People talk about the declining membership of the organization. We have 342,000 members of the Royal Canadian Legion across the country, over 1,500 branches, not only in Canada but also in the States and Europe. About one-third of our members, 120,000 to 130,000 people, are actually those who have served, like me. The largest proportion of our membership are those who are associated, like military families. And then we have a very small percentage of average Canadians who have joined the organization because they believe in the ideals. I tend to look at the organization as an organization that not only looks after serving people or people who have served, but also that predominantly looks after their families.
We have instituted programs recently to attract the newer veterans from Afghanistan. We have a welcome home initiative that's just going on across the country. We have seen an increase in membership. We've offered them a one-year free membership in the organization.
Today's military individual is a different cat from my days, 13 or 14 years ago. They use technology differently. They talk differently amongst themselves. And they have different experiences from what I experienced when I was going back.
So yes, we're trying to reach out to them and bring them in. They don't always want to join an organization or become part of the bricks and mortar. They want to make sure they're communicating with people with like experiences. So that's what we're going to do, reach out through what we're calling a “virtual branch”--develop a virtual branch so that they can have that ability to come together and talk about their shared experiences. Through that, as well as bringing them into the remembrance cycle, it's one way of attracting those members.
As I've said before, in my day, when we stood at the remembrance ceremony we were talking about our grandfathers, our great uncles, and everybody else. Today these individuals are standing at the Remembrance Day ceremony and they're remembering the guy who used to stand beside them, their friends who are no longer there. That's a heck of an impact. And that's why we've seen a bit of resurgence of people commemorating since about the year 2000, with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It's also nice that Canadians have really cottoned on to the idea of commemoration and are actually going out and celebrating commemoration in November every year.