National Defence committee  Could I respond to that? No matter what area, we can always think of ways that government could be doing more. I'm not really judging whether they should be or not. One of the things that I would say is that if you've ever been to one of our tribute dinners.... Our tribute dinner in Toronto had members of the Canadian Forces and their families.

National Defence committee  No. Really, this initiative.... Part of the reason we don't deliver programs is that it's not our area of expertise. We rely on charities that are experts at delivering these kind of programs to make sure that the funds are disbursed to the right people who need the programs. As for the original intention of True Patriot Love, there was this feeling that there was such a disconnect between Bay Street and the military.

National Defence committee  Do you mean by the public?

National Defence committee  How they are cared for....

National Defence committee  I think that's a difficult thing to answer. What I would say is there are programs being funded that would not be funded if we weren't raising dollars to do so. As Mariane mentioned, the actual health care services are only one part of being a healthy individual, so there are supports that we can provide for families.

National Defence committee  Was it the ski program? Okay. Yes, we have provided funding for skiing for soldiers who have been injured.

National Defence committee  That's right.

National Defence committee  We have an application process that's laid out on our website. This year, there are three different rounds of applications that are happening. In order to receive funding, you need to have charitable status and you need to be able to issue a charitable tax receipt. Really, it's a question of looking at our criteria and filling out the application.

National Defence committee  Definitely, and this was what we heard a lot about at the symposium in Washington. This is why we think it's important to have . It can be really difficult. I take it that if you receive psychiatric services through the Canadian Forces, and the psychiatrist deems that you may not be fit to work, and to somebody approaching this it can seem like a very subjective thing, then why would you go ahead and do it, if you're putting your career at risk?

National Defence committee  They may be more reluctant to come forward because they're already in a situation in which people look at them and say, “You're a woman. Can you really handle this?” For them to have to say, “I'm not handling this” is a sort of double whammy for them. I think this is an interesting area, one on which the White House is currently doing quite a bit of research.

National Defence committee  We don't provide funding for services that are covered by government, so it wouldn't be direct therapy per se. That's already covered by public dollars. There's a range of things that we do. As I mentioned, some of it's around the retrofitting of vehicles and homes. We heard of an example where a soldier had to have a ramp.

National Defence committee  We haven't, but it has come up. They have never approached us for funding, although I'm trying to think.... Our ski program, Mariane?

National Defence committee  They initially had some funding through the Legion. They had some, and then they didn't have some, so we stepped in to help out with that program. The most recent funding that we gave them was for a pilot program out east. They are affiliated with UBC; it's all out of UBC. We were looking at the work they were doing and thinking that this peer-to-peer support seems to be a really effective way of getting individuals who have been part of the military culture to talk about some of the challenges they are facing.

National Defence committee  That's our plan. We gave them money a few months back, and I think they're set for this coming year, but I'm sure we'll hear from them again.

National Defence committee  It's an interesting comment. One thing we have worked closely with Colonel Jetly on is figuring out, if you think about health services that the CF funds, it's where there is that empirical evidence, and that makes sense. I think the opportunity for an organization such as ours lies in the ability to take programs about which people such as Rakesh Jetly, when they look at them, will say there may not be any empirical evidence or all kinds of studies done to support them, but at the same time there are examples of positive outcomes coming out of them, and it doesn't seem to be harming anybody, and we think they're doing some good.