Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank Ms. Pham, Ms. Meunier and Mr. Pedersen for being here with us today.
I will ask questions and I am happy to hear from whoever is the best person to answer those questions.
We had testimony not long ago from the Veterans Association Food Bank about some very concerning language that was extremely racist. We heard from Ms. Blackburn that she heard from workers at VAC that they didn't want to give money directly to indigenous veterans because they were worried that they would drink it up. I found that really concerning.
I want to understand better what the capacity is of organizations that are working to support veterans to bring forward a complaint.
I think this is a huge concern. We heard very clearly that indigenous veterans—and I would say probably veterans from the Black community and veterans who are people of colour—often feel afraid to come forward because they think they're going to lose their benefits by voicing what they see happening to them. Service providers often don't have the ability to advocate without putting forward a name.
I'm wondering what the process is for bringing forward these kinds of complaints. How can service providers bring forward those complaints without naming a veteran, to protect that veteran? How do we make sure that something like this doesn't happen again?
I want to be really clear: I believe her, 100%. I've heard this so many times. It's a very unfortunate stereotype. It resides in Canadians, and it's not every person, but it doesn't matter, because every time a veteran asks for services and is told that they can't access them because of an assumption about who they are, we're really losing those supports.
I'm just wondering if the committee could learn a little bit more about that process and what that might look like.