Good afternoon. Thank you for the time.
Wounded Warriors Canada is a national mental health service provider that supports approximately 3,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces, veterans, first responders and their families every year.
Our specialty is group-based, residentially facilitated group counselling that supports our members and our clients in their healing journey on their path, mainly when it comes to veterans and their transition to civilian life.
Our big thing with VAC has always been about...there are a few things that we interact with most commonly when it comes to the clients we're serving who are VAC clients. Those are the wait times, the cultural competency of the care and how adding new service providers would repair what's going on in the system right now. Our big concern is focused around those areas.
When we're talking all the time about wait times, as we've been doing for, seemingly, the last 10 years, is a contract like this going to address wait times? Is it going to address the cultural competency of the care? Is going to address the timely access to care? Is it going to be robust enough to support the unique needs not only of our veterans, but of their families?
That is what we deal with. That's who we support here at Wounded Warriors Canada.
The one area of concern we have with what has happened with this contract is, of course, that we were not consulted at all. It's interesting, when we support the population that we do—so many of whom are VAC clients—that there was no consultation on this particular agreement. We heard from the new provider thereafter.
What's that relationship going to be like going forward? I find it interesting that we have heard from Lifemark and folks now, whom we've never heard from before.
I would like some answers to these questions. Why is that? How were these decisions made? What is their level of cultural competency for the care they're going to provide?
Let's get this straight. If you do not serve this population the right way at the right time, we will continue to see the demonstrative gaps that form, and when they fall into these gaps—not just the members, but their families—we continue, as a country, to see the fallout of those effects.
That's what I'm interested in discussing. That's what we're here to learn from. I look forward to the opportunity to have the discussion.
Thank you very much.