Sure. We've spoken to two groups just now. They do not take money from the government. They're completely self-sufficient. It's the same with the Canadian Veterans Advocacy. We don't take money either.
In order to provide effective peer support, there has to be an infrastructure at some time. We can't just have guys like Matthew saying, “Oh, let's all meet here.” No, there has to be a method. For example, he just had a crisis in South America. I'm aware of this. They had to reach into their own pockets to rescue that guy. That's not acceptable. There should have been an alternative.
I also think that because of the vast number of peer support groups that are springing up across the nation, whether it be organized as OSISS, a combat brigade wellness level, or BC Veteran Well-being Network with Brian over here, there's no coordination. If the department were wise, it would reach out to these people here, bring them to Ottawa, which I think would be very valuable to you, have a good afternoon conversation with the president or a representative from each group, see what they're doing, and find protocols that apply to them all, so that when they have issues at their level where the municipal or provincial door is closed, they can reach out to the government. They can reach out to Veterans Affairs.
Veterans Affairs can have supplementary funds in order to rescue somebody from South America where he's gone adrift or to bring someone back into the fold if they're adrift in Canada. There are many veterans in Canada who are on the streets. We don't know who they are because they're not going to soup kitchens and so forth. They're young and resilient, but whether they go to a peer support group or reach out to us, we must have the infrastructure in place to provide that support.
Right now, a case manager or a client service agent can only go so far, and that's appropriate, but there needs to be another mechanism of control, coordination, and understanding on what these groups are individually doing and how we can bring their positive karma into a collective program.