Thank you to the chair and to the members of the members of the committee for having me here today.
My name is Oliver Thorne, and I am the executive director with the Veterans Transition Network, which is a registered Canadian charity that delivers group counselling programs for veterans of the Canadian Forces and the RCMP.
Our program was first developed about 20 years ago at the University of British Columbia, where it originally existed as a research project. Eight years ago our organization was incorporated with the mission of expanding this program across Canada.
In 2013 we became a service provider to Veterans Affairs Canada. Currently one-third of the veterans who attend our programs are covered by Veterans Affairs claims. For the remaining two-thirds, we raise the funds to put them through the program at no cost.
Currently, after eight years of expanding, we're delivering in nine provinces across Canada for men and women in English and French.
I will provide a note in French, before I continue.
Respected francophone committee members, I apologize for my testimony today being only in English. If I tried to speak in French, not only would I go on for more than five minutes, but we would be here all day.
However, I would be pleased to do my best to answer your questions in French if that's what you prefer.
Thank you.
Bearing in mind the short amount of time I have today, I'd like to focus on three major topics, which hopefully will stimulate some follow-up questions: the impact of COVID-19 on our organization specifically; what I feel has worked well and what has not worked well with the government and community foundation response to support veterans service organizations; and our concerns for the future about the financial health of veterans service organizations as the pandemic continues.
First, before speaking of our experience, we deliver group-based programs that take place in person. They involve action-based interventions. These are not a good fit for the COVID-19 pandemic, obviously.
In late March of last year we made the decision to postpone all our programs that we had scheduled. This led to the immediate loss of almost all our organizational funding. Over the next few months I worked closely with our finance team to develop a pretty drastic financial measures plan that was designed to buy us six months, or at least see us through until 2021. Essentially this was a doomsday plan of at what point do we furlough staff, at what point do we cut salaries. In late March, early April, things were not looking good.
After that plan was in place, however, I worked with my clinical teams and with the rest of my team, first, to encourage members to fundraise, and second, to adapt the structure of our program so we could deliver a veterans program designed to support veterans specifically during COVID-19.
We relaunched with those new programs across Canada in July. Thanks to the work of my team and our clinical network across Canada, we have ended 2020 in a strong financial position.
Moving on quickly to what I feel has worked well and what has not, the CEWS program bought us the time to reinvent ourselves, and gave us the ability to move forward with these new programs.