Evidence of meeting #46 for Veterans Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was things.
A video is available from Parliament.
8:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
It's over. Thank you, Mr. Miao.
Mr. Luc Desilets has the floor for two and a half minutes.
8:20 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Ms. Eichler.
Ms. Eichler, do you believe that the Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Canada perceive and address health issues specific to women in the military differently? Do they have different positions?
8:20 p.m.
Canada Research Chair in Social Innovation and Community Engagement, Mount Saint Vincent University, As an Individual
I don't see a huge difference. Both of those departments have been part of the same gender-blind institutional culture, so a lot of the culture we see at CAF, at DND, translated into that at Veterans Affairs.
If we look back historically a bit further, for so much of Canadian history DND, CAF and VAC have thought of women as “lesser soldiers”. We saw this in the early days of the veterans support programs being set up, and even in the way the early architects of the programs were talking about it. Women were not seen as fully-fledged soldiers. Then, in the 1990s, the institutions decided to take a gender-blind approach, and we see that across DND, CAF and VAC. My great concern now, which I see and I want to make a point of here, is that the trend I'm seeing is that all of these institutions are beginning to look at women and recognize women, but there's also this trend to lump together everyone who is not a white heterosexual male service member or veteran. We have a new problem emerging, in that everyone who differs from that norm is lumped together, and that's going to cause huge problems in the future as well.
I see this new trend across institutions, so what we really need is a sex- and gender-informed approach that does look at intersectionality—for example, the experiences of diverse women or how an indigenous woman in the military experiences service differently from how a white woman does—but does not lump everyone together.
8:20 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
My time is running out. I have a question that you will not have time to answer, but I have an assignment for you.
You said that a strategic research plan is needed. The further things go, the clearer this seems. Studies are scattered. There is duplication and redundancy and all of this needs to be cleaned up.
Since you won't have time to answer my question, would it be possible for you to provide the committee with some semblance of a strategic plan?
What would such a plan entail? Could it involve research chairs, perhaps Veterans Affairs Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces, as well as different research groups that work on women's issues?
Would that be possible? It would not be to produce a doctoral thesis, but to throw out some ideas that might be relevant to the committee. We could then consider them and use them as recommendations in our report.
8:20 p.m.
Liberal
8:20 p.m.
Canada Research Chair in Social Innovation and Community Engagement, Mount Saint Vincent University, As an Individual
I will say briefly that I have a long list of recommendations that are part of two recent reports I did related to this topic. I will share them with the committee, and I hope that a lot of those recommendations can flow into your study.
8:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you so much. Do not hesitate to send that to our clerk, please.
Now I would like to invite Ms. Blaney for two and a half minutes.
Please go ahead.
8:20 p.m.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you so much, Chair.
We've heard from a couple of different folks who have testified that they want the gender-based analysis done in VAC to be transparent. I'm just wondering if you share that perspective and if you can explain why.
If I could start with Dr. Eichler first, I would really appreciate it.
8:25 p.m.
Canada Research Chair in Social Innovation and Community Engagement, Mount Saint Vincent University, As an Individual
I would say that gender-based analysis plus is a mandate across government departments and, to be quite honest, it is relatively poorly done. In most cases, it is done in a superficial way and not in a very transparent way.
At the same time, it is a very important tool that government has, and anything we can do to get departments to transparently share those analyses would allow for external voices and expertise to evaluate and help improve them. These GBA+ analyses are not easy things to do, and I think everyone knows that. We are all collectively learning how to do them better. Sharing them in a transparent way would allow for that feedback, which would be really important.
Veterans Affairs Canada has a GBA+ strategy, but I haven't seen a lot of the analyses shared, so I would definitely encourage you to ask for those.
8:25 p.m.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
I am going to come to you, Dr. Breeck. I understand that there was a policy that ran successfully during operation Elsie. It would be very helpful if you would share that with the committee, to explain some of the challenges women face.
8:25 p.m.
Major (Retired), Co-chair, The Women Veterans Research and Engagement Network
Thank you. I wasn't expecting that.
Part of the network we are involved with includes the Women, Peace and Security Network. I hope that lens is part of this future study as well.
With the Women, Peace and Security Network, we have had access to things like the Elsie initiative through GAC, Global Affairs Canada. With lived experience as an ex-peacekeeper myself, we were able to work with the staff there, who had an opportunity to review the documents prior to a big meeting about what equipment is mandatory on all the UN missions.
Obviously, with my lens, one of the things that came up was that things like specula were available as standard on the UN mission only at the hospital level, the high level. We were able to make a number of these kinds of easy, sex-specific recommendations that these needed to be available at a lower level. Therefore, you don't have to send a woman outside of the mission to spend a day travelling—and often in UN missions they are at great risk when they are travelling—to access a speculum. Those recommendations, for the most part, I understand from GAC, were accepted at the UN level.
It's really heartening to be able to have a voice, as a veteran, and to find ways to be able to work together with government on things that we have lived experience with. I would love, at some point, to have an equivalent to the Women, Peace and Security Network and its relationship with GAC. Imagine what a group of women veterans like that could do to help CAF and VAC with the various issues we are still facing. We want to be part of the solution, but we need a way to speak.
8:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you Dr. Breeck.
On behalf of members of the committee and myself, I would like to say thank you to all three witnesses for your participation and for your amazing testimony today.
I would like to name all of you.
For this study of women veterans' experiences, we had several witnesses tonight: as individuals, Dr. Maya Eichler, Canada Research Chair in Social Innovation and Community Engagement, via videoconference; from the National Association of Federal Retirees, Ms. Sayward Montague, director, advocacy; and Dr. Karen Breeck, co‑chair of the Women Veterans Research and Engagement Network.
I want to thank all of you and the entire technical team that helped us tonight, our analyst, our clerk, and our interpreters.
Next week we will continue this study, and we have an impressive list of witnesses who want to come and participate.
Is it the pleasure of the committee that we adjourn? Thank you.
The meeting is adjourned.