The early 1990s saw itself punctuated by growing support for Canadian military families and the unique lifestyle challenges that affected their lives. In response to this movement, the Canadian Forces (CF) founded the Military Family Services Program, which was designed to provide families with coordinated and consistent services through Canadian/Military Family Resource Centres (C/MFRCs) located within each community and managed and funded by Director Military Family Services (DMFS).

Subsequent to the creation of this program, DMFS founded the Mission Information Line (MIL) to bolster the existing support available for families during peacekeeping operations. Established as a national 1-800 number designed to complement local MFRCs, the MIL featured a bilingual, 24-hour message box system that offered detailed reports about CF missions and operations from around the world, as well as a confidential counselling and information service that families could call to discuss their concerns and to obtain information and referrals.

In the 18 years since its inception, the MIL has evolved to meet the changing needs of military families, and as the nature of CF deployments has changed over the years from peacekeeping to combat operations and disaster relief missions, so has the MIL by enhancing its services to help families cope with new kinds of deployment stress.  

Today, the MIL has expanded and transformed into the Family Information Line (FIL), a dynamic, full-service program that offers information, support and referral services to all CF families, irrespective of whether a family’s loved one is deployed or not.