Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon. My name is Colleen Soltermann. I'm the director of outreach, consultation, and engagement at Veterans Affairs Canada. Here with me today, as the chair indicated, is my colleague Krista Locke, who is the regional director general of the Atl

Veterans Affairs committee  We've been focusing in the last year on working with our Canadian Forces bases and reaching those members who are serving, as well as veterans in the community. We understand that in many cases CF veterans tend to locate near the bases in which they serve, so we focused on that.

Veterans Affairs committee  I can help answer that question. I'll start off by saying that the department is currently developing a comprehensive strategy for homeless veterans. We're focusing on key areas that are within VAC authorities at the present time. These include prevention, outreach, strategic par

Veterans Affairs committee  My area—the outreach, consultation, and engagement directorate—was established just a bit more than a year ago. My main mandate is to ensure that we have an integrated, coordinated approach to consultation, engagement, and outreach. Veterans Affairs Canada, through various indiv

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll let Krista speak a little more about how the community covenant unfolded in Newfoundland.

Veterans Affairs committee  We've had great success with our social media tools, our Canada Remembers or remembrance programming. I think now we have over half a million followers on our Facebook page. We've been able to reach many, many individuals through Internet-based tools. We're learning from what we'

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll tell you a little bit about the structures we used to have in place. We did, in the past, have advisory committees, or “groups” as we called them, that existed until about a couple of years ago. They issued, in fact, a number of reports making recommendations. In the mos

Veterans Affairs committee  Veterans Affairs Canada has implemented more than 160 of the 250 recommendations. There are many recommendations that have been made from outside of government, from individuals, but the ones I'm talking about are the ones we formally had from those advisory councils that had mad

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm not as familiar with our Twitter account. I'm a little bit the same as you on some of that new technology. Mr. Chair, if there is an announcement that's going out, we take advantage of Twitter to create some awareness. We send it out. There are some people who subscribe an

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm not necessarily the best person to answer that. However, from the perspective of using social media as a whole, we've had much success with our Facebook page and our YouTube account. They've been cited as good practices by those companies. So we have been on the forefront of

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll speak to that. Typically, the people who would come to focus groups would probably depend on what you're trying to achieve with the focus groups. We're carrying out some focus group work, and at this point we're recruiting participants to join our focus groups. We have two

Veterans Affairs committee  My team was put in place a little over a year ago, so we're still in the learning phase, the development phase of where we want to go. Our younger CF veterans are often out in the community, but they're often also using technology a lot more than we have in the past. While not fo

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you for that observation. We are continuing to promote the use of our Twitter feed. It's a good observation, and I am going to bring it back to the department so we can look into it. I'm not necessarily the best person to answer your question, but it's a good observation.

Veterans Affairs committee  Okay.

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't have an answer for that. I can't explain the department's approach in that respect. I know the technology is something fairly new for the department. I'm not the best person to explain the difference, but I can certainly provide you with that information if necessary.