UK charity boss to advise on Canadian Veterans issues

A British charity boss has been invited to advise the Canadian Ombudsman on veteran’s affairs.

Dr Hugh Milroy OBE, CEO of Veterans Aid, has become an affiliate member of the committee that advises the Canadian Veterans Ombudsman, Guy Parent.
Mr Parent is the second holder of the office. He was appointed in 2010, for a five-year term, after a career of almost 50 years of serving Canadians in military and civil functions.

Dr Milroy, the only non-Canadian member of the committee, is a Senior Visiting Fellow at King’s College London and a former Royal Air Force officer. He has steered the transition of the 80-year-old charity (formerly known as the Ex-Services Fellowship Centre) out of relative obscurity to the position it now holds as the leading charity for UK veterans in crisis. Milroy is Chair of the Ex Services Action Group (ESAG) and has been courted by experts in Japan, Croatia, Canada, Argentina and the USA for his advice on social exclusion and veteran’s issues.

He said, “I’m honoured and delighted to have been invited to join this group. It’s important that experience and best practice is shared and I look forward to working with my Canadian colleagues.”

The advisory committee was established to provide advice to the Canadian Ombudsman on relevant veterans issues. Its role is to assist in promoting the well-being of all ex-Service personnel by identifying emerging issues of importance to the veteran community and providing advice to the Ombudsman on how best to give veterans a voice.

The Advisory Committee consists of the Chair, six military veterans’ representatives, one Royal Canadian Mounted Police veteran, and three professional advisors in fields of relevance to the work of the Office. There are also specialist affiliate members, like Dr Milroy, who provide advice to the Ombudsman on a needs-basis.

There are 90,000 men and women, including reservists, currently serving in the Canadian military and over 750,000 veterans. There are more than 5 million Veterans in the UK.

Late last year Dr Milroy spoke at Canada’s first Military and Veterans Health Conference in Kingston, Ontario. He was one of 250 international health professionals and academics participating in the groundbreaking forum and the only British contributor. The event, hosted by The Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s University in Kingston, gave participants an opportunity to share in the latest research advances in all disciplines associated with the health protection and care of Canada’s serving and released military personnel, aid workers, police, diplomats, and other Canadians exposed to dangerous and hazardous environments in the service of their country. This includes the through life effects on physical, mental and social health from such service on those who serve and their families.

Dr Milroy’s short stay in Canada was funded by the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman (OVO) but it enabled him to take part in a number of relevant initiatives. He briefed researchers at the University of Western Ontario who are conducting the first formal study of homelessness among the Canadian veterans community and shared his expertise with VAC staff in Toronto who are conducting a pilot project into working with street homeless veterans.