Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Colonel Mann, I have two questions for you. The first has to do with funding.
In the special report published by the Ombudsman for the Canadian Forces titled “Fortitude Under Fatigue: Assessing the Delivery of Care for Operational Stress Injuries that Canadian Forces Members Need and Deserve”, the following is stated in paragraph 171:
Many Military Family Resource Centres, vital cogs in supporting families, experienced small or no budget increases during the period of 2007-2012 despite large increases in demand, and several indicated that they were experiencing funding strain. As outlined, the re-established Directorate of Quality of Life appears to be severely undermanned with just 10 positions, of which only four are baseline funded as of mid-2012. And the Directorate of Military Family Support was required in recent fiscal years to “implement a low cost/no cost approach to programming” due to financial pressures.
I would like to hear your thoughts on this.
My second question is about spouses. When I served, some of my colleagues would unfortunately return from a mission to an empty home and a letter from their spouse—ex-spouse, in that case. That's a tough situation to come back to.
I would like to know what resources you provide to military spouses before missions to help them face the difficulties that will arise during missions and once their spouse returns. I also want to know how you provide those services to spouses of reservists who don't live close to a military family resource centre.
When people come back from a mission and have to go through a divorce, on top of everything else, the situation is really not ideal for their mental health. I would you like to tell me a bit more about this.