Evidence of meeting #18 for Veterans Affairs in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.
A video is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Legacy Project
Are you referring to the types of businesses they're starting?
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Yes. That's one of the things that the BDC notes as a cause of the decline in people starting businesses.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Legacy Project
I'm telling you that we're dealing with some incredibly talented individuals coming out of the Canadian Armed Forces. We see veterans starting charities, just as we have here with Hero Lodge, which is amazing. Can Praxis was started by a veteran. Elite Canines is another charity started by a veteran. They were all bootstrapped on their own. Then you see massive IT companies that are taking over industry right now.
If the complexity is the question, I don't think there's an issue in terms of what's being started and the complexity of it. They go headfirst, and they have incredible drive.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
My understanding of it is just the paperwork—the challenges with payroll, the payroll taxes and how you pay people—could become a barrier to starting your own business. Is that something that you guys help folks with?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Legacy Project
It is, and I did note that earlier. Running a business, the legal challenges, the accounting aspect of it and developing their business plan are all things we help with as they graduate from the program. That's all part of the teaching in the program.
Then, getting into the network within shopveteran.ca allows them to network with other veterans who have started businesses. Yes, that is a huge hurdle for some. For others, it's not.
However, there's such an incredible community. I've not seen it with any other business. They're willing to go out and help and support each other, even if that means flying across the country to do so. It's just a great group of individuals.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
One of the challenges folks have noted is that the cost of living in Canada continues to increase, which makes it so that folks don't necessarily have the money to invest their own money into their next project or next business.
Do you have any comments around that? Are you seeing anything to do with that?
December 9th, 2025 / 4:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Legacy Project
I think it's a challenge for every Canadian, whether they're a veteran or not.
I think that investment to start a business is a difficult piece. It's something I touched on previously.
Access to capital is one of the top issues facing veteran businesses. You see with Hero Lodge that they bootstrapped it. I started the Canadian Legacy Project financially. I started Homes for Heroes financially, before we gained some steam.
Before we opened Calgary Homes for Heroes, nobody thought it could be done. Nobody understood the concept. Now we're graduating veterans from off the street into their own homes and back into the workforce.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
My last question here is around veteran owned. Is there a good, beneficial value to a business being identified as veteran owned?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Legacy Project
You bet there is. That's the second part of the ShopVeteran piece. Again, we haven't had the marketing dollars behind it yet. We launched it in the middle of this year. The whole goal there was to push Canadians to show that they can support veterans, and it doesn't have to be a donation. They can support a business.
We're having an incredible uptick on that. Especially right now, at Christmastime, individuals are supporting veteran businesses. They carry a logo, a brand of ours that says it's a veteran-owned business. It's just gaining steam. With some more support and financing, we could really blow that thing up.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
You would say it is the case that “veteran-owned” is a positive.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Legacy Project
It's a huge positive. They're very proud to have that logo on their websites.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marie-France Lalonde
Thank you very much, Mr. Howard. I appreciate that.
Now we will invite MP Clark for five minutes.
Liberal
Braedon Clark Liberal Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS
Mr. Démétré, I believe you told Ms. Gaudreau that most of the participants at Hero Lodge came from Quebec and Alberta. Is that correct?
Liberal
Braedon Clark Liberal Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS
I have two questions. The first one is, why is that? Second, I would like to know if you are trying to expand Hero Lodge's client base to other provinces and territories.
President, Hero Lodge, As an Individual
If I may, I will explain the situation to you this way: If we were to get people from all the provinces together for a beer, the guy from Quebec will end up with the guy from Alberta every time.
To answer your question, I feel like there are many similarities between Quebec and Alberta. That's just my opinion.
Liberal
Braedon Clark Liberal Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS
Excellent. That's the best answer we've had in this entire committee so far. Bravo.
Mr. Howard, I would ask you as well. You touched on issues that you see through the Legacy Project that are impediments or barriers for veterans around access to financing or recognition of skills. Those are certainly things that we hear about in the general population as well. When I deal with people trying to start small businesses, it's always difficult.
You touched on this in your opening statement. You've talked about financing a lot and veterans going to banks, credit unions or whatever to get financing. Have you seen unique challenges, in terms of veterans dealing with financial institutions, that may be over and above what the average person might deal with?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Legacy Project
I think there are a couple of things. It's actually getting the paperwork together. It can be just a daunting task for a lot of vets. Imagine that you're suffering, you have post-traumatic stress and you're asked to fill out a seven-page loan form. It becomes overwhelming if you don't have support. With the business boot camp, we're offering that support and that guidance.
I know VAC is creating an entrepreneur program, which I think is incredible. I've worked with some of the people within it before. They're very talented.
A lot of these things can be overwhelming. I think training employees is an overwhelming piece. Just working through any paperwork could be a difficult challenge for some.
Liberal
Braedon Clark Liberal Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS
Talking about the business boot camp, you mentioned that thus far at least 300 veterans have gone through that program, which is wonderful.
I'm curious. Is that program kind of maxed out right now? Would you hope to expand it further? Are you able to expand it further? What barriers might exist to expanding that so that more veterans can take advantage of it?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Legacy Project
We can expand it. We want to expand it. We have expanded it already, but the way that we expand it is by adding more university professors who have a background in entrepreneurial training and understand our veterans. We have the ability to bring on a couple more instructors, and it doesn't have to be in Calgary. I mean, our students come from coast to coast. It's done online. The professors can come, and we could expand it. We'd love to expand it, but it comes down to funding. We have a number of other programs that require funding, and that's really the gist of it.
Liberal
Braedon Clark Liberal Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS
Yes, and I wonder, with the boot camp, is there a way that you track progress over time for the people who go through it to assess what's working, what you can improve on and what might be missing? Are there ways that you do that to assess the viability and the outcomes of the program over time?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Legacy Project
We do. There are a couple of things. One is that, right after the program, there's a survey that goes out to all of the students to make sure that we're getting feedback and that they feel like, if there's anything that they believed was required, additional pieces they wanted, they could give that feedback. Then we go back to our students every year who have graduated, and we touch base with graduates from the program. You might be three years after graduating the program. How has the program helped you? Have you learned anything now that maybe we should be adding to the program?
We're always tinkering and changing. I'm a big believer in research. If you're going to be successful in business, you need to understand the facts and what people want. We're always changing, and we're always trying to make sure we offer the best program possible.
Liberal
Braedon Clark Liberal Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS
I think I have about 20 seconds or so, Mr. Howard, so I will be quick. I'm wasting my time as I speak.
What one or two skills do you see veterans having that most naturally go with the field of entrepreneurship?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Legacy Project
It's drive, drive and passion. Those are the two.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marie-France Lalonde
Thank you very much, Mr. Howard. You helped our colleague here stay within his time limits.
Now Madame Gaudreau will address all of you in French.
Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for two minutes and 30 seconds.