I don't think I have five minutes, but you never know.

I'm Marie Blackburn and I am the executive director for the Veterans Association Food Bank in Calgary. I want to thank all of you for your invitation to have us here today. This is such an important thing. It's always good when we can work together to improve the quality of life for our veterans.

I started the veterans association as there are many veterans out there who don't have access to Veterans Affairs because they weren't medically injured during their time of service. We fill that gap for other people. Our goal is simply to prevent homelessness, hunger, isolation and ultimately veteran suicide. When you have those first three in place, you give people hope for the rest.

When I was asked to participate, I was happy to contribute information that can hopefully be a learning experience for all involved.

In my past six years of assisting veterans, I've heard stories from indigenous veterans in particular that are disturbing and very sad.

I had a woman veteran who required shelter after her house had burned down. We usually call Veterans Affairs first to see if they can help with some of the assistance. The Veterans Affairs worker said to me that she couldn't give her the money directly because they just drink it away. I asked if that's because she's indigenous and she said that yes, that's the way it is. I said that I happened to be indigenous too, and that I don't have the same sentiments as she did.

When I encouraged the woman to talk to Veterans Affairs, she was terrified to report anything because she didn't want to lose the benefits that she had. With my confidence to her, I'm not allowed to say anything, but things like that are happening quite frequently, whether you're indigenous or not. If there is something that's happening between a worker and a client, they are not reporting it because they are afraid of losing things.

My other story is a little bit worse. I was told this by another lady veteran who served in Afghanistan and is pretty highly decorated. She needed help with a back injury claim. The Veterans Affairs worker said to her that if she can lie on her back to get pregnant, perhaps her claim isn't all that valid.

I've had indigenous veterans who have never had a claim generated because they were told they were not eligible, even though they clearly were. I've been told that once they transitioned out, they felt they had no support from Veterans Affairs whatsoever, for whatever reasons.

Our organization has built positive and strong relations with Veteran Affairs and is now addressing claims for indigenous veterans. It may not seem like many, but to date we've helped out eight to 10 veterans who, over the past 15 to 20 years, have been told that they weren't eligible for benefits or were too scared after the first denial to try to do anything different.

We know that those numbers will grow now that they have a safe place that they trust and that we will at least advocate for them and hope that they can get the benefits they're entitled to.

I do believe that teaching so many people about truth and reconciliation opened the doors for people to be more kind and understanding. Opening a door where they can actually come to us—Tommy is a big advocate for what we do—means these indigenous veterans will now start getting some of the benefits that they've been entitled to for many years, but have been denied.