Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for taking the time to hear the views of people working in the field and for taking them into consideration.
As I thought about this speech, I took the time to talk with my colleagues and with the veterans, the men and women, we help. It is important to me that I tell you our observations, with the intention of contributing to your consideration of the potential creation of a national veterans employment strategy.
Since this is the first time I have appeared before you, I am going to talk a bit about our organization. Quatre-Chemins, formerly La maison des champions, is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to transform the transition experience of people coming from fields in which great importance is placed on performance, such as elite sport, the armed forces, business, and the performing arts.
We aspire to a society in which each individual lives in harmony with their inner nature, a society in which we have learned to redefine ourselves beyond our uniforms and our successes. Over the course of a year, we coach these people, be they athletes, veterans, entrepreneurs or business people, in their transition process. We spend about 60 hours listening to them and helping them in their quest for identity.
So it is in this position as a privileged observer that I can tell you about certain findings regarding the experience of veterans. It is extremely important to tell you about one element in particular: in every case, whether for medical reasons or not, the effect of the process of release from military service on the person's identity has a direct effect on self-esteem and contributes to their trouble reorienting themselves outside the armed forces.
For some veterans, this search for their identity, along with the feeling of abandonment, has caused them to lose their bearings. They are disoriented. This loss of direction has led some to accept jobs and then end up changing places several months later. It is therefore essential to continue to address the idea of identity in the transition process when we talk about employability, since it is directly related to an individual's psychosocial capacity to commit to their next life cycle. It is difficult to commit to a project, a job, or even their family when they are not able to recognize their own value without the uniform.
It would also be wise to accept the possibility that this support should not be offered only by military members to military members. I will offer the example of a sergeant-major who retired after 34 years of service in the Royal 22nd Regiment, whom we are coaching. Two weeks ago, he chose, on his own initiative, to call a "full civilian", a retired vice-president of a Canadian bank, to talk to him about the real conditions associated with the transition. People gain perspective by opening up to other people who are experiencing transitions.
One of the last points raised with me in talking with veterans is the release from military service on medical grounds following the rehabilitation program. In some cases, it was concluded that the person was unable to hold equivalent employment in the civilian world. The person therefore experiences a reduction in their earning capacity and will receive compensation until the official age of retirement.
I'm going to tell you about Alain, a veteran of Bosnia with whom I worked last year. This summer, I found him a job with a firm that works with us. Alain first asked me how many hours of work the company wanted. The thing was that it needed a full-time employee. However, as a pensioned veteran, Alain was limited to $20,000 in additional income. As a result, the company, which needed stable employees, was not able to accommodate him. Alain wanted to do his part, but he found himself in a position where he could not accept the job because of the direct tax consequences it would have for him. Pensioned veterans now believe that working costs them more than not working.
In closing, I urge us, in this conversation, to expand the idea of employability to take into account what happens before a person is capable of embarking on a new project or the next stage of their life.