Veterans Affairs committee  There's one other point I want to make. I say that I have no mandate. I am not funded to provide services to veterans or to released or retired members. We provide a tremendous amount of support and services to them, including education. But we do it because there are so many gaps in the services that are out there.

Veterans Affairs committee  We have no mandate.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's the family that suffers, of course. It's the family that will see it first and they'll recognize it. If the member is being helped or treated, the family may not know about it. But the family will come in and speak to us. Then we will encourage and educate that family member to hopefully help the member get some treatment or service.

Veterans Affairs committee  Merci, monsieur. I want to point out one thing. We work very closely with Veterans Affairs when we go out on the road and we go to all the communities, because we think it's absolutely vital that all the families have all the information. Veterans Affairs has done a phenomenal job.

Veterans Affairs committee  But there's a huge hesitation by the Canadian Forces, in some places, to educate families. They're afraid that if they tell a family member what an OSI is, all of a sudden everybody is going to have one, or some silly thing. But it's the education piece. That document is absolutely brilliant, and if the rest of the country and the chain of command in the rest of the country would ensure that families got this information....

Veterans Affairs committee  In Halifax we have that opportunity. It's other locations across the country; they can't get access to the family, so they can't educate the family. That's the hard part.

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't know if I could speak to that and say this is what you really need to watch for. Leaving the Canadian Forces, even as a family member, is incredibly difficult. It has been your life for 20, 30, 35 years, or whatever it is. You've been told where you're going and what you're going to do and all the rest of it, and all of a sudden you feel like you're absolutely, totally abandoned.

Veterans Affairs committee  We deal with a huge number of military members. A large number of military members use their military family resource centre every day. It's a safe place for them to go; it's not in the chain of command. If they're just having a family issue, they would rather come and talk to us and access our services than go through the chain of command, because it could adversely impact their military career.

Veterans Affairs committee  Hello. Bonjour. First of all, I want to thank you very much for this incredible honour. I'm feeling pretty special. I'm the executive director of the Halifax and Region Military Family Resource Centre. It's the largest military family resource centre in all of Canada. We're responsible for three-quarters of the province of Nova Scotia and all the families and military members who live in Nova Scotia.