Evidence of meeting #16 for Veterans Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was study.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Les Peate  Immediate Past President, Korea Veterans Association of Canada

3:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rob Anders

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

We have yet another meeting of our veterans affairs committee.

Before we get to our witness, I am going to turn the floor over to Mr. Gilles Perron to introduce a substitute, or a new member of the committee.

3:35 p.m.

Bloc

Gilles-A. Perron Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

I would like to take two seconds to introduce Thierry Saint-Cyr. He is replacing Mr. Gaudet, who had to be absent today. Thierry will certainly do an excellent job, I am sure.

Thierry, I would like to welcome you to the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.

3:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rob Anders

Welcome, indeed. We look forward to your interventions, sir.

Of course, we're continuing with our study of the veterans health care review and the veterans independence program.

Today our witness is from the Korea Veterans Association of Canada, Les Peate, immediate past president.

Usually the witnesses are told 10 or 20 minutes. In this case, you were told 10, I believe, by the clerk. If you go over that and edge yourself up to 20, I'm sure we'll all be accommodating. Then we go to predetermined times of questions for all the parties, which we've all beaten each other up on, etc., early in the year and determined. It's all set in stone.

Now, sir, the floor is yours.

3:35 p.m.

Les Peate Immediate Past President, Korea Veterans Association of Canada

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

I appreciate the fact that we've once again been invited to appear before this committee.

I'm happy to say that since we were here last, a number of developments have arisen that are to our advantage. Perhaps the most significant thing is--if you'll bear with me for a little history--that for about 15 years we were concerned about the fact that many of our career veterans were suffering from pulmonary diseases, respiratory diseases, and a number of ailments we seem to suffer to a greater extent than the general public. We had one individual--I think I mentioned him last time, a chap named Carter--and just about every organ in his body was ineffective.

We were concerned because in Korea we were exposed a lot to DDT and a number of other harmful chemicals.

We took our concerns to Veterans Affairs. We did a study ourselves and we found that certainly there was a much higher rate of these disorders among Korea veterans than there was elsewhere.

The only problem was, we did a study they didn't like to accept because we sent out a random sample study with about twice as many participants as we needed, to be on the safe side. But when we sent the study to the units, our units decided they wanted to prove they were suffering, so instead of giving out the samples of the questionnaires at random, they gave them to people they knew were suffering from various ailments. So this tended to flaw our study a little.

We've been discussing this with Veterans Affairs, and one of the things they decided to do was sponsor a Canadian study. We even got as far as having a study team appointed and funds allocated. And then came an election, a change of government; we had changes of deputy ministers, and the thing was more or less on hold.

We've been dealing quite a lot with veterans associations throughout the world. We're part of an international group, and we found out the Australians had commissioned a study on the effects of Korean War service. We think their living standards are pretty much the same as ours, their diets are the same as ours, their income is the same as ours, their work is pretty much the same as ours, so what applies to Australia would probably apply to Canada. We spoke to a number of people from Veterans Affairs, and they accepted this.

I'm not going to give you the whole thing to read, but there are three studies. One is a cancer incidence study, one is a mortality study, and the other is a health study. I'm not going to read the whole thing to you, so you can relax.

These were studied by Veterans Affairs, and Veterans Affairs originally agreed to accept the findings in the cancer study. One of the things they found was that in at least eight forms of cancer, the casualty rate or the sickness rate in Korea veterans was significantly higher than in the general population. I think the overall average was about 23% higher than the equivalent.

Veterans Affairs accepted eight of the major causes of cancer--the ones that have the biggest difference--and they decided they would accept Korea service as a prima facie cause of the cancer. In other words, we thought this was a breakthrough, because instead of the veteran having to prove his ailment was caused by Korea service, now it was accepted it would be unless it was proven otherwise.

For instance, we had a few people who worked at Chalk River, so this could have been a little questionable.

This was fine, and as a result I'm happy to say that about six or seven months ago I had reports that well over 500 people who previously either hadn't applied for a pension because they felt they couldn't prove the cause or they had been turned down for a pension.... Over 500 veterans are now in receipt of pensions and treatment for these eight forms of cancer.

This is one thing, but we're still a little concerned, because as I mentioned, we had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, and heart problems, which a lot of our people seem to have at a much higher rate than the general public. We went back, and the same study team took a look at this and looked at the other Australian study, which dealt with ailments other than cancer. As a result, we now have a policy, and when your material comes around you'll be getting a copy of the press release that went out.

During the last year, it was decided that if any veteran is suffering from chronic obstructive lung disease, as they put it, which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, or from arterial sclerosis and related ailments, once again, if they served in Korea during the period 1950 to 1956, that would be accepted as a cause, unless proven otherwise.

This is the one we won. We're rather pleased with that one. I must give credit to the team in Veterans Affairs. If you want names, the guy who did the study was a gentleman by the name of Dave Pedlar. They are the people who really worked on it, and they saw it our way. As I said, I think Veterans Affairs deserves credit. They get a lot of blame—people say they're trying to take our pensions away and trying to deprive us—but in this case I think they went out of their way and devoted a lot of time to seeing that our veterans got what was due.

Those are the two that we won.

The next point that rather concerns me is that, surprisingly enough, veterans complain that they're not getting service from Veterans Affairs: we still have complaints about time of service and complaints about decisions. But one of the things that Veterans Affairs have actually been complaining to us about is that we're not having enough of our veterans apply for PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. They feel that many more of them should be claiming it.

We've put it down to the fact that in our generation from back in the 1950s, if you have sleepless nights or become an alcoholic or are nervous, you live with it. You're macho about it; you don't like to admit it. They sense it as a form of weakness to apply for a pension and for treatment for it. We're trying to educate our people on that one, and hopefully we will. Again, as I have it here, it's a proud bunch, and we hate to admit that our nerves have been affected by our experience.

Those are the concerns we have that are particular to our Korean War veterans.

I would point out that we are a member association of the National Council of Veterans Associations. Cliff Chadderton heads the group, of course. As a form of unity, and because they are in a way acting on our behalf, we support a lot of the initiatives they're coming out with. You may or may not know, but the NCVAC parliamentary submissions include possible medals for prisoners of war, people who were wounded, and at least a medal or a bar or some recognition for people who served at Dieppe and those who were in Hong Kong.

Among other issues we've been dealing with, one of the items that has been suggested, without too much substance, is that perhaps Veterans Affairs should have a separate department dealing with widows or widowers. In particular nowadays, we have more and more widows who are eligible for pensions or for VIP and who have a lot of concerns. It was the contention of many of the NCVAC groups that perhaps Veterans Affairs should give a thought to a widows branch, widows directorate, or something like that to look specifically at the concerns of widows.

In conclusion, I'd like to mention that like most war veterans, most old war veterans--we used to be the young fellows and they were the old guys--our numbers are gradually decreasing. The Korea Veterans Association has moved down from almost 5,000 to something like 2,400. The number of Korea veterans in Canada is hard to guess. Some of them are veterans of other wars, and the only ones we can really keep track of are the clients of Veterans Affairs. But we estimate that there are now between 12,000 and 15,000 of us left, out of the almost 28,000 who went to Korea.

That is all I have. As I said, I will be attaching the new policy that I mentioned, on the pulmonary and heart functions, together with a brief summary of what I've just said.

3:45 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rob Anders

Fair enough. You were just over 10 minutes, at 11 minutes and 30 seconds, so you're doing fine, sir.

3:45 p.m.

Immediate Past President, Korea Veterans Association of Canada

Les Peate

Oh, I did well. That's great.

3:45 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rob Anders

Yes, you did fine. Thank you very much for your presentation. I know that I've made some notes here.

We'll move on to questions.

Mr. Valley of the Liberal Party of Canada will have the first seven minutes.

3:45 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome back. It was close to the end of October 2006 when you first presented to us. We talked about a number of the same things. I was searching for my notes from that meeting, and you mentioned the three studies. When you were here, you mentioned that for one study, a lot of the recommendations had been adopted, but for the other two studies.... I'm not sure if “ignored” is the right word, but there wasn't a lot of attention paid to them.

Has there been any movement by Veterans Affairs in looking at those other two studies from Australia to see how we can benefit from them?

3:45 p.m.

Immediate Past President, Korea Veterans Association of Canada

Les Peate

Yes, there has. As a matter of fact, what happened....

This is the study. I'd be only too pleased to pass it around except that this is the only copy I have, and I had to scrounge for this one from the Australians.

Basically, they accepted pretty well everything that was in the study.

3:45 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON

In all three studies?

3:45 p.m.

Immediate Past President, Korea Veterans Association of Canada

Les Peate

All three studies. The first one dealt with cancer. Then one dealt with mortality; as the title suggested, people died from these ailments. The other was a health study that dealt with the incidence of the particular ailments--

3:45 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON

Which one of those...? The last time you were here, you mentioned that one of them identified 125 toxic chemicals.

3:50 p.m.

Immediate Past President, Korea Veterans Association of Canada

Les Peate

That would probably be the mortality study. The last time I was here, this was a separate study. This was conducted by an Australian--a colonel, as a matter of fact. I believe I passed around at the time a list of the toxic chemicals that our people were exposed to.

I suspect that this report was submitted to the Australian veterans affairs, and it may well have been the trigger that generated the more formal study conducted by Monash University.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON

So the Australians identified these chemicals that you had to use when you were in the field.

3:50 p.m.

Immediate Past President, Korea Veterans Association of Canada

Les Peate

Oh, that is still valid. I think a lot of these are mentioned in the studies as the causes. It was a Colonel Limburg, I believe, who came out with this.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON

The Gerontological Advisory Council in their report to us talked about the needs-based services. How do you feel that the Korean veterans were treated differently from the Second World War veterans? Or were they treated differently? I know that it took some time to recognize it not as a conflict but as a war.

3:50 p.m.

Immediate Past President, Korea Veterans Association of Canada

Les Peate

They were originally. There's one that affects me; I don't want to bring my own problem up, but I'll give this example.

If you served in World War II in an allied nation, whether it be Polish, British, French, or whatever, and you have lived in Canada for ten years, you're a veteran. If you served in the Korean War, although you were still an ally of Canada and you were in the British army, as I was, you're not a veteran by Canadian standards--at least not a war veteran; I'm a veteran because I served in the Canadian army afterwards.

So there are some differences. As I remember rightly, we now get pretty much the same benefits that those who served in the Second World War are getting. In fact, they extended it, I believe, to beyond the war. I think it goes up to about July of 1954, which is a year after the armistice, because the conditions were still there and they were entitled to the veterans benefits, just as people in World War I were entitled to them, I believe, if they served until sometime in 1946.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON

I would guess at something. I'll make a statement, and you can correct me. The World War II veterans are at a more advanced age. Many of them are in the last stages of their active living, in a way. The Korean vets' average age, I think we read, is 74. They are much more active seniors. I would think that we have a lot more to learn from the Korean vets, when we talk about post-traumatic stress disorder. They're still active in the community in many ways. They still have an ability to provide more information to Veterans Affairs in another study. I think you'd have a lot more to offer than some of your older colleagues who served in the Second World War.

3:50 p.m.

Immediate Past President, Korea Veterans Association of Canada

Les Peate

Yes, I think we have. We've been mentioning cases. As I said, the big problem is that people from that generation are reluctant to come forward. In this generation, things are a little different. For instance, I seem to remember that one person, who never went overseas, put in for post-traumatic stress disorder because his sergeant shouted at him when he was in basic training somewhere in Alberta. This doesn't apply too much to our people.

There's no doubt about it. The symptoms are there. What we're doing now is suggesting, perhaps, that rather than talking to the guys, we talk to the wives. The wives notice these things, so we should perhaps be working on the wives. We could ask if their husband gnashes his teeth in his sleep, shouts at night, has changed his habits drastically, has become a habitual drunkard, or is tense. If the guys aren't willing to come forward, perhaps the wives might. We don't know.

3:50 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON

You're refreshing my memory from that first meeting. We have a real window of opportunity to learn. It's unfortunate that it has taken us this long to get to it, but we are here now at this point. I'm glad you raised the wives, as you raised the widows and that it's up to the department to look after the widows.

So there's a real opportunity. You're going to have to help us with that, though, because we need to learn. We're just in the first stages of the post-traumatic stress disorder study and how it relates to the health of veterans.

3:50 p.m.

Immediate Past President, Korea Veterans Association of Canada

Les Peate

We'd be pleased to. Of course, in the First World War, they shot people for it. But now we appreciate it for what it is. If I remember rightly, some of the veterans in Nova Scotia have been really concerned about that. I've been hearing from our people out there that they're becoming aware of it.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON

We just had the opportunity to travel to some bases, and we were quite amazed to learn about the differences among the forces in how they treat their enlisted people right now and how they treat some of the people who have been released from the forces and their impressions of them.

To give you an example, in the air force, on some of the bases we visited, they were much more serious on small....

Maybe I'll get a chance to talk to you again, but the grinch over here has cut short my time. Thank you very much.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rob Anders

By the way, I thought that was a fascinating observation, that PTSD in the First World War was treated far differently than it is today.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Valley Liberal Kenora, ON

It was more sudden.

3:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rob Anders

Yes, indeed.

Mr. Valley has already been written down for his next opportunity, which doesn't preclude, of course, Mr. Russell. So there we go.

We'll now go to the Bloc Québécois and M. Perron pour sept minutes.