Invisible No More: Canadian Women Veterans
Moving the ACVA Report Recommendations
to Full Implementation
Our Focus
On July 12, 2024, the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs (ACVA) tabled its all-party-supported report, Invisible No More. The Experiences of Canadian Women Veterans. The report included 42 recommendations for improvements.
The Challenge
How to ensure the 42 report recommendations are implemented in a way that meaningfully reflects the perspectives of women Veterans?*
*Women Veterans includes both RCMP and CAF Veterans that self-identify as women or have XX chromosome sex-specific medical needs.
Our Approach
This project aims to become a gold standard example of what participatory action research (PAR), also known as community led research, looks like. By being centred on co-created, empowered engagement by and for women Veterans, this research hopes to set an example for future policy and academic collaborations.
Our research values and principles include:
» Veterans are not simply research subjects—they are co-creators of the process.
» The research process is completed through a trauma-aware, military and RCMP culture-aware,
intersectional feminist framework.
» The research process is grounded in naming lived experience as a type of action-oriented
subject matter expertise.
Why This Research Matters
All Veterans deserve to be seen and honoured—to not feel invisible within their family, their workplace or the Canadian community at large. This project ensures this milestone parliamentary report’s recommendations are implemented in ways that meet the needs of women Veterans.
This research project, “Invisible No More: Canadian Women Veterans Moving the ACVA Report Recommendations to Full Implementation,” is supported in part by funding from Veterans Affairs Canada and from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
