Welcome, members, to our meeting of May 8.
Before we begin our new study, it was mentioned to me by Sherry that we will not be meeting on Thursday. The Thursday schedule is going to be a Wednesday schedule, and the House of Commons will convene at 2:00 p.m. Many of my colleagues, and perhaps some of you, will be attending Gord Brown's funeral that morning in Gananoque. I know I'll be there, so we're not going to be having a committee meeting this week on Thursday. It has been postponed, and the clerk and analyst will take care of rescheduling the witnesses that we had coming to that meeting.
Welcome to the witnesses. This is the first meeting on the study of needs and issues specific to indigenous veterans. The study topics will include: support offered to indigenous veterans by their communities during their transition process; quality of services offered to indigenous veterans by Veterans Affairs Canada; specific needs of indigenous veterans living in remote areas; specific issues affecting first nations veterans on and off reserve; Métis veterans, Inuit veterans, modern-day indigenous veterans, and indigenous reservists; issues concerning veterans who served in the Canadian Rangers; and treatment of indigenous veterans who served in the Second World War and the Korean war.
We'd like to welcome our first panel for the first hour. We have Dr. Scott Sheffield, associate professor, department of history, University of Fraser Valley in British Columbia. He is an expert in indigenous veterans history.
By video conference from Quebec City, Danny Lafontaine, public relations officer at Association des Vétérans Autochtones du Québec.
Each of you will have 10 minutes for your presentation, which will be followed by rounds of questions.
Dr. Sheffield.