In reference to what Dr. Sheffield was talking about, here in the province of Quebec, Métis people are not recognized at all by the governments, neither federal or provincial. So basically they have to go through the same system that we have right now at VAC. So we won't even talk about it. I'm a Métis right now who probably will be recognized pretty soon as an aboriginal with the McIvor law and all that because there's a lot of work being done here in Quebec. Métis is not recognized here at all; it's from Ontario out to the west and probably a little bit of the eastern side.
The problem we're having is more like with the satellite reserves right now up north where they don't even have access most of the time to Internet or phones. They go into the forces and they come back, especially the Rangers and all that, and then they have to go through the council band to get any information, and most of these council bands don't even have any info from VAC at all. This is what we're talking about. We have zero coordination between health services on reserves and VAC. I've been talking to a lot of the chief bands right now, and what they're doing is they're taking care of their own vets and everything and basically they don't know what to do. I've been working a lot with Luc O’Bomsawin from Odanak, and not being on any reserve it's hard for me to get into the reserves because they're saying, you're not really an aboriginal guy. I know both of your grandmothers are aboriginal, but you're not aboriginal you're Métis. Basically we're having a hard time getting through to these aboriginal bands here at the 11 nations to get all this info out to our veterans. This is really the main part about it that we're having here in Quebec.
We should inform all reserve health personnel adequately so that they redirect vets through specified programs that we have right now. I know we have a lot of them. I've been working a lot at the round tables with the VAC ministers that we have right now. I worked a lot with Mr. Blaney, and now we're working a lot with Mr. Regan. What we're finding out right now is there's no access to the remote reserves right now up north, because of a lack of phones, lack of Internet, the use of satellite phones. Like Dr. Sheffield was saying, a lot of them don't even know how to write or speak most of the time. Some of the vets are going to go back to the reserves after their training. These guys are trying to talk to their reserve people and they don't even know what to say to them, so basically they just go back to being, as I say, homeless aboriginal guys on their own reserves. Basically that's what it comes to.
The other fact we had is—I don't know if you heard about it—in Montreal we have the most problems right now with homeless veterans, especially indigenous veterans. We did the “Je compte MTL” 2015 and then we did it in 2018, about two weeks ago. I don't have the stats for 2018, but I have the stats for a one-day walk in 2015 for which we had over 6,000 volunteers who walked with me through Montreal. We handed out some papers and they wrote on it who they were, the ones who wanted to. And out of 3,200 homeless people in one day we had 6% who were veterans, which are 188 veterans, and then 6% were aboriginal, and out of those aboriginal there was 22%, which is 42 of them, who were aboriginal homeless veterans. The guys don't want to go back on the reserves because the reserves don't help them out, and so they're having more help on the street in Montreal right now than in their own reserve. Basically those are the problems that we're having right now in Quebec.