Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
I'm grateful for the honour to participate in your important study today. With your encouragement, I prepared a short statement describing the nature of the RCAF Association.
The association was conceived in 1944 as the Second World War continued to be waged. Formalization of the association came in May 1948, with an order in council that also provided for a $15,000 annual grant. You'll probably be grateful to know that that will be the extent of my historical recap of the association. Unlike my colleagues in the ANAVETS, I'm not able to reach back to 1840. The technology of airplanes just wasn't there yet—