Thank you.
I would like to discuss with you the written reply I received to a question I asked Colonel McLeod in November 2012. I spoke to him about the situation for reservists who live in remote areas.
Some soldiers who have served in Afghanistan live in remote areas. When these individuals return to their unit, they face problems when they try to get care. Care is not always available in their region. As we can imagine, there are not a lot of psychiatrists who specialize in post-traumatic stress syndrome outside the cities. So these people have to go elsewhere to get treatment, and in concrete terms, this means they have to take days off work. Most reservists do have civilian jobs.
In my letter, I asked whether there was some kind of financial compensation, and the answer was that in the Canadian Forces there is no program or benefit to compensate reservists directly for lost wages from a civilian job. The only compensation they receive is their salary as a reservist while they are receiving care and reimbursement for their travel expenses.
Some reservists who are corporals in the Reserve Force, for example, have a job that involves a post-graduate university degree. So these people suffer a financial loss. If they have to be absent from a job where they earn $50 or $60 an hour, or even more, and they only receive their reservist salary, it is complicated.
There are also the wives. In the case of post-traumatic stress syndrome, an effort is made to have the family participate in the treatment. But the wife does not receive any compensation.
In your opinion, are these shortcomings? If so, what could the government do to make up for them?