National Defence Committee on March 27th, 2013

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I was just told that the vote may be deferred.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

The bells are not ringing yet, so keep talking.

Might it be deferred?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

It's deferred for 30 minutes so we might have a few more minutes, if you permit, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We're supposed to be here until 5:30, so keep going.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Okay.

Colonel, thanks to you and your team for this session. It really is hugely important to our study.

You have a unique take on the recovery process of the ill and the injured. I'm going to give you a double- or a triple-barrelled question here, but you mentioned that the woundedness of those who are injured is partly spiritual. Tell us about the spiritual side of healing in your experience. This would be subjective, I'm sure. Is it a leading indicator, a lagging indicator? Is it something that goes alongside physical recovery? Give us a bit of perspective on that.

Second, our Canadian Forces go into operations, deployments, with excellent morale rooted in their values, rooted in their faith in many cases. How do they come back with those values and that faith when they are ill and injured?

I've certainly heard stories, which tend to be the ones that come to the fore, where the spiritual side of the person who is a victim of an attack has been deepened, but you have a much broader experience. I'd love to hear your perspective.

Finally, you mentioned the commitment to diversity. We all celebrate it in your service and your branch. I come from a very diverse riding. Many of us around the table do. Do we have Orthodox priests? Are we looking at Hindu pandits, Buddhist monks? Do we have diversity among the Muslim representatives of the chaplaincy at the moment, Shia, Sunni etc.?

I know that wasn't one question, Chair, but I think we might have a little more time.

[Col John Fletcher]

We might have to stay after school.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Col John Fletcher]

You may need to refresh my memory on these three points, but I want to go back to the first one you mentioned about a lagging or leading indicator for physical healing and spiritual healing. I think you see both.

In some instances, you will see people whose physical scars and wounds heal quickly, while the spiritual, emotional, and psychological pain will rest with them for years. Others will seem to come to a peace with things spiritually and psychologically sooner, and that actually often affects how they address their physical wounds. You see some of the courage of our amputees, and that comes from a deep place. I don't think they can get there until they've dealt with some of those spiritual questions. I think it's a bit of both.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Values, then...?

[Col John Fletcher]

Yes, values.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

And faith among them...?

[Col John Fletcher]

I agree with you. I think that for a number of people their faith becomes shattered by these experiences. Other people come back deepened, deepened in a belief and commitment that what they were engaged in was of incredible value and that they made a significant difference. Others will come back having lost their sense of God. On that spectrum, it's pretty tough to know what might have caused that divergence of opinion. The important piece, from our perspective, is to meet them wherever they're at on that spectrum and to help them wrestle with the consequences and the questions involved in where they're at.

I've always said that for a chaplain the spiritual agenda is never ours. It is that of the soldier, the sailor, the airman, or the airwoman who we're dealing with, or the family member, and our job is to meet them where they're at and to journey with them on a spiritual journey that is properly their own, giving them all the support and resources we can to accomplish that.

Regarding the question of diversity, yes, we do have an Orthodox chaplain in the chaplaincy, and I believe we're recruiting another one this year. We have I think three Muslim chaplains at the moment; they're all Sunni. The Muslim member of the interfaith committee, which is a civilian credentialing committee that has a statement of understanding with the minister, is able to endorse Shiite Muslims as well, if one were to apply and be accepted for service.

Essentially, there are 11 members on that body, that interfaith committee, and collectively they represent some 60 different faith groups and denominations in Canada. That, according to the 2001 statistics from Statistics Canada, would represent about 74% of the Canadian population. There are groups that don't have representation there yet, but we have not had applications from those groups.

I don't know where the diversity will go in the future. We certainly have policies and protocols by which we would handle applications for endorsement and potential recruitment from other faith groups. I expect that some of that increasing diversity may manifest itself more quickly within our reserve communities than in the regular force, because we have a greater level of diversity in our reserve community as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Just to follow up a little, what about first nations and other aboriginal groups? Do they have spiritual leaders, elders, who are serving in the chaplaincy?

[Col John Fletcher]

They don't.

We have aboriginal chaplains within the chaplaincy, but they're Christian clergy. A fair bit of time was spent with aboriginal elders to sort out how we would address traditional aboriginal spiritual needs. The determination was that to pursue having uniformed spiritual elders was not the option that was preferred.

What was created was an organization or a body that is in effect similar to the interfaith committee. It's called the Elders Council of Fire. Essentially, it becomes a body through which we would be able to source spiritual elders across the country. The policy framework for the Elders Council of Fire is there. We have not operationalized that as yet. How it works right now is that the chaplain becomes the point of contact for enabling aboriginal members to identify a desire or a requirement for elders services. We seek to provide those services in a way that's appropriate, because one size doesn't fit all, and the traditions are quite distinct. We journey with the aboriginal members to seek to identify those resources and facilitate access to them as best we can.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Monsieur Larose.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

May I ask one question?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

If Monsieur Larose wants you to go first, he can pass it on.

[Jean-François Larose, NDP, Repentigny, QC]

Sure. I can share my time. That's fine.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Chair, there is one question has occurred to me.

Who looks after you folks? You have a tough job. It has to be very challenging. You deal with trauma. You deal with all of this pain and suffering. Who looks after the chaplaincy and members? You are soldiers too.

[Col John Fletcher]

Thank you very much.

What I identified earlier as what I think is crucial to our successful management of the challenges before us, being rooted in community, is true for us as well. Chaplains need to remain well rooted and grounded within their own faith tradition. They need to maintain a healthy prayer and spiritual life. They need to be part of multiple teams. There's a fair bit of support that we can get from our colleague chaplains and our colleagues in the other disciplines we work alongside.

It's easy for us to say to a soldier that they shouldn't be reticent to ask for help, but sometimes we're the last ones to ask for help ourselves. We need to work at fostering a sense amongst our own profession that seeking help is the right thing when we need it. Many of our chaplains have spiritual directors. Members of the ICCMC, these civilian faith group leaders, who are endorsing representatives and are our links back to our faith groups, provide a fair bit of care and counsel to us as well.

We have a whole suite of possibilities. One of the projects in the campaign plan I was mentioning a while back is to develop policies and procedures for providing specialized chaplain care. I don't actually have to turn to another military chaplain to get counsel that I ought to have, there's maybe a civilian chaplain I can go to. We're trying to nail down how best to meet the needs in ways that would be faith-group specific and appropriate, and to ensure our chaplains are not falling through the cracks and are receiving the care that they so ably provide.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Monsieur Larose.

[Jean-François Larose, NDP, Repentigny, QC]

I had the same question as Mr. Harris.

I will use this opportunity to conclude by saying that I was also a reservist. We see that faith is being questioned in our society. Our military members—reservists and regular members of the Canadian Forces—are going through extremely difficult times. I want to thank you for the work you are doing. We often talk about physical and mental illnesses, but I think that, spiritually, questioning must occur in very critical situations. Your work is more than necessary.

I am glad to see changes in the support you provide to men and women, and your interest in considering all faiths and spiritual denominations.

Do you have anything to add?

[Col John Fletcher]

I will turn the question to Padre Yaskiw to answer that. As I mentioned, he's the only member of our staff in the headquarters who is a reservist. He brings a unique perspective to some of the challenges reservists often face that we regular force people take for granted.

I appreciate your comments, and I'll turn the mike over to Shaun.

[Major Shaun Yaskiw, Reserve Chaplain, Directorate of Chaplain Operations, Department of National Defence]

Thank you, Padre.

Certainly one of our ongoing roles and ongoing challenges is how we help foster community. Padre Fletcher mentioned that earlier.

Establishing, maintaining, and nurturing community within the reserve has its own unique dimension. Certainly reserve chaplains are themselves situated within their own civilian communities. They have a unique role as that intersection point within many of our smaller communities, which may have limited resources, whether those are health care resources, mental health resources, social support networks. Often it's the local parish priest, or in many places in Quebec right now, it's the school chaplain or school counsellor, who may also be a reserve chaplain. They are that focal point, around which they intentionally try to build community.

It's something we are intentionally trying to do within the reserve. How do we give reserve chaplains the tools, the resources, necessary to be able to do, in that context, what they do quite naturally in their civilian lives? That is, again, to help establish and nurture community, to meet the specific needs of those reservists and their families who may feel isolated. When isolation grows, along with isolation grows despair. It's that loss of hope that we're continually trying to work against, to help people, wherever they are in their spiritual journey, find places of hope and meaning where that's been damaged.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. Your time has expired.

We have time for one question from Mr. Norlock.