Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I can start. I absolutely agree, and as you can imagine, there are a number of challenges with having sites overseas. We have 14 sites. Two of them are national historic sites. There are a number of organizations that we work with on a regular basis. Some of them

Veterans Affairs committee  Sure. Before I hand it over to Paul, I was reading a stat the other day that 21% of Canadians were not born in Canada, so what you're saying is absolutely true. The profile of Canadians has changed dramatically, and certainly in little old P.E.I. we are seeing this as well. Part

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, that is certainly a good point. The RCMP members put themselves in harm's way like everyone else, and they are considered veterans. They are even involved in some of the overseas conflicts. We need to keep this in mind when planning our commemorative strategies or ev

Veterans Affairs committee  I must mention that our department has liaison officers who are RCMP members. So that collaboration continues.

Veterans Affairs committee  I've certainly recognized it. I am forever invited to go to Mount Stewart, not far from town here, to attend their ceremony and represent the department. I've noticed that the crowds are getting bigger. As much as I would like to take the credit for the department, there are a

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I'll start with some of the challenges we face, and I'll let Paul wrap it up. I will tell you that we've been working hard with our partners at Heritage and the National Capital Commission. Of course, the pandemic hit. We've even done some things like use drone image

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely, one of the things we're focusing on is youth engagement. One of the ways we used to do that was to have youth guides at the Vimy memorial. They were really our youth ambassadors. We have them doing other commemorative activities right now, but we want to make sure we

Veterans Affairs committee  I would like to start by saying that we get a lot of requests in a financial year. A lot of organizations have built monuments or sites with private sector donations but have run out of funds because of the pandemic or other reasons. So they apply to the department for more fundi

Veterans Affairs committee  First, I'll say that it was very disappointing, I think, to veterans who were slated to go to the Netherlands 75th pilgrimage. It was very disappointing to staff, who had done a lot of work and were very much looking forward to this. I will say that for this I still have some hop

Veterans Affairs committee  I can confirm that the program does provide support for overseas memorial sites. That was the case with the Juno Beach Centre. However, in the specific situation you just mentioned, I don't know all the details. I don't know whether an application has been submitted. I could ask

Veterans Affairs committee  Are you talking about the support for the Juno Beach Centre?

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, that's right. The conditions have changed, because some small communities, especially indigenous communities, cannot afford to pay for an event or a monument. They have to share the costs. For these reasons, changes have been made. In some cases, the department will cover

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, there are a number of things. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, there's been a shift to the point where 94% of the veterans we serve are considered to be modern veterans. I don't like the name, but it's the one we're using right now. Post Korea would be another way

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, we've done a number of things and we've learned a number of lessons. When we realized that the ceremony for the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands was not going to happen, we had to immediately shift gears. I have to say that it tested the resilienc

Veterans Affairs committee  The department is certainly working on a strategy to make sure we are commemorating the modern veterans. We've shifted, over the past several years, from a more traditional, single large conflict type of commemoration, where you had a fairly homogenous group of veterans who serve