Veterans Affairs committee  I think I can make my comments, in particular, from my first-hand experience as a reservist. There definitely are differences between the regular force and the reserve force, especially when it comes to transitioning out of the military. The regular force members will have fu

Veterans Affairs committee  Currently we're an official service provider to Veterans Affairs Canada. They'll pay us per client that we put through our program. As I mentioned, we are on the track to expand. Regarding a previous question about what financial supports we could use, we are looking for more m

Veterans Affairs committee  We talked about communications and outreach. As a nation, that is the biggest gap we have that needs to be addressed. It's not something the government can do alone. It has to talk about changing attitudes and stigma in the workforce and all sorts of places. It's a big task to ge

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely. Our program is not the silver bullet. It's not the one program. We'd be foolish to think that for somebody who's seriously suffering from a mental issue and coming through our program, which is ten days broken up over three months. It will definitely help them, but it

Veterans Affairs committee  When I was here two years ago, we were only running about four programs a year. This year we're on track to run fourteen, so it has grown threefold. We were successful in securing the seed capital from the private sector with organizations like True Patriot Love, Wounded Warriors

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely.

Veterans Affairs committee  The demand has been.... It exists. It's difficult to get the individuals to come forward. Most veterans we meet with will say, “I know three buddies who really need this program, but I'm okay”, and after a little work, they tend to come into the program themselves.

Veterans Affairs committee  I see it in two ways. We want to get to a program that's running 25 programs across the country, for both men and women and in both official languages. Our goal is to hit at least 2,000 veterans to go through our program. A spinoff of this has been a pickup from Movember. The s

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thanks. I just want to respond to the comment about going to Afghanistan, because I know you voted to send me there, but I volunteered and I went willingly.

Veterans Affairs committee  I prefer not to travel. I do things electronically, but—

Veterans Affairs committee  The Legion.

Veterans Affairs committee  The person who I deal with was a fellow veteran in Afghanistan. He knows the system inside out. I have the feeling that he's going to be an advocate for me, and it's a lot less paperwork.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, essentially, and to be able to just scan it and send it over to the Legion, not have to use a fax machine to communicate with VAC, all these sorts of things are significant factors.

Veterans Affairs committee  No.