21st Century CF Support

Like his father before him, Matthew joined the Canadian Forces fresh out of high school. In the last several years, he has been deployed to several troubled areas of the world. He has witnessed traumatic war-time conditions and, at times, experienced enormous physical and emotional stress. He looks forward to the day when he can stay home with his wife and children but leaving his military family is an equally distressing thought. He is unsure what lies ahead for him and his family when his military career is over.

Matthew is not alone. In a few short years, our family of Canadian Forces clients is expected to grow to more than 50,000 people. Like Matthew, many will need support. That's why Veterans Affairs Canada has established a new task force to modernize programs and services for CF veterans and their families.

While it is too early to start making recommendations, task force members already know that some of the answers may well rest with services and programs that once were in place to help veterans of the Second World War make a successful transition back into civvy life.

The needs of older veterans remain a top priority for the Department. The work of this task force will not compromise the care and attention we give to them. Instead, we are confident that the lessons we learned through programs and services pioneered 60 years ago will help us to achieve an equally important objective: to make sure that CF veterans of the 21st century have the same opportunity to take control of their future.

To accomplish this, the task force is hard at work exploring how to:

• best help CF members and their families make the transition to civilian life;
• better harmonize government programs and services for CF veterans;
• redesign certain programs within our own Department so that they better support the special needs of CF veterans; and
• assist DND in recruiting and retraining the best.

We'll keep you posted on their progress in future issues of Salute!