberation of the Netherlands.
And to commemorate the 95th anniversary of Vimy Ridge, we created 10 different tours, the common factor being that all the travellers will be at Vimy for the government's ceremonies on April 9 next year.
I can tell you that we've had a great response, to the point that we expect to have 4,000 students and teachers--from every province, and including a number of army and navy cadets--making the pilgrimage to Vimy Ridge next April. They will visit other sites in Europe as well.
We also have one group from Corner Brook, which will travel all the way from Vimy to Gallipoli in Turkey, commemorating the Royal Newfoundland Regiment that fought there in 1915 alongside Australians and New Zealanders.
The students who choose to join these special tours are among the thousands of students who travel with us to these sites at other times of the year.
Dave is going to speak about some of the educational programming he designed, which the students undertake as part of these tours.
At EF, we focus on building partnerships with people who share our goals. One of our partners is the Vimy Foundation; we are their official travel partner and a sponsor of their scholarship programs. I must say it's been a great partnership for both of us. It really helps students get a deeper understanding of what took place at Vimy Ridge. We work with Canada's National History Society, based in Winnipeg. They publish Canada's History magazine and organize the Governor General’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching History.
We work with “Me to We” as well as with Free the Children, led by amazing Canadians Craig and Marc Kielburger. We are also partnered with Evergreen, Canada's leading environmental organization for bringing communities and nature together.
In order to ensure that educational travel remains affordable, we also guarantee the lowest prices for the students—and their teachers travel for free. We provide a range of travel scholarships and financial support. We also take pride in our ability to support those who need it. For example, last year there was a group of 20 veterans who needed help getting over to VE for the liberation ceremonies, and we were able to help provide flights for them and their companions.
We're also proud of the work we do with government organizations. We've been lucky to work with the Prime Minister's Office and with Ambassador Geerts of the Netherlands. We worked with numerous members of Parliament, including Mr. Stoffer, Mr. Dykstra, former minister Blackburn , members of the Canada-Netherlands Parliamentary Friendship Association, and General Natynczyk during the tour to the Netherlands last year. Their support was great and very much appreciated. We also continue to do ongoing work with our embassies overseas and Veterans Affairs Canada.
I'm going to turn it over to Dave to talk about educational programming.
As we wrap up today, we have a short video to show you what commemoration means from the perspective of students and teachers who choose to travel.
Dave.