Absolutely.
As a point of clarification, sir, the status of women committee that it got moved to doesn't apply to the military women. If you're still serving, you are not allowed to speak outside of the military. That venue might work for women, but it's not going to work for women who are still serving.
In my experience with the Veterans Association Food Bank, the most fundamental thing that Canadians take for granted is the fact that they have the ability to feed themselves at least once a day, and maybe more times. For some people, it's more than three times a day.
Again, when a person does not have the ability to feed themselves on a daily basis, that begets another problem: How did you get there? What are we going to do to make sure you don't end up back there?
Typically, the homelessness and the food part comes because of mental health challenges that were not being addressed in the societal realm that they live in. Veterans are the last to reach out for help, the last to say, “I need help,” because they've been trained their whole lives to go out and help others, to put their lives on the line for others. It's very difficult for a veteran not only to say that they need help but also to actually recognize that as their life is spiralling out of control and starts to fall down those steps of life that most of us take for granted. By the time they hit that bottom step, a lot of them aren't even aware of their journey to get to the bottom of that pile. When they get there, we're typically dealing with substance abuse.
I'm dealing with a number of veterans who were injured in combat in Afghanistan who have permanent brain injuries. They're dealing with brain injuries. They're dealing with not being able to be employed because their brain is not functioning in the fashion that it could. Their families couldn't deal with it anymore, so families have split up. They no longer have family support. They can go into fits of rage or seclusion, where nobody sees them. For a lot of our guys and gals, we don't know if they're alive or dead until they reach out to us.
The fact that we have a Veterans Association Food Bank is a detriment and a disgrace to the nation. I've never heard of a politicians food bank. I've never heard of a bureaucrats food bank. When you put a food bank out there for veterans and first responders, because we do represent first responders, police....
We lost a veteran and a police officer in Calgary—Andy Harnett. God rest his soul. His life was taken by some criminals. Again, now we have a family left behind. His wife was pregnant at the time. Now we have a veteran's wife with a brand new baby who wasn't even born then and who has now been added to the mix.
We are trying to make sure that we're the ones who are catching the people who fall out of the safety net that VAC is supposed to provide—and they do. They do a lot of good work, but there are many out there. We wouldn't exist....
It's in the Calgary region, but we're reaching from coast to coast. We have members from coast to coast who want to see our organization.... We have one in Edmonton. They've asked us to do one in Saskatoon, and on and on.
Hopefully, I've answered some of that. I'm happy to talk with you later about it.