National Defence Committee on April 15th, 2008

[Theresa Sabourin]

The $2.2 million is our total budget capacity. The $923,000 are the funds that we get--under the parameters that have been circulated--to deliver the core programs through the MFSP program. The delta between that is achieved through a number of means. It could be through provincial partnerships, local United Way fundraising fees, those other means.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

So you get $923,000 from DND--

[Theresa Sabourin]

Correct.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

--through Celine's department. And for the difference, you get provincial moneys, and you have fundraising and things like that.

[Theresa Sabourin]

That's correct.

Certainly in local areas you may have opportunities that may not be present in other areas. You may be able to work very closely with the local base commander or the United Way or the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities to enhance, as Celine said, the basic level of provision according to your community's needs.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Ladies, are you normally able to meet the difference between what you get from DND and your budget? Are you normally able to get there?

[Celine Thompson]

They don't want to admit that in front of me.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

You'd like to get more, right?

[Colleen Calvert]

We are normally able to do that. Some of us are incredibly fortunate to have our local military leadership kick in and support us.

It's incredibly difficult to fundraise. You tell people that you're not National Defence and you're not federal and you're not this and why you're fundraising for military. They see military families, and they assume it's National Defence. It is a huge challenge for us to fundraise and compete with the 80,000 other charities in this country.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Ms. Corey, let me leave this last question for you.

If I were a prospective donor to the MFRC and I wanted to know whether the money was being well spent, how would I do that? As a non-profit agent, are you required to file a statement every year?

[Beth Corey]

Correct. There are a few ways. There's the charitable return, of course, because we're all registered charities. We have to do a charitable return every year. As well, if you were a donor, we would educate you about where we were going to provide the dollars. All of our fundraised dollars and the donor dollars went to casual child care for our deployed families, which addressed the burnout of a lot of solo parenting for a very, very long tour.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

So you file a year-end statement with your charitable--

[Beth Corey]

Yes, and we educate the community about where the dollars will go. That's an enhancement of the program. Currently the mandated program does not cover that.

[Colleen Calvert]

The annual report is the other one. Our annual report absolutely is available.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

That's great.

Thank you again for your presentation. I'm a visitor to this committee today, so....

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Before we end, I want to ask Ms. Sabourin one question. From what you hear from your people, is there any difference in getting help for a soldier who has physical problems than for a soldier who has mental problems? Is there any difference that has been brought to your attention?

[Theresa Sabourin]

I can speak from a family perspective. The reality is that there's a strain on services at a local level. The issue in Petawawa is more the immediacy of the provision of that support versus the lack of provision of that support.

As I said, we have worked with our local mental health services to try to raise the priority level of our military families, and we have been very, very successful around operational stress injuries, as an example. And that occurred as a result of the new realities with the injuries in theatre.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you all very much. We really appreciate it. That was a great meeting--good questions from all, and good presentations.

The meeting is adjourned.