Interestingly enough I had the pleasure of working on the business case for why to hire a Canadian veteran, and how to craft that message and understanding to corporate Canada.
One of the interesting things I found in my study there was a statistic from a recent Ipsos Reid survey published, I think, on March 30 or 31, 2014. What I basically discovered here is that there is an ambivalence that's greater than any general stigma towards veterans. You can say that's generally a good thing because it's quite different from the challenge that Americans face where there is a very strong negative stigma attached to potential veteran hires.
Whereas there is a negative perception in the United States about veterans, in Canada, from my understanding and from my research, there is actually a greater ambivalence or indifference toward veterans.
The challenge therefore is to craft a strong story of the veteran who can transition, who can bring those attributes, and experiences, and skills in a positive manner to those jobs in the corporate realm—or however you like to define it—and to do so in a most effective and efficient way. That's obviously in advance of any general negative stigma that might get out there.
It's always a challenging thing to deal with, mental health issues in the workplace, and there are general campaigns, such as Bell Let's Talk and others, that have taken great strides in ensuring that those sorts of issues can be talked about in an open and safe environment with employers. I think moving forward it would be proactive to engage those sorts of campaigns in order to raise the discussion level about those very important issues.