Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely, yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  I will encourage my colleague Amy Meunier to answer that. She is our indigenous champion and is also responsible for commemoration. Let me say that the work of reaching out and working alongside indigenous leadership has been really critical in that, so that the indigenous veterans and their communities that support them recognize the significance of their service.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's very much part of our consideration as we review all of the applications. I can tell you that, since the creation of the veteran and family well-being fund, close to $10 million has gone out to support women-led and women-focused initiatives through that fund, and we will continue to emphasize that.

Veterans Affairs committee  One issue that we do pay attention to and offer to any veteran is what we've termed as the "veterans emergency fund", which can provide a one-time payment of up to $10,000 to a veteran and their family who may be facing a difficult circumstance. We do offer that. We pay attention to the veterans who come forward seeking that and the circumstances they find themselves in.

Veterans Affairs committee  We are very much focused on the wellness of the entire veteran, including their economic wellness. We are constantly looking for ways in which we can improve that wellness, including economic wellness, through research analysis and engagement with the veterans themselves. We are looking for opportunities to ensure that their needs are being met economically.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think the clearest measure in all of this is how we are doing in responding to their particular requests for supports and services. That is in terms of the work we're doing with disability applications and other programs and supports, and being very serious about being responsive in the overall work on what we've all called the "backlog".

Veterans Affairs committee  That's absolutely accurate, and they all come forward with new considerations. Many of them are working regularly with veterans already, so they are identifying what initiatives they are already seeing as having an impact on veterans, so they're bringing that forward to us. With this support, it allows them to extend that work even further, and it's shown tremendous impact to veterans, again, in communities across the country.

Veterans Affairs committee  As we stated earlier, one of the principles is that the funds will be there for any veteran who requires a particular area of support from Veterans Affairs Canada, that is, from the Government of Canada. In this case, that $14.1 million was spread across 10 different programs to allow us to make sure that the funds were in place to meet the needs of the veterans who were coming forward to seek particular supports.

Veterans Affairs committee  We are committed to doing this regularly, and I think the minister underlined that commitment at the close of both the summit and the forum. The Women Veterans Forum is something that we have done, or tried to do, on an annual basis, and will continue to do so. The summit is something that we will aim to do every other year to really convene those stakeholder groups, those veterans, as well as others who are supporting veterans together.

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, in answer to Mr. Richards' question, we continue to monitor and try to get the number of how many veterans are homeless across the country. We work with partners who work with homeless Canadians regularly to seek to identify how many of them are veterans. We work with partners who are on the ground, supporting veterans who may find themselves homeless.

Veterans Affairs committee  We can't say the problem is growing by the count, but the seriousness and the urgency of responding to the problem have not changed.

Veterans Affairs committee  We are working now to confirm and will soon be announcing a number of supports across the country. The minister referred to rent supplements that will be provided and wraparound supports, working with partners located in places right across this country where we may find homeless veterans to provide those supports.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. This program has been really tremendous at building up capacity within the community to support veterans in various ways. It could be for veterans who are women who need particular supports, indigenous veterans or veterans who require specific care. Also, in terms of innovation with respect to both research and treatment, it's really built up a community of organizations that are very much attuned to and active in providing supports to veterans in community.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are a couple of things I would underline. First of all, I fully agree on the importance of providing trauma-informed training to everyone. That's something we are taking up in the department. There is mandatory and regular training and upgrading for those who are directly interacting with veterans.

Veterans Affairs committee  If I could, Chair, I will start and then invite my other colleagues to try to answer the questions from Ms. Blaney. First of all, as with other federal departments, we're very, very serious about the application of GBA+ in everything we do. We have mandatory training that everyone in the department has to undertake to better understand, better situate and better apply GBA+ in all that we do, whether that's developing new policies or considering legislation and regulation or programs.