Hello all.
I'm going to diverge from my prepared statement and say thank you. It's nice to have everybody here, my colleagues from other Legions—thanks—and the rest of you. It's almost five o'clock on a Monday, and you've taken interest in this, which gives me hope. I doubt there's anyone I can see on this screen who does not have a relative or who does not know someone who has done service in the present or the past in this country. I think we have to remember that.
I'm going to go right into this then. Hopefully you received a copy of my presentation. I am the city and government liaison, and when I say that, I mean the federal, provincial and municipal governments. We work very closely with all of those people on behalf of Branch 60 of the Royal Canadian Legion in Burlington, Ontario.
To answer the question on how COVID-19 has impacted the Royal Canadian Legion, I think we have to look at some numbers, and I tried to keep this as simple as possible to make my point, as some of my colleagues have endeavoured to do, too.
During the pandemic times, the cost of maintaining the building that I'm in is about $9,000 a month. Just like with your homes, that includes things like heat, hydro, insurance and all that sort of stuff. The revenue coming in each month from fish and chips.... It's a much more involved story than just saying it's fish and chips night on a Friday, but I can go into that later, as I did with my colleagues when we had some downtime last week that included a Las Vegas evening—but I digress.
The revenue that comes in from fish and chips is about $4,000 a month—yes, $4,000 in profit. Therefore, our net loss during COVID times is approximately $5,000. I guess the reason I'm putting this in is that I want to give you the scope of it and put some numbers beside the Legion.
During pre-pandemic times, we had quite the programs going on. Hopefully, our costs would equal our revenue. Those times would be $27,000 to $40,000 a month, and I'll explain what that's all about later on, depending on the events. The impact, although financial, is much more than that, as you're going to see. The damage done to the community in Canada is more than money and bricks and mortar. To see that impact, you have to say to yourself that this was a business. What does it do? Now, some of you kind of know what it does, and I know my colleagues do, but I just want to make sure that you're fully aware of what you have here. It's not a place where you can buy inexpensive beer and throw darts on a Friday and a Saturday. It's much more than that.
For ease of analysis, I'm going to list, in sort of a general sense, what I've done and what the guys who work with me have done—who, by the way, are all volunteers— and provided to our country for almost, I guess, about 100 years now. Branch 60's poppy fund drive puts an average of $156,000 back into the community in the form of grants and supports. Most of you, I hope, are familiar with the fact that none of these funds—none, not a dime—can go into paying for the Legion. We can't use them to pay insurance or electricity.
Here's the list: dinners and dances for various charity events; celebrations for veterans; meeting rooms for first responders, veterans and staff; a place for Veterans Affairs to meet people; social groups for seniors for dart playing, etc.; exercise and speech therapy classes; events with representatives from the government, including some of your ministers; a practice area for music groups; award events; cadet drills; Remembrance Day ceremony planning and execution—2,000 people tuned in last time; Victory in Europe celebrations; banners on the streets for veterans; networking and events with the Dutch association and the Minister of Defence; and a safe place if you want to come in and have a cup of coffee.
Finally, and I hope I can get this in, while most of our efforts are focused on the past and present vets and their families, the Legion maintains a national focus on our history that reminds us of what these men and women in uniform and their families waiting at home do for us and how they built Canada when they came back. If the Legion fails, all of those things that I ran through today at lightning speed won't exist. They won't exist next year or for the next 100 years. You have to make a decision; not a loss for the Legion but a loss for the community and for Canada.
Thank you.