Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to contribute to your mandate through this study on transition to civilian life.
As Canada’s national foundation for the military community, much of True Patriot Love’s work contributes in a range of ways to support military and veteran transition. I am going to focus my brief remarks today on four of these: employment, recovery from injury, the maintenance of purpose and the provision of information.
First is employment. True Patriot Love welcomed the committee’s recent report “National Strategy for Veterans Employment”. Specifically, we were pleased to see recommendation 18 noting that the Government of Canada should implement the outcomes from the 2017 True Patriot Love veterans transition advisory council report.
We are proud of our strategic collaboration with the Canadian Armed Forces transition group, Veterans Affairs Canada, military family services and our relationship with the chief of reserves and employer support.
It is important that this ecosystem of agencies finds ways to work together collaboratively. We have been piloting this through our ongoing partnership with the Government of Ontario. This includes our recent event Ecosystem Connect, where agencies came together with private sector employers to look at how to improve best practices and promote veteran hiring across large organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises, with a specific focus on recruiting veteran talent into the health sector.
We would also flag the importance of considering the needs of veteran families, as we heard so powerfully this morning, as essential in every discussion about transition to civilian life. We all know that when someone signs up to serve, their families sign up too. This does not stop when the serving member takes their uniform off, and the ongoing health and transition impacts can affect the whole family.
Second is recovery from injury. While most of those who leave our armed forces do so healthy and well and are just in need of some assistance finding their direction post-service, there are, of course, a subset who are released for medical reasons and for whom issues linger into the future. For those who may be injured or become ill, opportunities for rehabilitation as part of a successful transition are vital, and the foundation contributes to this through funding programs using adaptive sport, expeditions and the creative arts, among others.
Just recently, along with some others in the room, I had the pleasure to attend the “one year to go” events for the 2025 winter Invictus Games in Vancouver and Whistler that True Patriot Love is leading. It was inspiring to see the impact of participation and international camaraderie shared among veterans from nearly 20 nations. The transition from military to civilian life plays an important role in the vision of Invictus by inspiring recovery from injury, celebrating the role of families and building a connection with community. I would like to thank the Government of Canada and the Province of British Columbia for their significant support of these unique games.
Third is maintaining purpose. We often hear that upon leaving the armed forces, veterans can feel disconnected from their civil community and separated from a previously well-defined sense of purpose. With support from Veterans Affairs, the foundation is working with seven program partners to do the first Canadian study to research the relationship between service and well-being. This links directly to recommendation 30 of the “National Strategy for Veteran Employment”. Once this research is complete, we intend to develop a national action plan that will offer tools and communication strategies to find, recruit, screen and harness veteran volunteers.
Finally, there's how we gather information and provide it to the veteran community. From our vantage point as a national funder, we know that many organizations across the sector are attempting to tackle the challenge of military to civilian transition, and there is a growing interest in the field. This creates a landscape with the potential for duplication and overlap.
The knowledge we have gained by listening to the community has led to the creation of our new veteran hub. This is a national online platform, launched in the fall of last year, that helps connect veterans, serving members and their families with programs, volunteer opportunities and local events. Users can visit our interactive map and easily see what is available to them in their home communities.
We are thrilled that almost 400 organizations have joined the site, fostering a supportive ecosystem for veterans and their families. We hope that members of the committee will promote it within their own networks.
Relatedly, there are a number of organizations that provide support for homeless veterans through different models. However, there is an absence of concise data on the scale of the veteran homeless population or lack of measurable outcomes from the limited funding available. We strongly support a data-driven approach based on local needs and solutions drawn together into a national framework.
We were pleased to see the committee's recent recommendation recognizing the importance of providing veterans with control over their medical records, which allows them to be shared with family doctors, service providers and Veterans Affairs. We remain in discussion of this through our mental health technology initiative and believe it will be a significant contributor to easing the transition to civilian life.
In closing, Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I look forward to any questions or discussion with the committee.