Evidence of meeting #114 for Veterans Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was indigenous.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Has VAC made you aware of any systems so that you could say, as an advocate, “I'm not going to identify people, but we've heard similar things like this, and we would like you to address this”?
Executive Director, Veterans Association Food Bank
We have one gentleman who works for Veterans Affairs, and we do tell him the situation. Once again, we have the confidence of the client that we will not have it reported.
He is aware of the things that we go through sometimes, and he'll give us recommendations and say, “You absolutely have to report this, whether the client wants you to or not,” but we never have, because our basis is still with the client.
NDP
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you very much.
Our question period is over, but we have a comment from Mrs. Wagantall.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
I appreciate it, Chair. Thank you.
This will just take 30 seconds.
In light of only having the one hour instead of a longer time with these people and their great feedback, I want to ask Mr. Blackwolf a question.
You spoke of an advisory group you were a part of and two recommendations that you made. One was with regard to adjusting the Privacy Act so that veterans' files could be more readily available at VAC, and then you also talked about the Veterans Affairs minister becoming an associate minister with DND.
We can't have a conversation about it now, but could you send the committee some feedback on how you feel those two recommendations have been dealt with?
National President, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
We were delighted that—
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Could you send it? I'm not allowed to get an answer, unfortunately, but if you could send that information, I think that would be helpful to this study.
National President, Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association
It's in my brief there.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you.
We're going to go to the second hour, but now it's time to say thank you to the witnesses.
This morning we heard from Richard Blackwolf, the national president of the Canadian Aboriginal Veterans and Serving Members Association; Marie Blackburn, the executive director of the Veterans Association Food Bank; and Tommy Wayne Benjamin, a store clerk at the Veterans Association Thrift Store.
We're going to suspend for a moment while we go in camera for committee business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]