Mr. Speaker, Veterans Affairs Canada, or VAC, is committed to ensuring that its program decisions are informed by input from veterans and stakeholder organizations across Canada. VAC’s primary interest is to ensure that projects funded through the veteran and family well-being fund, or VFWF, are directly benefiting veterans and their families.
Prior to funding, VAC provides recipients with project support tools to ensure organizations have the resources necessary to achieve their program goals. VFWF grant recipients are expected to measure the success of their project by providing a progress activity report 30 days after the end of each quarter and a final report 60 days following the project completion date. Contribution recipients are required to provide a progress activity report and financial claim 30 days after the end of each quarter and a final report and final financial claim 60 days following the project completion date.
If a report lacks sufficient detail or clarity, VAC interventions include the following: discussing options to bring activities into alignment with the program’s goals, requesting additional information about past and ongoing activities, providing coaching on eligible and approved activities, discussing expectations regarding reporting, and holding formal discussions with recipient concerning expectations at multiple milestones.
Exit interviews are not conducted as the VFWF is run in accordance with the Privacy Act. As such, the VFWF does not have the authority to collect participants’ personal information, which could inadvertently be provided through exit interviews.
VAC captures all lessons learned through final reports, which are due within 60 days of the project end date. In these final reports, recipients are required to describe the results achieved and lessons learned, and explain any discrepancies between the results and the planned or expected results. Recipients may also be called upon to deliver a final report presentation to demonstrate best practices to VAC policy decision-makers, other government departments and other relevant external partners.
Before funding decisions are made, applications are reviewed by VAC officials to ensure the distribution of funding is equitable based on language, geography and indigenous representation, with special consideration to vulnerable populations. VAC has made a commitment to support equity-deserving subpopulations, which is taken into consideration when selecting applicants for funding. The VFWF supports diverse groups such as women; two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and additional people, or 2SLGBTQI+; indigenous veterans; and veterans who experience homelessness.
A project can receive assistance from all levels of government: federal, provincial, territorial and municipal. However, total assistance from government cannot exceed 100% of eligible expenditures. Recipients are required to disclose all other sources of funding before beginning their project to ensure stacking limits are respected.
The terms and conditions of the VFWF do not allow for the renewing of funding for a given project. Recipients are permitted, however, to submit applications for new projects in subsequent calls for applications.
VAC sends email notifications to unsuccessful applicants. Additional feedback on applications is available upon request.
The VFWF terms and conditions do not limit the number of times an organization can be awarded VFWF funding. During each call for applications, proposals are evaluated against the funding criteria and ranked by criteria scores to prioritize a selection of projects for funding.
Recipients must demonstrate that they can meet regulatory standards and are working within accepted standards of practice, which includes the proper screening of volunteers and staff who are working directly with veteran participants. Since 2021-22, funding agreements have required recipients to ensure all staff and volunteers involved in delivering the program are adequately vetted and trained in order to ensure a safe and trauma-informed environment for veterans and their families.