Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 16th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

The floor is yours. You still have three more minutes.

[Erin Copeland, Captain (Retired), Program Ambassador, Prince's Trust Canada]

Thank you so much.

My name is Erin Copeland. It is my privilege to speak to you all today.

I served for 13 years as a logistics officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Since retiring in 2015, my husband and I are the proud owners and operators of Tall Tree Bakery in Squamish, B.C. It began as just the two of us and has grown to employ seven full-time staff.

Operation Entrepreneur has played a pivotal role in our success. Prior to my release, I attended the business boot camp at the University of Regina and emerged with a more defined plan, valuable tools and the confidence that helped me succeed.

Over the years, I’ve valued remaining part of the network and community. I’ve attended and spoken at workshops. Tall Tree Bakery is listed on “BuyVeteran.CA” and now, after seven years of successful business ownership, my role has evolved, and I’m now a new mentor in their six-month mentorship program.

To this day, I find the skills and expertise gained in my military career transferable to business ownership. It is my hope that I can help those transitioning navigate the often scary and daunting journey and realize and be confident in the skills they have. If I can impart one or two lessons or experiences, I’ll consider that a success.

Thank you for this opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you.

I think Mr. Lamothe would like to intervene.

You have one minute left.

[Patrick Lamothe, Sergeant (Retired), Program Ambassador, Prince's Trust Canada]

Hello everyone.

I want to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to testify here today.

As you already know, my name is Patrick Lamothe. I am retired now, but I served in the Canadian Armed Forces for 28 years. In the meatime, I am the founding president of a few companies, including Altitude Gym and other startups. So far we have created around 200 jobs in those businesses.

That being said, I am here to talk about the program. I want to make clear that I am not attached to the program. I am only an amabassdor. I want to say that the help we have received from this program has been pivotal to the success of our companies.

Let me share some of my personal background.

I had the luck and privilege of attending training camp in Halifax in 2015. I was able to participate in it despite the fact that I was already at the head of a company.

I have to say that soldiers who return to civilian life, especially infantry soldiers, whose training is mostly in combat arms, are a bit behind compared to others since their skills and aptitudes are not really transferable.

I will now talk about the strengths of the program.

The program helped us to understand several concepts such as the words marketing, operations and human resources. It also helped us to understand their legal implications. These are words that everyone knows, but as entrepreneurs, sometimes we get their implications wrong. There were impartial intermediaries who put us on the right track.

I owe the success of our businesses to this program.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lamothe. I get the impression that there are many other things you would have liked to say. You may provide us with more information during the rounds of questions.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Guy Riel, founding president of The Pendulum Foundation.

[Guy Riel, Founding President, The Pendulum Foundation]

Good evening, Mr. Chair

Good evening also to the vice-chairs of the committee, to the members of Parliament, and to all invited guests.

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that the Fondation Le Balancier, which I founded, is active in the greater Quebec City area, on the traditional territory of the great Huron-Wendat Nation of Wendake. The region is recognized as an important meeting place for other First Nations, including the Innu. Le Balancier aims to be a welcoming and inclusive place.

Two corrections need to be made in the brief I submitted to you. My staff noticed the errors after sending it. I will therefore send a new version to the clerk.

My name is Guy Riel and I am a veteran. I took part in a mission to Cyprus and two missions to Bosnia in 1993 and 1995. My assessment from Veterans Affairs Canada is that I am at 175%, given my physical and mental health and neurodegenerative disease from my military service.

We set up the Fondation Le Balancier in response to a request from some of my sponsors in the system who felt that front line services were lacking in Quebec. We worked with existing partners to develop a support network for veterans. We also created a webcast to disseminate information from the department to the veteran community. We obtained funding four days ago for the English program, which is called Some Vets at Night. In French, it's Deux vets le soir.

The Foundation focuses on the quality of its members. There are about 100 of us professionals working together. We are all veterans of the RCMP or the military. Our mission is to reshape the image of the labour market, the image of the veteran community and the image that civilians have of veterans.

In fact, 48% of Canadian veterans feel underestimated by the Canadian public. I have experienced this myself. Often our skills are not recognized because they are so out of the ordinary. So I am really glad to hear that some managers are trying to work on these issues.

I worked in the federal public service, including for the Treasury Board, where I implemented the parking policy. I had the opportunity to put my skills to good use and to excel. That is also what I wanted to do with The Pendulum Foundation.

I have been around for a while. I made my first career transition in the 1990s, and then another in the 2000s, and I have seen a huge improvement in services. As Canadian veterans, we have excellent services. My community has no reason to complain. There are issues, but they can be foreseen and corrected.

The transition to civilian life is when military members lose their sense of purpose, and that is where The Pendulum Foundation can help.

We signed an agreement with three research chairs, in the areas of chronic pain, mental health and cannabis. We have a human resources researcher working within that organization trying to understand the psychological and physical issues associated with wanting to move on to a new career.

The discourse needs to change. In our community, there is not enough emphasis on the merits of working and re-engaging. The Pendulum works a lot on this aspect.

Thank you. I am ready to answer all your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much for your presentation, Mr. Riel.

Now I'd like to invite Nick Booth, chief executive officer from the True Patriot Love Foundation, to speak.

Please go ahead.

[Nick Booth, Chief Executive Officer, True Patriot Love Foundation]

Thank you to the chair and the committee for the opportunity to contribute to this important piece of work.

True Patriot Love is Canada’s national foundation for the military and veteran community. We work closely as a trusted partner with Veterans Affairs, the Canadian Armed Forces and the federal and provincial governments, including our partnership in Ontario on veterans employment.

It would be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to thank the government for its tremendous support of the 2025 Invictus Games. True Patriot Love was honoured to be able to coordinate the successful bid on behalf of Canada. We look forward to welcoming the world to Vancouver and Whistler for the first-ever winter edition of this inspiring event. The committee may also like to know that we have made promoting veteran employment and transition one of the legacy strands of the games.

As the national foundation, True Patriot Love works across the spectrum of issues facing our military members and veterans. We support our military families and children, especially as they navigate the issues of multiple deployments on location, away from their home supports. We fund a range of programs to assist the health and well-being of both serving members and veterans, including mental health, homelessness, employment and transition.

For those who may have become injured or ill, we contribute to their recovery and rehabilitation through sport, expeditions and the creative arts. We help with reintroduction into local communities post uniform, especially with programs focusing on volunteering and service opportunities to maintain a sense of purpose, which we believe is key to a good transition.

True Patriot Love welcomes the committee’s focus on this important subject. It believes there is much that can be done to help our veterans secure productive and satisfying employment post service and, in doing so, contribute to the postpandemic economy and vibrant communities across Canada.

In January 2013, recognizing that many releasing members struggle in making the transition to civilian employment, the then-minister of veterans affairs requested that True Patriot Love develop a report to identify the hurdles that may be impeding a successful transition. In response, we formed the veterans transition advisory council, which brought together representation across the charitable sector and the government. This report, entitled “Supporting Veterans through their transition to civilian employment in Canada”, produced a series of recommendations. Many of those issues remain the same today.

I believe the challenges can be grouped into two elements, cultural and structural. From a cultural perspective, we need to ensure that businesses understand the opportunities arising from hiring veterans and are ready to receive new veteran employees who may have had a very different work experience in the military. They bring extraordinary skills and talents, but may also struggle to adapt to the new civilian work environment.

This is also a communication challenge, understanding that veterans are not a homogenous group and, worse, that they are not all broken or unwell. Businesses that embrace this through initiatives such as veteran employee resource groups or buddy systems will do a better job at attracting and retaining veteran talent.

The culture of transition also needs to be strengthened within the Canadian Armed Forces. There is an inevitable tension between reconstitution and the need to maintain full operational capability, and embracing transition and supporting those whose time is up or who choose to leave. I was speaking to a veteran only this week who explained that when they announced they were leaving after 20 years of service, the response they received made them feel that they were in some way letting the side down.

Improving transition and creating positive veteran champions in industry will support reserve recruitment, connection with the military and many other benefits downstream. Providing volunteering and service opportunities, so that veterans can maintain an identity and sense of purpose, has also been shown to be an extremely effective way of supporting successful transition and long-term well-being.

From a structural perspective, there are a number of players in this space, including the CAF transition group, MTEP, Veterans Affairs' own employment team and, of course, charitable and non-profit organizations.

There is much we can do to make this system more efficient. We need to make sure that the educational qualifications achieved during military service are accepted and understood in the private or academic sectors and start earlier to prepare our military members for their transition. Having an easy way to connect veterans to community programs and information about employment through an online hub would also help.

Finally, we can learn from other nations, too. The United States has done an excellent job of creating links to the private sector through the Hiring Our Heroes program, Veterans on Wall Street, The Mission Continues and other initiatives. We can take the best of these and adapt them to a Canadian context.

In summary, True Patriot Love welcomes the chance to contribute to the development and implementation of a new veterans employment strategy and looks forward to today's discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Booth. I'd like to thank all witnesses for their opening remarks.

Also on behalf of the committee—I know there are a few veterans here—thank you for your service. The committee is pleased to welcome you to this committee.

Now we're going to start the first round of questions of six minutes, and members can split time with their colleagues.

I will invite Mr. Fraser Tolmie, for six minutes or less.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to extend my gratitude to our witnesses tonight, and also to those who have served our great nation.

We're very proud of you. Thank you very much for your service.

Mr. Booth, veterans seeking employment are very important to us. It's been very important to this committee.

An issue that we're hearing about as a committee is on retention of veteran employees. What can be done to get veterans to stay in their civilian jobs, and what kind of follow-up would you believe is necessary to help veterans go from being in a military environment to a civilian life—that cultural shift? You touched briefly on that, about “letting the side down”.

[Nick Booth]

I would group my answer into two areas: one is preparing for the arrival and retention of veterans within the private sector. I think there's a lot that businesses, government and not-for-profit organizations that are hiring veterans can do to make that experience much easier. We often hear how difficult it is coming out of a military career that they may have been in for some time—you've either done your time or it has been taken away through injury—and how difficult that transition can be.

Often people will land in a job and then bump.... What we hear from employers is that they feel they're veteran friendly.

However, as you rightly say, veterans don't stick around. They don't stay in those jobs. It's often because they're worried about finding that first job post service to feed their family—to give themselves some economic security—but it isn't a job that gives them the same well-being and fulfillment psychologically that they had when they were in service.

That culture piece is really important. I mentioned things like veteran employee resource groups and buddy systems that make veterans feel welcome and get other veterans in the businesses to help support them.

Often, if veterans have that sense of purpose and service they so proudly displayed while they were in uniform, we believe those other community supports around veterans will give them those psychological benefits.

I mentioned the importance of volunteering and service. Something that True Patriot Love is very focused on is funding a range of those programs that give people other ways of contributing to the community, as well as the work they do to provide for themselves and their families.

I would say that some of it's within the business, and then some of it's within the community around the vet that supports them as they make that transition.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Thank you. That's a very good segue for the next question I have.

There is a program in the U.S. called The Mission Continues, which provides meaningful volunteer opportunities for veterans adjusting to civilian life.

Are you familiar with this program? If so, what could you share with this committee about that?

[Nick Booth]

Certainly, I am familiar.

For the committee's background, I used to work in the United States on this subject. I was involved some time ago with that. The origin of that—it's a piece of information that the committee might like to consider, and I would be pleased to forward a link afterwards if helpful—came from a report, I think it was in 2009. It was called the “All Volunteer Force" report, by Civic Enterprises. It identified that volunteering and service opportunities can be one of the most successful ways of supporting veterans transition.

The Americans embraced that and built out The Mission Continues, which became a campaign—as well as a not-for-profit organization at the centre of it—to help provide volunteering and service opportunities for American veterans and their families. Across the seven domains of well-being, it was a way of making sure that those different ecological and psychological benefits to the veteran were being met.

It's a conversation that we've been endeavouring to push forward with Veterans Affairs and others in Canada. I think that a focus on volunteering and service will help not only the long-term mental health of our veterans, but also their willingness to remain in different corporate roles that may not give them that same sense of purpose but do give them economic security.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

I wanted to point out that I thought you had a very unique American accent. That's my Scottish humour. I apologize.

[Nick Booth]

I apologize, but I try to hide it.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

I'm know I'm bringing a bit of a levity to this questioning.

Ms. Copeland, at your bakery out in Squamish, B.C., do you have Nanaimo bars? If so, how do we get some out to this committee?

[Erin Copeland]

We don't, but we'll work on it.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Thank you so much.

Going back to you, Mr. Booth, it's important to measure the progress. I've brought this question up before about how we are keeping people employed.

How do you think we could do a better job of measuring the results of those who are not being employed after their military service and those who are employed?

[Nick Booth]

That's a great question. Often, when I'm talking to businesses about this—and we've been working with a number of private sector partners on building veteran employed resource groups, for example—the first question I ask them is, “How many veterans do you have?” I'm always shocked by how few of them actually count.

I point out that what you measure is what you get, and creating a baseline of how many veterans you have in your organization and then tracking that, both from an absolute percentage point and a retention rate as you write the survey, is the first point. We'll then begin to get some measurement of that.

The other issue, which was identified in the veteran transition report that I mentioned earlier, from 2013 through to 2015, was underemployment. That's a harder one to track, but that report identified that it often took veterans up to 10 years to get back to the earning potential that they had when they left the service. They were required to take the first job that they felt they could get, and they didn't understand necessarily how their skills would be applicable in the private sector.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Booth. Your time is over.

Now let's go to Mr. Churence Rogers for six minutes or less, please.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses today. To our guests, welcome. Thank you for your service.

I will turn my attention to Operation Entrepreneur and Ms. Kilgour.

As a result of the work that you and your organization have been doing, have you seen an interest from veterans in developing their own businesses and going the entrepreneur route after they've finished their military career?

[Kathleen Kilgour]

Absolutely. This is why we exist. There was a great need in 2012.

We put about 550 people through every year. That number is based on a number that VAC shared earlier on January 30, which is that of the 8,500 people transitioning, 4,500 are interested in pursuing a second career option. The other 4,000 are doing something else.

Of those 4,500 people, we want to have at least 10% of them, because we know that 10% of people who are looking for something new in their life are going to explore entrepreneurship or self-employment, especially with the rise of the gig economy and all of the change that's been going on.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I think that's absolutely great.

What are the typical questions? When a veteran contacts you, what are the typical questions they would ask about having their own business and becoming an entrepreneur?

[Kathleen Kilgour]

“Hello, I'm a current member of the Canadian Armed Forces and I want to start my own business in my hometown. I was directed to your website and I'm looking for some information to start a plan and help me move forward. I want to know what you guys can offer.” That's it.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

They're basic questions.

Ms. Copeland, you've done well, or you seem to be doing very well. What skill sets do you think veterans typically have through their military service that you view as an asset to become an entrepreneur or to develop their own business?