Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for having me here today. We certainly appreciate the committee's concerns about the financial health of veterans associations.
I'd like to give a quick background for those members who may not have an ANAVETS or an ANAF unit, as they are sometimes known in their ridings.
The Army, Navy and Air Force Veterans in Canada, or ANAVETS for short, is the oldest veterans association in Canada. Our history can be traced back to 1840, and we were formally incorporated under a special act of Parliament in September 1917. Today, there are approximately 13,000 members in 61 units spread across eight provinces in the country.
The effects of COVID-19 have been particularly difficult for ANAVETS and many other veterans associations. Not only did the initial shutdowns lead to complete loss of revenue in the first few months of the pandemic, but the subsequent restrictions, once the associations could reopen, vastly restricted the main sources of revenue our units rely on.
In our original report to Veterans Affairs in early June, we estimated that about a quarter of our units had minimal concerns regarding continued operations. Half had moderate concerns, and another quarter had serious concerns. By the beginning of September, the situation was worsening and Dominion Command returned over $43,000 in membership dues to units in need. Additionally, many provincial commands assisted their units financially where they could, either by foregoing portions of membership dues or loaning or gifting their reserve funds to units to help pay for operational costs.
Federal government support programs were initially of little help to many of our units, with approximately 40% being ineligible for the Canada emergency business account, due to their being volunteer-run operations that did not meet the payroll requirements of the program. The emergency community support fund looked promising, but it was only applicable to new or ongoing projects and not operational expenses, and not-for-profits were not eligible for regional development funding.
Most units laid off staff when they closed, with only a handful keeping on one staff member. As units reopened, we encouraged them to utilize the Canada emergency wage subsidy, but many have not rehired full staff due to decreased operating hours and revenues.
In most ANAVETS units, revenues fall into two broad categories. The first is hall rental and catering. This year our units had to cancel most of their hall rentals due to their closure, and then the capacity and social distancing restrictions. The wedding season was a complete loss for the year, as were smaller celebrations and corporate events. Even now there is uncertainty as to when this capacity will once again be allowed. The rentals in the past were often accompanied by large catering contracts and bar sales, all of which have literally disappeared.
The second main revenue source of our units comes from gaming and sports leagues. Bingos, meat draws, video lottery terminals and other provincial lottery proceeds are not only a major source of funds to our units, but they are also the basis of the community support provided by our units to other veterans and local charities and programs. These too were affected by closures and restrictions, with their capacities decreased by at least half.
Our units are also popular facilities for sports leagues, like darts, shuffleboard and billiards. Again, restrictions have drastically reduced these leagues and their participants. In many cases these main revenue sources can make up between 65% and 80% of a unit's overall revenue in a year, with entertainment, special events, lounge sales and membership dues rounding out the rest, all of which have been negatively affected. Those losses have short-, mid- and long-term consequences.
The initial closures forced units to burn through reserve funds to continue to pay operating expenses. Then they needed to adjust operations to ensure that they had all the required protocols to reopen, such as enhanced cleaning, distance markers, physical barriers, staff and volunteer safety equipment and sanitizing stations throughout the buildings. As mentioned before, most could not afford to reopen with the same operating hours with the enhanced restrictions curtailing their revenue-generating operations.
In addition to decreased revenues, our association has also been hurt by a dramatic reduction in our volunteers. A large majority of our volunteer base comes from the retired seniors demographic, which unfortunately is a higher risk category for COVID-19 severity.
To add salt to the wound, some operating expenses have exponentially increased. Liability insurance is increasingly difficult to even source, and is coming in at thousands of dollars over last year's costs, which adds additional financial pressures to all of our units.
The realities of the second wave are upon us now, with units in Sherbrooke, Quebec, the greater Toronto area and the province of Manitoba all being hit with secondary mandatory closures.
That is why the association is so grateful for the Government of Canada's recent $1-million grant from the veterans organizations emergency support fund to the association to assist with the operating expenses of our units across the country. This funding will be a lifeline to many units to be able to keep the doors open and the lights on, and to continue to provide veterans and their members the social support and camaraderie that are so vital to mental health.
Although we cannot predict how much longer this pandemic may last, or the long-term impact on all of our units, we do know that without this funding many of them would most certainly have struggled to maintain our long history of serving veterans, their families and our communities.
Mr. Chairman, on behalf of President Burke and all of our members, I appreciate the dedication and effort of this committee to understand our current situation and to ensure that we can continue to give our veterans and their families a place to come together again, when it's safe to do so, and help provide the best possible service and care that they so justly deserve.
Thank you.