Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you very much for the opportunity for us to appear before you today. We're here as probably one of the best-kept secrets, and probably one of the organizations that provides the best value for money in support of veterans that the country has.
We're one of the organizations—if not the only organization, apart from government—that has been providing transition services to veterans. We've been doing this longer than anybody else, since we were initially formed in 1925.
Rather than repeating what is in our written submission, let me just talk to you a little bit about who we are as Commissionaires. We are a not-for-profit organization. We're the largest employer of veterans in the country, and we are a volunteer-led organization of veterans for veterans. I am a veteran, as are my two colleagues. We understand what's important for veterans, and we try to adapt to their needs. We provide a spectrum of support—transitional support and employment support—to veterans, from Second World War veterans through to the veterans who are coming out of the Afghan experience, and everyone in between, whether they be peacekeeping veterans or war veterans.
We focus primarily on the security business in the country, because we have found over time that the security field is something that is directly relatable to many of the skill sets and the expectations that veterans have when they're leaving the forces. It provides a very good stepping stone, a very good transitional point for veterans as they leave the forces to transition into something else in the civilian world.
We are driven by a social mandate. As a not-for-profit organization, our primary purpose is our social mandate, and our social mandate has been and remains providing meaningful employment to veterans. That is what we're about. We get no donations. We get no subsidies from anybody. We provide the employment that we provide as the largest employer of veterans in the country through being successful businesses and competing in the security field, head to head with private sector security firms. That means that we have to be smart at what we do. That means we have to be good at what we do, and that means that we have to be sensitive to the needs of veterans, and try to balance the needs and the competition that we experience in the competitive environment of the security industry in the country, with all of those things that are driven by our social mandate.
Ninety-five percent of our proceeds, of what we make by being successful businesses, is turned back into salaries and benefits for commissionaires, for veterans, and that's a pretty significant return, if you think about it. We concentrate on keeping our overhead as low as possible, so that we can return as much as possible in terms of salaries and benefits to veterans and to commissionaires across the country.
We are represented in 1,200 communities across the country from coast to coast to coast. We are organized in 17 divisions. Every province and every territory is a part of one of the divisions, and we have 50 offices across the country. We have a fairly significant reach.
We also have an 87-year proven track record of understanding and supporting veterans, and providing employment for veterans. We believe very strongly that the best way to look after the transitional needs and the health and wellness of veterans is to provide them with meaningful employment, so that they have the self-esteem, they have the time, and they have the firm footing in an organization such as ours that provides the understanding and the camaraderie that they have left behind in the military, so that they have those things at their beck and call, to their benefit. This allows them to have a better prospect of integrating well into the civilian environment.
We have about 1,000 to 1,200 veterans leaving the forces in any given year who come through us as commissionaires. They don't stay for a career, a second career. We don't expect them to stay for a second career. But what we do expect is that we can provide them with that safe haven, and that sort of assistance, that understanding assistance, in their transition so they can become meaningfully reintegrated into Canadian life.
We also find that we get veterans who return to the Commissionaires later in their life, so almost as a third career when they're sort of winding down and they want the same sort of camaraderie again. So veterans are coming back to us later in their lives. As an organization, we have to be flexible, we have to continually adapt ourselves to the changing needs of veterans. We have to be there for the older veterans, the Second World War and the Korean War veterans, as well as for that increasingly large number of younger veterans we're seeing who have come out of the Balkans, Afghanistan, and various peacekeeping operations.
We're a pretty well-kept secret because not a lot of people know about us. The veterans know about us. We also provide excellent value for money because we don't cost you any money, yet we are the largest employer of veterans in the country.
With that, I will leave it there and I'd be happy to answer any questions, and the difficult questions, because I am a volunteer, I will pass over to my colleagues.