Veterans Affairs Committee on May 11th, 2010

[Sean Bruyea]

Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

I just want to validate what you said. If it weren't for Carolina, then much of this advocacy work and the support would not be possible. In fact, I think I've grown over the years undoubtedly because of her.

Just to clarify, between the gerontological.... Were you referring to the new Veterans Charter advisory group?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Yes.

[Sean Bruyea]

Okay.

The recommendations there are all excellent, by the way. They did great work. I'm really happy that Muriel Westmorland was made chair. I had recommended her to be part of SNAG, and my 13,000 documents show that VAC then took that recommendation and put her in as chair of the NVCAG. Unfortunately, VAC never called me to say, “By the way, thanks for that good idea.” I never heard anything from them.

Anyway, she did do the work, and I think that's the important thing here. Of the 16 recommendations, all of them need to be recommended. If you look at them, they actually break down to about 85 recommendations, because there are sub-recommendations to each. As I said, there are an additional 200-some recommendations from the special needs advisory group.

I think it would be unfair to point out any single one that is better than another recommendation. I think the stuff they put in their report should have been considered before the charter was actually passed in Parliament, but now is the opportunity. I know it's going to be a lot of work for you guys, but we didn't do it five years ago; we have to do it now. I think we have to put it all in.

In terms of the family question, about Veterans Affairs passing on literature, I think there are two issues. As you know from watching Frasier, maybe losing the material that was supposed to be passed to my wife was subconscious on my part. But to be honest, I haven't seen any material that said “for spouse of Sean Bruyea”.

Perhaps, if we're concerned about having the husband feel isolated, singled out, or somehow inadequate—because PTSD has a huge shame issue component with it—the solution is to invite both members in, discuss with them, have an agreement made with Veterans Affairs, and have the suffering veteran agree, with the contract, that Veterans Affairs can deal directly with the spouse. I think that would then make the veteran feel important, because there's one thing about PTSD and the way that Veterans Affairs handles issues: veterans do not feel important; they feel demeaned; they feel as if they are being accused of fraud. The processes are so difficult. They will say, “I served my country. I didn't question or ask anyone to fill out forms when I went overseas and entered battle. Why am I asked, when I made that sacrifice, to fill out this ridiculous number of forms?”

As you've said many times in the past, Mr. Stoffer, if you're a veteran, that's the only qualification you should have: “Here, what can we help you with?”

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Bruyea and Mr. Stoffer.

We have a tradition of allowing the witness to answer at whatever length here in the veterans affairs committee. It's different from any other committee.

I was hoping to get two rounds in, but the final questioner will be Mr. Kerr for seven minutes.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It does squeeze our time way down. There's obviously a lot we could be talking about. I do want to say thank you again to both of you for coming in. It's a difficult topic, with difficult areas.

We're not going to even get near touching the sorts of things we could talk about. I agree with those who say a future time, a future issue.

I'm pleased you responded to Mr. Stoffer on the review committee's 16 recommendations. Because we have so much to focus on, we at least want to know that we have a core of things there.

I would like to raise the question of the ombudsman, and then I'm going to share my time with Mr. McColeman.

I was a little concerned about that, and I don't want to get into your personal details so much as that we were kind of exposed to the ombudsman as being very independent. He goes out and does what he wants to do and makes public statements, and so on.

You're raising a different concept on that, and I'd like you to expand on that just a little bit, because we feel that the ombudsman is an important component of a long-term process that works. I know he considers himself often to be quite independent and he's made that point quite clearly, so maybe there's more work to be done. But perhaps you could just expand on that, and then I'll go to Mr. McColeman for a second question.

[Sean Bruyea]

Super, and thank you, Mr. Kerr. I'm really encouraged that you guys are willing to not only consider those 16 or 85 recommendations from the new Veterans Charter advisory group, but also look at adding in from the 200 recommendations from SNAG, as well as my 55 recommendations that I've piled on top of you guys tonight.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

There are now 55.

[Sean Bruyea]

There are now 55.

In terms of the ombudsman, I don't know Mr. Stogran personally. There's always the problem in any organization that one individual may see himself as perhaps independent, as he does, but the functioning of the office severely hampers any independence he can have. His administrative control, his contract hiring, that's all done through Veterans Affairs. Even his web-based administration is all done through Veterans Affairs. My ATIP has to go through Veterans Affairs for that office. So I think those factors have to be considered.

The other one that has to be considered is that when he accepted that office, there were already people who were put in place by Veterans Affairs. These may not be bad people, but, for instance, to give you an idea of how they thought.... The ombudsman's office was already established. We're talking January 2007, a week before the ombudsman was appointed. I called up the ombudsman's office and asked them, “What's the status of the office? I might be doing an article, I'm not sure, but could you please tell me what's going on?” Well, that call was made, but an e-mail was generated at 9:49 in the morning and it was sent to the assistant deputy minister, as well as the media relations officer in Veterans Affairs. Let's get this right: I called the ombudsman's office, and they communicated with at least six other senior managers in Veterans Affairs at 9:49, to say, “Just wanted to give you a call, give you a heads-up that Sean Bruyea contacted Louise Wallis yesterday re the ombudsman.”

Within 12 hours, more than 12 senior managers were notified, including both assistant deputy ministers and the deputy minister, that I had contacted the ombudsman's office. This was obviously information that Louise Wallis passed on to the department.

So we have to ask.... Someone who has been placed there by Veterans Affairs may have all the good intentions in the world, but they're culturally tied to Veterans Affairs and not culturally tied to the idea of independent oversight.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Thank you very much.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you again for coming in and enlightening us.

There was some discussion during question and answer here about a real breakdown, a real disconnect on the education and communication side of things. Could you expand a bit on that? On this communication challenge, what are your thoughts in terms of recommendations as to making that a healthy connection?

[Sean Bruyea]

That's an excellent point, Mr. McColeman.

First of all, we have to show the veterans, in this committee's rewrite of the charter and recommendations, that there are going to be programs and processes in place. Only you can do that in Parliament. Only you can force Veterans Affairs to implement the programs that establish trust and build confidence once again. A lot of broken trust has been generated over the years with Veterans Affairs.

Once that foundation of solid, dependable, trustworthy programs is in place, then we go to the 30% hiring and we start employing veterans in remembrance; we employ them in communications about treatment benefits; we employ them in designing the pamphlets that are sent out.

We have creative, innovative ideas that adapt to the modern world, and not just mirror processes that have been followed for 20 years. These veterans then feel that they are included and they can reach out to their peers.

The OSISS network is a perfect model for that. It's small. We're talking about something much larger, but I think that's the way we have to start looking: first, the foundation of excellent programs; second, start involving the veterans in determining how that message should be conveyed and encouraging people to come in for help.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much, Mr. McColeman.

Mr. Bruyea, do you have any final comments before you depart today? We have a couple of minutes for that, if you would like.

[Sean Bruyea]

I just want to really thank the committee for looking at this. I think it's really important that the committee look at the fact that the reason the new Veterans Charter was created was that there had been 10 to 15 years of slightly negligent behaviour, abandoning the veterans. That was well-recognized. When the minister was before the Senate committee, she admitted in her speech that there had been adverse effects on this population of veterans. We were promised that the charter would address all of that. Yet when the charter came, it was more prospective as opposed to being retrospective in the way it dealt with the issues.

There are no intensive programs to help, as we heard from Mr. Zimmerman when he came in to talk to you. The long-term results for people who have been unemployed for a while are not good, as the statistics show. But why doesn't Canada step in, just as we did after World War II? Just as we rethought rehabilitation back then, let's rethink rehabilitation now.

The words “psychosocial rehabilitation” have been bandied about. It mostly applies to, and has been developed for, people with organic brain trauma, with schizophrenia, but it has some good principles that could be adapted. We could have our own definition of psychosocial rehabilitation to include transition from the military and taking people.... I believe that many of these veterans, as they've told me, want to work. They want to contribute, but they need some long-term coaching, some long-term psychosocial rehabilitation.

It's going to cost money, but what better investment can you make? The return is not only in terms of quality of life for the veteran, but also in terms of the taxes they are going start paying when they become employed. They're going to start paying them back to the very government that invested in them.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Bruyea and Mrs. Bruyea. Again, as I mentioned last time, I want to thank you for the great work you do with veterans. More importantly, I know the whole committee is appreciative of your service, Captain. So thank you very much.

[Applause]

We're going to suspend for a couple of minutes and then go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]