Veterans Affairs Committee on May 13th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Kerr and Madam Burke.

Now to Mr. Oliphant, then Madam Sgro, for five minutes.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I want to begin by thanking our interpreters. Thanks to them, we are able to speak to our witnesses in either French or English. That is one advantage of a bilingual institution. Thank you for your professionalism and hard work.

I have two questions.

First, I'm wondering if you can quantify—and you may not be able to do it today, you may need to do it in a written submission—the training or expertise exchange that is going on between the centre and research capacity and ability on mental health issues particularly, and the caregivers who are the service deliverers. How much money is spent on that? How many trips are there? How many conferences are there? What kind of a learning exchange goes on? I've heard there is one, but I am doubtful it's big enough.

[Janice Burke]

I can't speak to how much it's costing to do that, but I can certainly emphasize—and this is another tremendous capacity that we have with our operational stress injury clinics, the ten clinics we have across the country—that they are involved not only in outreach to the community and to the physicians in the community and the providers, in terms of educating, best practices around how you treat people, but they're also involved in research. They're also affiliated with the universities, or defence, or the Canadian Institute for Health Research--they're affiliated with that as well--so they're looking into some very interesting kinds of research, things like resilience and risk factors for post-deployment, for injured, such as why it is that some people go through traumatic events but come out the other end fine, while other people do not. I mean, they're looking into a lot of different research, and the clinics are a prime area for that in terms of data and that kind of thing. So there's some really interesting research.

We're also looking at integration of our veterans into the workplace. That research is happening. We have, for example—

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

If I could, then, get a little bit of quantitative detail on that, in terms of hours or numbers or dollars, it will be helpful. I suspect I'm going to be advocating for more, no matter what it is, because it's my job. And I think it will help you, if I have the numbers, to demand that your minister goes to Treasury Board to get more money to do the kind of work I think is necessary.

I'll also be advocating for two centres of excellence, and I have already made this public. We need Canadian-born research because I think the cultural context of soldiers returning to Canada is different from the cultural context in the United States. There's a different sociological reception. So I'm pushing hard on a Quebec centre and an Alberta centre,

two centres of excellence in post-traumatic stress research and the research of other mental health conditions.

I was going to ask about dental care and teeth grinding, frankly, with respect to post-traumatic stress disorder, and the difficulty some veterans are having in the bureaucratic maze they're going through. They are grinding their teeth because of PTSD, it's been acknowledged, but they can't get crowns replaced because of the rules. Can't we get more flexible on this?

[Janice Burke]

I could perhaps answer that, only because of my previous life in the disability pension program. Bruxism, or people who have had problems with that.... Certainly it's acknowledged that it's consequential to PTSD, and we've done that. So if there's a disconnect between the award that's provided and then the treatment.... Again, it's all in their benefits grids, and things are mapped. It's definitely something we should look into. But it's certainly recognized, and it's an unfortunate consequence, again, of PTSD.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I had no idea what bruxism meant.

[Janice Burke]

I'm surprised I remembered it too.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much.

I want to ask, Madam Burke.... We have four minutes, and I'll give you a brief moment to summarize, if you wish. Did you say there are 500 CF members right now who have post-traumatic stress disorder and are still in the service?

[Janice Burke]

Yes. Well, actually, 50% of the clients who have Afghanistan service are still in. But in terms of the overall population of our clients who have a psychiatric condition, because it's more than only clients who have had deployment to Afghanistan, it's 12%. So 12% of our clients who have psychiatric conditions are still serving.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Am I wrong in saying that this in and of itself is a large paradigm shift? Ten years ago, if you were diagnosed with PTSD, you would be discharged. Is that correct?

[Janice Burke]

Yes, absolutely. I think that's a really positive story as well, because it shows they're getting early treatment, early intervention. Things are happening in terms of reducing stigma in the military. That has the effect, then, of keeping people employed in the military, which is where they want to be. So it is a good outcome.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Well, Mr. Stoffer's the only one who was.... This committee's only been around since the 39th Parliament. At the beginning of the 39th Parliament we were hearing there's still a large stigma. To hear now, already, that there are that many who are still enlisted is something that's very heartwarming, actually.

[Janice Burke]

It's starting, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Do you have any closing remarks, Madam MacCormack?

[Brenda MacCormack]

Yes, I'd like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak to you today to explain more about the new Veterans Charter. I hope we've been able to convey some messaging about what's different with the new Veterans Charter in a positive way. As we move forward, I think it's important for us to maintain the foundation we've built but to take a serious look at where there are fundamental gaps in terms of meeting the needs of individuals into the future. We're absolutely committed to doing that, so thank you.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much. Thank you for your good answers and your service to veterans.

I want to advise my colleagues, because we're going to constituency week now, you have a new calendar that the clerk has provided based on all the agreements we made in the last business session. Our witnesses will be Francine Matteau and Harold Leduc when we return.

Yes, Mr. Vincent.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

It has to do with the new calendar. I noticed some changes. The old calendar we had in March included a study on suicide, and it is no longer there. But I think we agreed in March that one of our next studies would focus on suicide.

On Tuesday, I found out that we would be studying veteran homelessness later. But I did not understand that discussing it in the steering committee automatically meant that we would study it. In March, I thought that the calendar had been determined and that we would be studying the issue of veteran suicide before the end of June.

I understand that Bill C-473 takes precedence, because it is a bill. We did not object to that, because that is how things work. But when I looked at the new schedule, I was very surprised to see that the study on suicide had completely disappeared and was no longer on the calendar for the months leading up to June.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

The suicide topic is still on the list, Monsieur Vincent. However, because of the time constraints and the other parties we had, that's what the committee agreed upon until the rising in June. When we get back in September, we'll have a business meeting right up front and then we'll see what's left on the party list. The committee will decide as a whole what will be the first priority.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

But if we do not have enough time to study it before the end of June, it will take priority when we reconvene in September, correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

That would be the determination of the committee, not my determination, Monsieur Vincent.

I really need to adjourn the meeting; we have other members who have committee obligations.

The meeting is adjourned.