Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, thank you very much. Mr. McInnis will speak on behalf of the Legion, but thank you for that invitation.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much for the invitation to the Royal Canadian Legion to appear before you today. The Legion is a large national organization united around a common vision. For the first time in our almost 100 years of existence in serving veterans in Canada, we faced a challenge

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Brassard, we will certainly manage. Again, we appreciate the money that we have been provided through the VOESF. The $30 million was based on expenses that a branch would have incurred in the initial five months of the closure. Based on that average expenditure, $5,000 times

Veterans Affairs committee  We will forgo those reserves. The $14 million received will be for Legion branches only.

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely. I was approached, in fact, today, by a branch in Nova Scotia that had filed their T2 with CRA and received a response that they could not accept that filing because the branch was neither registered nor incorporated. Our Legion branches are not incorporated. The orga

Veterans Affairs committee  Thanks very much, Madam. The $14 million is going to be disbursed, as I've said, in a couple of disbursements this year and in 2021. There are 11 specific categories that the funding can be used for. We are not replacing lost revenue, unfortunately. We are looking to pay expense

Veterans Affairs committee  There are two things that I have heard. One, of course, is the fact that the majority of Legions are staffed by volunteers, so when those Legions applied, they were just not eligible for it. The other thing I heard—and this, specifically, was from the province of Quebec—was tha

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Desilets, absolutely. What we had to do is establish a baseline. We did not know what the branches require on an individual basis, so we have reached out with the application process. They are returning the demands to Dominion Command. We are going to take a look at what the

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm unable to give that quantitative amount at the moment. We have approximately 1,400 branches and $14 million, so if you did it proportionally each Legion would receive $10,000, but we're not going to apportion it that way. Some branches will receive more and some will receive

Veterans Affairs committee  We have sent an application form to every one of our branches for them to complete. They are looking at their 2019 expenses in 11 separate categories and putting down what they are requesting for funding for 2020 to meet the expenses in those categories. Each branch has to provid

Veterans Affairs committee  That is a very good question. That's why we're triaging the branches. Unfortunately, we know there will be more branches that will not survive, so providing funding to those particular branches is not going to add to their viability. Regrettably, we know there will be more closur

Veterans Affairs committee  No, it will not. That's why it's important that we work with our provincial commands, which know first-hand the financial health of every one of the branches, so they can best direct us on which branches need it and which ones, unfortunately, it will not provide assistance for.

Veterans Affairs committee  If it had been provided earlier, it would have.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you. The biggest thing I want to refer to is the Legion's primary goal of assisting veterans and their families. We have approximately 1,400 branches across the country, 1,400 service offices so that if a veteran is in need, they know exactly where to go. They can go to th

Veterans Affairs committee  That is correct, yes.