National Defence committee  I agree. With Petawawa, one of the problems, as General Jaeger said, is getting enough mental health care professionals there. Part of the problem is the number of mental health care professionals we depend on who are civilians. With Petawawa, we're dealing with the fact that there is a general shortage of mental health care professionals across Canada.

National Defence committee  Sir, I believe it would be best if they went to Veterans Affairs. We deal with people in the service, so I would really have to defer answering that question in detail to Veterans Affairs.

National Defence committee  I believe that each soldier who is released from the military has a transition interview with Veterans Affairs. That should give them the information they need on how to access those capabilities.

National Defence committee  I know that Veterans Affairs is working a lot more closely with us now. They are actually putting groups of people on the major army bases in Canada. That will facilitate this transition. Another possibility for somebody like the soldier you mentioned is what's called the regimental family.

National Defence committee  During their deployment, people have a leave period of about two weeks somewhere in the middle of their deployment. They can do what they wish with that. They can travel back to Canada, which is covered by the CF, or they can go anywhere else they wish at their own cost. That would be an example of that.

National Defence committee  With the decompression in the third location, they are taken specifically through some of the things that will help them reintegrate with their families. Amongst those is the need to have realistic expectations when they go home, and not to be living in fantasies. Another, for example, is that if the husband has been deployed and the wife has taken over responsibilities for the finances and all of the household care, and everything, when he gets home, it's unrealistic for him to expect to go right back to where he left off and to take control of those away from his wife immediately.

National Defence committee  The decompression in Cypress? No, sir, it's five days, and it's structured fairly clearly. Within that, there are four specific lectures given, and the soldiers pick two of those. So they are invested in the process as well, because they choose what they want. Again, as I said, the focus of this is mainly to prepare them for reintegration back home.

National Defence committee  Yes. The study that was done in 2002 showed that the Canadian Forces at that time had an incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder that was equivalent to the civilian population. With the deployments in Afghanistan, it has gone up a little bit. I don't have the exact numbers, but it makes intuitive sense in terms of the things the soldiers have been exposed to there.

National Defence committee  Yes, sir. Our intention is that none of the soldiers will suffer from a mental health disorder, an operational stress disorder, any longer than possible, and that they're picked up as soon as possible, given appropriate treatment, and returned to normal duty.

National Defence committee  We're just really getting the numbers coming in on that. It would seem to me, given that our soldiers are thoroughly prepared for the deployment, they're given realistic training before the deployment, they have social supports, they're educated on stress-related injuries, and there's the unit cohesion of the military family, all that makes a big difference as well.

National Defence committee  Sir, the purpose of the third-location decompression is to bring closure to the individuals with respect to the deployment, and also to facilitate their transition back to Canada and to their home life. We also provide, while they are there, education on operational stress injuries, and they have the opportunity to talk one on one with a mental health care professional if they wish to do that.

National Defence committee  That's kind of outside my lanes as well. In general terms, what I believe would happen--but I think you'd be better to ask a lawyer that question--is that the person, even if they had PTSD, would be responsible for their actions. That would not be an excuse. So if they did something, they would be found guilty.

National Defence committee  The military police are the local police.

National Defence committee  I believe so.

National Defence committee  Having said that, to the best of my knowledge, this is a very rare thing. Also, within the military--and our mental health people and the director of health services delivery could perhaps answer this better--if a person starts to have symptoms of PTSD, usually there is quite a protracted time before they would be released, if they are not able to return to service.