I appreciate you guys continually inviting me. My offer still stands, by the way. As a consultant, I'll gladly offer my services, but I digress.
My name is Dave Morrow, and I served in the Canadian Armed Forces, for those who don't know me, for 15 years, including a deployment to Afghanistan in 2010. Today I'm also a founder, author and coach who has worked with veterans for over seven years, and I'm proud to say that I just started my own non-profit called the H2K Foundation.
I'm here to tell you that we are locking capable veterans out of the civilian workforce, and we're doing it with the very system meant to support them. Here's the core of it. When a veteran is injured and receiving disability benefits, the potential to translate military skills into civilian employment is severely limited. It's not because the skills aren't there; it's because using them puts your benefits at risk, so veterans stay on the sidelines. We have trained, disciplined people, people this country needs, and we have given them a direct financial reason not to work.
I know this first-hand. Before I had Veterans Affairs benefits, I worked as a teacher with no barrier and no hesitation, but once I was receiving benefits, my path back into the workforce narrowed sharply. The incentive flipped. The same skills that made me employable now came with a cost, because earning could mean losing the support I'd been granted for a real injury.
Disability benefits in the military context are not the same as in the civilian one, and I think this is hurting our community. If a civilian employer forced its employees to work out every morning or sent them into an unsafe work environment, let's say one with bullets flying over their heads, and they got hurt, they'd have every right to sue them. The military member doesn't have that right.
If I'm 80% disabled, it doesn't mean that 80% of my body doesn't work. It means my quality of life since joining has been reduced by 80%, and the only way to try to make me whole again is cash from Veterans Affairs Canada. This doesn't mean I can't make a meaningful contribution to the workforce. If I can work, it's despite my injuries, but I shouldn't be forced to choose between gainful, meaningful work and my injury benefits.
That's the trap, and I'm one of the lucky ones. I built a company. I found a way forward. Most veterans I coach do not have that runway, and they tell me the same thing that I lived: The system makes them choose between their stability and their contribution.
My ask to this community is simple. If we are serious about recognizing military skills in civilian life, we can't stop at credential translation. We have to fundamentally rethink how we compensate injured veterans. As it stands, we are not protecting them. We are sidelining them. We are taking people with the exact skills our country needs to thrive, and we are telling them to stand down.
Recognition of military skills is meaningless if the compensation structure punishes a veteran for using them. Fix the translation of skills, yes, but fix the disincentive at the same time or nothing changes on the ground.
I'm happy to take your questions, and I'm happy to share what I see every day with the veterans I work with.
Thank you.