Thank you so much, Chair, and thanks so much to all of you for this presentation.
I'd like to say right off the top that I want to thank the Veterans Affairs staff in the Kirkland Lake office for the the incredible work they do. They do really important work for veterans and, to me, their professionalism and their dedication are very inspiring.
I would also like to say that I think we're in a very difficult time right now because of COVID, which has really interrupted many of the efforts of Legions and of commemorations. I think we have to really be aware of that and try to bring this back when we're coming out of COVID.
I'd like to say first off that having been at the 75th anniversary of the battle of Italy, and also in Normandy, I was incredibly moved by the welcome we received and the way the events were handled. I was at the dedication of the bridge in Caen in commemoration of Captain George Gilbert Reynolds. The response of people in Caen when they saw that we were there to commemorate a Canadian was incredibly emotional. People really felt that connection.
The reality is that we're not going to have very many more trips with the veterans, if any at all, because of their age. How do you see us maintaining these connections that we've established in the Netherlands, Holland, Belgium and Italy—connections that we've built up over the years with these visits with the veterans? How do we maintain those connections?