Thank you for your presentations this morning. They're very much appreciated.
As a committee, we've just returned from a tour across Canada to meet with indigenous veterans. It was very educational. There's nothing like being face to face and hearing their stories.
Historically speaking, Canada has not done a good job of valuing these people when they've come home. We heard over and over again how proud they were to serve and how much it meant to them to be representing Canada, and we heard that when they were on the battlefield or in their units there was no sense of not belonging. Everyone was a soldier. They were all together.
However, they started to face the issues, of course, when they came home thinking that they would be valued for having done that. Instead, they felt very much second class.... Part of that, I believe, was probably due to the fact that a lot of them returned to their homes and a lot of them were isolated.
Now we are trying to deal with this, which is good, but it's very late when you realize, coming from a rural community, that rural life has been there forever. I'm wondering what the current practices are in tracking and reporting injuries and the needs of indigenous veterans who are in more isolated environments.