Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, respected committee members, guests, colleagues. I'm Ray Kokkonen, the national vice-president of the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association, representing Tom Hoppe, our national president, who was unable to be here. I regret not being able to wear my medals on

Veterans Affairs committee  I would like to comment on both issues, in very short form. From the sound of the discussion back and forth on the blue helmet term, I think perhaps that could go back for a little bit further study instead of trying to make a decision here. Obviously there are different opinion

Veterans Affairs committee  Being fourth in line relegates you to a position where you're either going to think of something very clever or you're going to repeat what other people have said. I think it was mentioned here earlier that it is a day to recognize peacekeepers, not necessarily a memorial day fo

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, respected committee members, guests, as was mentioned, my name is Ray Kokkonen. I'm the national vice-president of the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association, representing our president, Tom Hoppe, who is unavailable. I have no written statement to place in fro

Veterans Affairs committee  That's correct, sir.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think it's first necessary to understand that all of the peacekeeping veterans are in fact professional military people. And it can be argued that perhaps the only real soldiers were the ones from the war; however, of those people who did go through the war, very few of them re

Veterans Affairs committee  No, sir, that was a NATO—

Veterans Affairs committee  Clearly, the military has set standards of physical condition and injuries and disabilities. That has been tested over many, many years. If your military occupation demands a certain physical state, then if you don't meet that, you have the choice of either being transferred to a

Veterans Affairs committee  I would say it ranges from about 55 to 70. It bulks out between about 60 and 65.

Veterans Affairs committee  Regarding my statement about the statistics, of course we have people in their 40s as well, and possibly some over 70. I did want to comment on Mr. Allard's commentary. I think it was at the beginning of the transcript from the 5th of June. I think this number changed later on, b

Veterans Affairs committee  We welcome police officers as members, and in fact at this time I am negotiating with a retired RCMP staff sergeant who lives in Halifax to hopefully get him to set up a chapter of the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association in Halifax. He would then probably become the presid

Veterans Affairs committee  Our membership is based on the government definition of veteran, and I would like to return to the idea that a veteran is a veteran is a veteran later on. But yes, in that sense, all veterans can join, but there is no provision for civilians at this time with service in operation

Veterans Affairs committee  I am not absolutely certain, but at this moment I don't think the generic United Nations peacekeeping medal is given to civilians; however, I could be wrong. I'm not aware of that at this time.

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely. If I used the term “United Nations”, it was inadvertent because we know there are many--as we discussed here during the meeting about the Peacekeepers Day, and it was brought out very clearly--colours of berets out there, not just the blue. There's orange, there's gre

Veterans Affairs committee  In our association, as I mentioned earlier, the membership is based on being a veteran under the definition given by the government. It is basically someone who has held a military occupation code and was honourably discharged. This means that someone can belong to the Canadian P