Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, distinguished ladies and gentlemen. I thank you for the opportunity to brief you on remembrance by cadets in Canada, and specifically the army cadets. I'll do all that in ten minutes by speaking really quickly. On a note of introduction, I am

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, sir. I'll pass that on.

Veterans Affairs committee  The movement doesn't appeal to all teenagers, but for some it can be a life-changing experience. Not that many kids go into the armed forces. They go into business and the professions. It's a good mix.

Veterans Affairs committee  My French is quite poor. In Canada, every cadet corps is in a community that has a branch of the Legion. There's a local connection. Sometimes the Legion will sponsor a cadet corps and provide money to them, or the cadets will take part in some of the ceremonial events of reme

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, all across Canada; cadets from all three elements will be participating in events all across the country with Legion branches.

Veterans Affairs committee  In Buckingham, the army still has a cadet corps. They will participate in every parade at the cenotaph ceremony in Buckingham. There will be a contingent of cadets here in Ottawa at the national war museum. They will also be doing a commemoration at the Beechwood Cemetery. In Wi

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. Each Quebec region is different. The Army Cadet Corps are supported mainly by service clubs, such as the Kiwanis or Optimist clubs. Clubs such as these support the cadet corps, not the Legion. I don't think they're in danger of disappearing. For example, in Chicoutimi, th

Veterans Affairs committee  There's an école secondaire up there that wants to do a program, in the same way that they have sports programs in some schools in Quebec where they'll play hockey in the afternoon and do their studies in the morning, where they'll do classical studies in the morning and then cad

Veterans Affairs committee  Frankly, I haven't thought that far ahead, myself. The commemoration of the War of 1812 is coming up very quickly, and there are events all over southern Ontario. We were concentrating on getting this commemoration of the Battle of Vimy Ridge going, because it's something that

Veterans Affairs committee  You have to develop programs that can flow out on all media. There is no one media. We use Facebook, but we also realize that teenagers use it as a social entity; it's more of a gossip column than anything else. Twitter is not bad. Websites are old stuff. But there are different

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, we do. We put everything up on Facebook, Twitter, websites—as much as we can. We hit them all.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think a lot of them are being honoured. I'll be seeing some of them over the weekend. The word I get from these young fellows and gals is that they're getting a little embarrassed. If I were going to honour their service, I think I'd look at the individuals. Yes, they went in

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. They have a sense of service, and surprisingly even some of the people who did very heroic things don't see themselves as heroes. They're just ordinary Canadians, in the same way that ordinary Canadians took Vimy Ridge. It's the same case with the two Chenier brothers from B

Veterans Affairs committee  DND provides funding to the Canadian Forces for delivery of the program. It's about $198 million per year. I get a grant of about $400,000 to run my office.

Veterans Affairs committee  Correct; it's through DND.