Veterans Affairs committee  We received $245,000 from the veterans.... It was specifically aimed at reducing the backlog of veterans who were waiting to go on the COPE program. We've spent all that money.

Veterans Affairs committee  It reduced the wait-list by half. I think it was a wonderful initiative from the government. One of the things we say is that nobody's “the” solution. The government's not the solution; the charity's not the solution, but together we can have some strategic partnerships and some

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  I can only speak for Wounded Warriors Canada and tell you that any government money that we receive.... We will always fund our operations and stuff through the charities to remain independent and agile and do the things we're doing, but if the government wants to partner and hel

Veterans Affairs committee  You can't assume that just because a person is a veteran that they can be helpful. You have to leverage the strengths of veterans and couple it with people who are experts in certain fields. For instance, on some of our programs, and I'll take COPE as an example, the clinicians

Veterans Affairs committee  There are some services such as Trafalgar treatment centre in Port Hope. It recently brought on a veteran who went through their programs to be their consultant and their way in so that veterans would feel more welcome, so they could speak to that without changing the evidence-ba

Veterans Affairs committee  I think you're right, Erin, that veterans naturally need to go to someplace where they feel they're understood. When we're trying to certify clinicians in our programs as Wounded Warriors Canada clinicians, we have three criteria. If somebody is a good individual counsellor, that

Veterans Affairs committee  You mentioned service dogs. As program director of the the largest funder of service dogs for veterans in Canada, I can tell you that it's a misunderstood field in many ways. A service dog, although it can change and literally save lives, has to be introduced into a stable enviro

Veterans Affairs committee  Do you want us to have a comment on the pension for life? Oh boy.

Veterans Affairs committee  One of the ways of making sure that some of these links carry on—and there are some duplications, of course—is to fill gaps. The reason we don't do a peer support group is not that we don't think peer support groups are good and necessary, but that other people are doing peer sup

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll step back a bit. You were talking about families. I can say, from Wounded Warriors Canada's perspective, that the greatest ask for programs, our programs that are in the most demand, are those that deal with family relationships, because having a healthy family is the first

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a loaded question. I guess you'd have to decide on what level of physical or mental impairment, and what jobs.... I mean, it's really a loaded question. Part of the culture of being together and being in uniform is that you're all basically on the same playing field. You

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. On behalf of Wounded Warriors Canada, let me begin by thanking the House committee for its hard work in addressing the important issue of homelessness among Canadian Armed Forces veterans. I know this committee has probably he

Veterans Affairs committee  It's important to know the landscape and to know what's out there. It's a good question. It's been alluded to a number of times concerning cooperation and overlap, etc. I think there's a kind of a myth that there is a whole bunch of overlap. The things we do are unique, and whe

Veterans Affairs committee  We've been at previous stakeholder meetings with the minister. We were at the one they held in Toronto at the RCMI, so we've had our input there. We can't be at all of them.