National Defence committee  Our main role right now is, again, supporting sheltering. Depending on the situation, not every population requires shelter. Some people will go to family and friends who are supporting them. It's that presence and that training in terms of that side. What's been new during COVI

National Defence committee  In exactly that situation, our role is to support the individuals. What we're looking at in Atlantic Canada is that we're registering people. Why we're registering them is to have a direct relationship with those who are affected and to be able to provide financial or other assis

National Defence committee  Thank you for your question. Actually, I heard a little bit of the last participant, Mr. Fadden, as he ended. If we take the COVID experience, and in some cases the volunteers and staff, it's all about what we are building the capacity for and what we are planning for. When COVI

National Defence committee  Our major role domestically is in supporting. We're seeing that in the immediate phase of the emergency, such as in sheltering, which is at different levels with local and provincial governments. We've seen our role grow in providing immediate assistance, including cash assistanc

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for having us here to speak today. My name is Conrad Sauvé. I am the CEO of the Canadian Red Cross and I'm joined today by my colleague Amy Avis, who is general counsel and lead for our recovery, risk reduction and resilience pr

National Defence committee  This is not the first time that we've done something similar. I think you have to put it in context. I've been at the Red Cross for some time now. You have to remember when we brought in 5,000 Kosovar refugees some time ago. They were housed on a military base and we managed th

National Defence committee  We have provided a report on any incident we witnessed directly to the health and social service authorities of the province in real time. I think we will provide a larger report on our findings and the surge and the lessons learned from this.

National Defence committee  Yes, we'll make our report public on that aspect, absolutely.

National Defence committee  Of course, we've provided a lot of surge in this present operation, and we are sitting at the planning table with the Public Health Agency of Canada to see how we could contribute. Nothing has been defined at this stage, but we're obviously available to provide any help we can.

National Defence committee  When it happened, it was necessary. In discussions over the past two years, it has been determined that the Canadian Armed Forces, which are trained for something else, should be the last resort. The Red Cross has demonstrated that it's possible to develop a civilian capacity th

National Defence committee  I can't speak for the Canadian forces, but I can say that the impact of the Red Cross's work in these facilities has been enormous. Seniors in these institutions and several employees who worked there had contracted the virus. It was a vicious cycle. We were losing staff and wer

National Defence committee  A rough figure is we have about 20% paid staff to 80% volunteer. It's something around those numbers.

National Defence committee  No, the funds actually come from different places. We already have agreements with the provinces. For example, in some cases, the Quebec government has hired us to do activities. In the specific case of the Red Cross taking over for the military, the funds come from the federal g

National Defence committee  Yes. In fact, there's a difference. Here, we deployed employees, not necessarily volunteers. I could give you the final amount. Our goal wasn't to recruit people to stay permanently in the health care system. So there was a difference between our goal and that of the Quebec gov

National Defence committee  —in the emergency phase. So it has nothing to do with the permanent health care system.