Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ryan.

We are joined by Mr. Nicholas Stroesser.

I would like to make sure that the sound tests have been done, so members, give me one minute. I'm going to suspend just to verify that everything is okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Unfortunately, due to technical problems, we are still unable to welcome Mr. Stroesser. We're going to do our very best to welcome him again before we end our study.

On this note, this opens the floor for questions for Mr. Ryan. We will be starting with six minutes of questions from Mrs. Wagantall.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Chair, I'm setting my timer to six minutes.

Mr. Ryan, thank you so much for being here and for all that you provided to us in that short five minutes. It gives me a sense that you have a good understanding of some of the challenges our veterans face, specifically in this field. I deeply appreciate Community Futures Network of Canada and the work they do, especially rurally. I'm from Saskatchewan, and I know they do great work.

I hope you can assist me with this question from the previous witness. Mr. Morrow is a veteran, and he commented that when he transitioned out of the service, it took between 10 and 15 years to get to the point at which he was ready to be an entrepreneur. He has the gifts and the talents; there's no question. However, in that transition time—and those of us on this committee and at Veterans Affairs know this—there isn't a lot of focus on entrepreneurial spirit, moving forward in that area for veterans. We need that. The reality is that our veterans take a while—the majority of them—to transition to being ready for that type of thing.

Do you find this in those whom you've had the opportunity to interact with or in conversations you have had with your son, son-in-law or whomever? Do you sense when they would be ready to do that, if they have that spirit?

[Basil Ryan]

Thanks very much for the question.

It seems to me that there's always a bit of a lag when somebody's transitioning from the military to civilian life and trying to decide what they want to do. My chief financial officer's son and daughter-in-law left the military about a year and a half ago, and they're still trying to find their way in what they're going to do, whether they're going to have gainful employment or going to pursue a career in entrepreneurship. Some of that is just in transitioning to civilian life, moving back home, setting up a dwelling and then trying to sort out what options might be available to the individual. Depending on where they locate, is there a market for, perhaps, some of the entrepreneurial ventures they want to participate in?

Generally speaking, there is a lag from the time the person leaves the military until they actually get to a place at which they're ready to open a business of their own.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Thank you very much.

Do you have any recommendations for Veterans Affairs Canada and National Defence working together? I've been on this committee for a decade. We're still trying to figure out that transition model, it seems. What could be done to enable someone who has potential but cannot function in this area just now? Are there steps that could be taken to assist them to get there?

[Basil Ryan]

Generally in society, we don't tend to talk about entrepreneurship as a career choice. You fall into it or happen into it, or you have that entrepreneurial spirit. Our education system does not do well in providing students with options and choices around entrepreneurship.

It's no different from the military. It could be part of the off-boarding, if you will, or the exit strategy to provide that as a career option: Did you ever think about entrepreneurship as opposed to going into the trades, working for somebody else or doing some other type of work? Part of this is creating the awareness that it is a viable option for some people to go into entrepreneurship.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

I can appreciate that, as I think a lot of our serving members could, because your role in the military is to do what you're told and not think for yourself.

[Basil Ryan]

That's correct.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

That sounds terrible, but you know what I mean.

[Basil Ryan]

Absolutely.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

We've talked about the fact that, as they're going through their military service, they should always understand that at some point, life is going to change. Do you see this as contradictory to what the military needs them to do and think about versus perhaps the potential they have in the future?

[Basil Ryan]

No, I wouldn't say it's contradictory, but the awareness needs to be created. We know that when a person enters the military, they're going to exit at some point. There are exit strategies that are generally developed. I'm not sure Veterans Affairs is doing as good a job as it could be doing in terms of providing those options around entrepreneurship for individuals who are exiting the military.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

[Technical difficulty—Editor] provide those opportunities to learn about the potential, not to do it themselves.

[Basil Ryan]

I missed the very first part of that.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

The intention there would be for Veterans Affairs not to do that themselves but to find individuals like you and others who could come and communicate on those issues.

[Basil Ryan]

Absolutely. There are resources out there. It may be targeting groups like Community Futures to provide that type of facilitation to folks who are leaving the military.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

That's great. As you know, we need to clean things up and get rid of red tape as much as create more bureaucracy, so that would be very helpful.

[Basil Ryan]

That's correct.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Thank you.

I'm at four seconds, Madam Chair.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

I would say you get the gold star today, Ms. Wagantall.

We now go to Mr. d'Entremont. Welcome to the committee, Mr. d'Entremont.

You have six minutes, Mr. d'Entremont.

[Chris d'Entremont, Liberal, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much, Mr. Ryan, for joining us today.

The experience from Nova Scotia is probably really important. We have a high participation rate from Nova Scotia in the Canadian Armed Forces. We have a number of large assets in the Canadian Armed Forces in Halifax. Of course, in my riding of Acadie—Annapolis we have Greenwood—the largest air force base—as well. We tend to see that a lot of folks who come to Nova Scotia want to retire in Nova Scotia. We have a lot of transition folks who are finding their next step in their careers in Nova Scotia. I think having the CBDCs here is extremely important for talking about what we're doing on the ground.

My first question revolves around how many clients CBDCs have right now who would be identified as veterans. Do you actually take that data in? Is that data that you keep?

[Basil Ryan]

No, we don't, per se. It's normally self-identification. We don't have the metrics within the statistics right now. We can start looking at that to help out veterans. Maybe we should be looking at those attributes within so that we have a better database on the number of people who are exiting the military and have entered entrepreneurship.

[Chris d'Entremont, Liberal, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

If we think back to the previous presenter, Mr. Morrow, and about the 8,000 retirees per year, a number of them would be in Nova Scotia, of course. A number of those would be looking for their transition, but we don't actually take that data. I don't think VAC is really taking in that data. The armed forces have an idea, I'm sure, of their retirements, but in that transition, I don't think we're doing a great job of trying to figure that part out.

That leads me to the second question. I know that we don't have the data on veterans, but if we look at the areas in which CBDCs actually reside—at the valley, for example—would we be seeing more folks accessing the programs from CBDCs in those areas? We might not exactly know if they're veterans, but at least we know there are more folks in the area than there would be in other parts of the province.

[Basil Ryan]

I can't give you numbers, but I can say anecdotally that a particular office in Hants-Kings, which services Greenwood, for example, has a number of clients who are ex-military. I can't give you the exact number, but I know they currently have somewhere around 400 clients in their database, and a number of those are ex-military people.