Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs

Comité permanent des anciens combattants

For immediate release

Ottawa, February 08, 2019 -

Today, Neil Ellis, Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, tabled a report entitled Indigenous Veterans: From Memories of Injustice to Lasting Recognition.

“With this title,” said Mr. Ellis, “we wanted to highlight both the outstanding contribution of Indigenous peoples to Canada’s military history and their increasingly important place as members and veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces. During the great conflicts of the 20th century, Indigenous soldiers felt treated as equals but suffered many injustices once they became veterans. For today’s Indigenous veterans, the main challenges are increasing awareness of Veterans Affairs Canada’s programs and services and providing quality health care and rehabilitation services to those who live in remote communities.”

The report contains 12 recommendations and is divided into five parts. The first part describes the participation of Indigenous peoples in both world wars and the Korean War and how they were treated differently after the war in accessing veterans’ programs. First Nations veterans were able to obtain compensation from the government in the early 2000s. Métis veterans are now seeking similar compensation. The remoteness of Inuit communities limited their participation in those major conflicts.

The second part analyzes the current participation of Indigenous peoples in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), focusing on the measures the CAF have put in place to encourage recruitment. A special section covers the Canadian Rangers–a reserve force 5,000 people strong, many of whom are members of Indigenous communities–which provides a military presence in remote areas of Canada.

The third part describes the most difficult challenge Indigenous veterans face: the geographic isolation that limits the ability of Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) to provide services, particularly health care, at a level comparable to what is available in the rest of Canada. Various strategies are outlined to address the negative effects of this isolation while ensuring that communities are able to maintain their resiliency.

The fourth part analyzes the cultural elements that VAC must consider when offering programs and services tailored to Indigenous veterans.

The fifth part outlines three themes that VAC should consider examining more closely in the years ahead: better recognition of Indigenous veterans in the Department’s commemorative programming, the difficulty younger Indigenous veterans face integrating into Indigenous veterans’ organizations, and the importance of bringing Indigenous veterans’ organizations together in order to build stronger ties between VAC and the communities that Indigenous veterans live in.

To this end, the Committee recommends, among other things, that “Veterans Affairs Canada take steps to bring together representatives from associations representing Indigenous veterans so it can share information about its programs and help create an environment where they can regularly communicate their various concerns.”

Given that VAC’s service delivery is particularly problematic in the territories, the Committee recommends that “Veterans Affairs Canada work with the territorial governments so that territorial service officers working in Northern communities are able to offer locally direct access to Veterans Affairs Canada programs.”

The Committee members would like to sincerely thank the witnesses it met with in Ottawa, Ontario; Millbrook, Nova Scotia; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Six Nations of the Grand River, Ontario; Beauval, Saskatchewan; Victoria, British Columbia; and Yellowknife and Behchoko, Northwest Territories. The report can be viewed online on the Committee’s website.