Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 24th, 2023

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

It's embarrassing.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

It may restrict our ability to have hymns such as Amazing Grace, which are often sung at Remembrance Day services or commemoration services. These are some issues we're hearing from chaplains and others in terms of concerns they have about the upcoming Remembrance Day ceremonies. This is something that leaves a lot of questions to be answered, and that's why we need to move this motion.

We had the Minister of Veterans Affairs come to this committee and try to deny that this directive, first of all, even existed, but when I pointed out that it did in fact exist and that I had a copy, suddenly she said that she did remember there was a directive but tried to claim that it didn't restrict prayer.

However, there are a lot of questions that remain, especially given the radio interview. I have a transcript of said interview, which was on News Talk Radio, 580 CFRA. The director of chaplaincy services for the chaplain general—the office that wrote the memo—responded to a question from the interviewer, who asked if chaplains would still be able to talk about God on Remembrance Day. The colonel said that in faith-based settings and church settings, they will, of course, speak about their own faith and the role that God or their heavenly being has in that setting, but in a public setting, they will not use that language. In other words, they will not use the word “God”. They will not speak about their faith. They will not speak about a heavenly being.

That leaves a lot of concerns for many of our chaplains. I've heard from a number of them who expressed very clearly that they believe not only that the directive indicated they would not be able to do such things as pray, or mention a god or a heavenly father, but also that they have been told that very clearly.

Of course there are reasons they wouldn't want to speak publicly about that, but they have expressed these concerns that they won't be able to pray, or that they can't wear symbols, such as a cross or the Star of David, or...the Quran.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

This is during the session on women veterans.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

It's unfortunate that there's heckling in the room, but that's okay.

The problem is that these are questions people have. What will they be able to do? What will these chaplains be able to do? Will we be able to hear In Flanders Fields or our national anthem? Will they be able to pray at remembrance services?

There were a number of people who raised this. There was a release put out by Bishop Scott McCaig, who is the Catholic Military Ordinariate of Canada. He was appointed to that position by the Pope. He expressed a number of significant concerns that he would have around this policy, about the unfortunate effects it may have on undermining the morale of Canadian Forces members and their families, and about its significantly diminishing the efficacy of chaplains and also threatening the viability of the chaplain service itself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Richards.

I'd like to inform the witnesses—maybe the Honourable Beverley Ann Busson is aware of the rules—that the member has tabled a notice of motion. After 48 hours' notice, he can discuss it, so he can take the time right now. We can discuss it among the members until the end of the meeting or beyond.

I would like to let you know that until we have voted on that, we can't go back to continuing our discussions.

I have—

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

If I could, I would like to ask for unanimous consent—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

No, I am sorry. I have a list of four people. I have Mr. Desilets, Ms. Blaney, Mr. May and Mr. Sarai.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Well, I would have liked to ask for unanimous consent for another round of questioning before we engage in debate, but....

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

They say that they would like to intervene. There is no such time for those interventions, so I am not using those cards.

Mr. Desilets, the floor is yours.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to apologize to the witnesses on behalf of the committee. I don't know what else to do other than say sorry.

I want my fellow committee members to know that this is disrespectful and unacceptable, as far as I'm concerned. We have witnesses who have come here to share their heartbreaking stories, and this is where the discussion has gone. Giving notice of a motion is one thing, but monopolizing the discussion for 15 to 20 minutes is another, and it's absolutely unacceptable.

While I have great respect for the chaplains, I'll be voting against the motion because it falls under the purview of the Department of National Defence, not the Department of Veterans Affairs.

I think we should vote, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Ms. Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

He called for the vote, and I am happy to support that, so I would call the vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I would like to know if—

[An hon. member]

You have to vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I am going to ask the clerk to take the vote, please.

(Motion negatived: nays 7; yeas 4)

Thank you.

Mr. Richards, you have one minute of your intervention left. Please go ahead.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I appreciate that. Again, my apologies. Unfortunately, we don't have any way to move a motion other than in a meeting. I regret that you happened to be here.

I have very limited time left.

Dr. Rochford, you mentioned some of the challenges you face in terms of getting someone into your program and the bureaucratic and administrative hurdles you face. You got cut off. I wanted to give you an opportunity to finish any further thoughts you had on that.

[Dr. Christina Rochford]

Sorry; I lost my train of thought here.

Essentially the point I was making is how difficult it is to navigate the bureaucracy of VAC. In particular, the veterans do not have choice in terms of their treatment program and apparently, of late, with the outsourcing of services. They have limited choice in terms of their care providers, be it psychology, psychiatry, occupational therapy, physical therapy and so on.

I'm a proud Canadian. I'm a child of immigrants. I feel a lot of shame about the way our women veterans have been treated. Our military is more important now than ever, given the unstable and volatile nature or our interconnected world. Canada has a vital world to play.

Women are the fastest-growing group in the military and constitute more than 50% of the future recruiting pool—50%. This is really important.

I've reviewed a lot of hours of previous testimony in preparing for this meeting. I was, of course, struck by the devastating stories of suffering of these women veterans—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Dr. Rochford, I'm sorry. Time is over.

I have to go to Mr. Sarai for six minutes, please.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you.

I want to thank you all for being here today, and especially for your service, Ms. Rovak and Senator Busson.

My question is for the director of operations or Dr. Rochford of the Davidson Institute.

First, I want to thank you all for the work you do for women veterans and for advocating veterans' mental health supports.

The operational stress recovery program is specifically designed for female veterans and first responders and addresses critical issues they have faced. Can you speak about the issues that women veterans face most often?

[Dr. Christina Rochford]

Perhaps I'll turn it to our director of operations, Adrienne Davidson.

Would you like to speak?

[Adrienne Davidson-Helgerson]

Something that was interesting to us when we started this program was that we initially thought it would be mostly women with PTSD. That was the premise under which it was first established, but what we noticed was that almost every woman who came into our program also had the experience of MST, military sexual trauma. However, it goes beyond that into betrayal trauma and institutional trauma. A lot of this also occurred after women had transitioned into veterans.

The feelings of betrayal happen when somebody dedicates their life to this purpose—to keeping the country safe, as Anna-Lisa and the other veterans have said, like a blank cheque with your life on it—and are then mistreated with belittling, condescending and dehumanizing disrespect from the institution, from VAC, and there is a complete lack of transparency. There have been huge changes with women veterans' rehabilitation services that we haven't heard discussed in a lot of these meetings and that people don't even seem to know about because there's absolutely no transparency.

That's a concern for us. That is impacting the female veterans whom we see. It's not just PTSD. It's not just MST. They often try to put them in these little categories and say, “You have sexual trauma. You have PTSD. We can look at only those things”, but it's so much more complex. That's why you have to have these really holisitic, person-centred, very individual-focused programs and the training and the experience of the people delivering those programs. That's what our program offers.

A lot of the women we see have also been sent to addictions centres when they don't have addictions. They are just basically institutionalized because the military says, “Well, we don't know what to do with you. We don't want you to kill yourself, so we'll just chuck you in an institution and take away all of your privacy, your belongings, your autonomy and your dignity.” They may have a few counselling sessions, but there's basically no programming.

I don't want to speak too poorly of them. I'm sure some of them have good programs. I know that some of the bigger ones are not so good.

What we have to first, then, is undo the trauma they have experienced in these institutions.

A major overhaul definitely needs to happen in terms of understanding women's needs and the toxic culture that is happening in at least VAC. The toxic culture really happens when people don't understand other people's needs. The leadership really needs to understand women's needs, and then, as we see it, there needs to be a whole overhaul of the culture.

I'm not sure if that answers your question directly, but it's a complex issue and we can't just be narrow-minded about it. We need to let them make the decisions.

With a person-centred approach, the person, the client, is the expert. That's really important to empowering them, especially when they are disempowered. When you're seeking help, you are disempowered and you are feeling very low, so it's really important that we can empower those women. When we send them to institutions, strip away their power and make their dealings with VAC so complex, the people who really need help cannot get it.

The whole process really needs to be streamlined, simplified and overhauled completely. Women need to be allowed to make decisions on their health care because they're the experts.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

I have only a minute. Are you saying there's a systemic problem between the types of services offered to men versus those offered to women because they're designed for men in particular? Is that one problem?

Second, are you saying that the actual programming given to women is not suitable or ideal, given the trauma and the experiences they face?

[Adrienne Davidson-Helgerson]

Yes. This is a pretty common experience for women. The programs, services, products and things are designed based on a model for men, and that doesn't always translate for women.

A lot of the programs have been developed based on research on men with PTSD, so there's that aspect. It takes 10 years of research, really, to catch up on these things, but we do have a good understanding of what women need. The programs that are being offered to women are not appropriate most of the time. There are a few very small ones, but VAC should be identifying the ones that are really, truly tailored to women and should be sending women to those places.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Could you quickly share the ones that are appropriate? You can even give that afterwards.

[Adrienne Davidson-Helgerson]

Do you mean naming—