Absolutely. Not having that sort of perspective, it's almost frightening, right, because you have come from an environment that's one of the most supportive environments you can have.
I read this in an article maybe about six months ago, but it really struck a nerve with me, and it was the fact that for a lot of veterans it's actually quite shocking moving from a military environment into a civilian environment, where you don't have each other's back, right? You are that close, you are that supportive, you are that accountable to each other, and to be in a civilian environment where—I'm not knocking it, but it's a little more fend for yourself, it's a little more cover your back. You really don't have that same trust and that loyalty to each other. It's almost a very frightening scenario. As I said, for some of the veterans, they don't make that adjustment.
So for a lot of these bottom-up initiatives, that's what it's really about, to support them so they sort of get their feet under them, they get their confidence, they sort of learn how the new rules are played in this different environment, and then these individuals and their families can be successful for the next decades. This is the whole idea about being proactive and looking at it from mentorship from the bottom up.
And I don't think it can necessarily be imposed by Ottawa. The support needs to be there. The political synergy needs to be there, but a lot of this has to happen from the local level, and the federal government has to trust us, right, in the local sense. It's not asking for a blank cheque, but as I said, when I worked with Rick, it's basically give us your blessing, and if we need you to make phone calls or make discussions to help facilitate things, that's what we really need. That allows you to then focus on the big-ticket items. We can help a whole whack of veterans, but those most in need are the ones we don't want to see fall through the cracks.