Veterans Affairs Committee on April 24th, 2023

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

Of course, being from Newfoundland and Labrador, I can't not ask Ms. Saunders a question.

In terms of how many veterans and people you reach out to, what are the key things you hear? Can you give us the benefit of the responses you hear when you reach out to them for education, training and programs?

[Cora Saunders]

As I said earlier, when I left the military, I sat down with Veterans Affairs, and I was approved for retraining right from the get-go. I chose not to do that at that time. There were other challenges going on in my life with my son and the challenges that he had.

Yes, there are a lot of things in place.

I released as non-medical, and I know that there are a lot of benefits there when you medically release. There's vocational rehabilitation. You get two years of full pay when you retire medically. I didn't get that. I remember the first question they asked me when I sat down in the release office was, “Is there any reason you can be medically released?” I said, “No,” right away. I had fractured my foot less than a year before that, and I said, “No, I'm good,” so I missed out on a lot of those financial benefits, and I could have probably been retrained.

Now in this job, I'm seeing younger veterans leaving after they do their five-year period of service. They just don't want to stay in. I was going to say that I don't know why. It served me well overall. The military served me well. I'm not going to say that it didn't, because it did. As a single parent, I was very fortunate to have that job as opposed to a single parent working on civvy street in a minimum wage job.

Getting back to the schooling and things, even for a veteran with six years in, if they get out, there's money from Veterans Affairs that will pay for them to go back to school and do their retraining. Again, with Helmets to Hardhats, you can come in like me.... I was a clerk my whole career, and I could have gone in. I said to Joe that, if I had known about this in 2012 when I retired the final time, I could be a tradeswoman now. I feel that in myself. My father worked in the woods his whole life. When he retired at 65, he built his retirement home, so I feel like that's in me.

I really enjoy this job because I get to talk to these young veterans and say, “Why wouldn't you want to help construct something, to build something?” There are 14 building trades and 60 trades within those 14 building trades. Why would you not want to be involved in that? The stigma is still attached to it. You don't need any new training to come in. They train you. They pay you right from the get-go and offer all kinds of benefits. It's amazing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

Thank you, everyone.

It's about 13 minutes to the vote, so I have no choice but to stop here.

I'm sorry, but I have some members who said that they're not going to vote with the app, so they have to go there. By the time they come back here, we will have only five minutes left, so I'm sorry. I have to stop right here.

On behalf of the members of the committee, I'd like to say thank you for your presentations. I'd like to offer you the opportunity to send any briefs to our clerk, if you have additional information you would like us to have on this important study.

On that, I'd like to say thank you to all of the technicians, the interpreters, the clerk and the analysts.

I would also like to acknowledge the witnesses. From Coding for Veterans, we had with us Jeff Musson, executive director, and Elena Vazquez, retired master warrant officer and student. From Helmets to Hardhats, we welcomed Joseph Maloney, executive director, and Cora Saunders. From the National Association of Career Colleges, we heard from Michael Sangster. From Prince's Trust Canada, we had Kathleen Kilgour and Kristin Topping.

With that, ladies and gentlemen, the meeting is adjourned.