National Defence committee  It's a good question. It is quite a transition that one undertakes, going from civilian to military life. One of the things we have introduced into the recruit training—I believe it happens in week two—is that they undertake a program called road to mental readiness. In addition to their learning about the culture as they go through their basic training, we also address with them knowledge about mental illness and strategies to deal with stress.

National Defence committee  I think we went through a tremendous effort probably three years ago to try to create staff pools to fill the types of positions that we needed to fill. We had the approval authority for hiring delegated down, actually, to the individual who preceded Andrew in the position of director of mental health.

National Defence committee  I'm not aware that it ever happened.

National Defence committee  With respect to our civilian workforce, I think we're doing not too badly with retention. We still have challenges with filling civilian psychologist positions and having them stay with us. From a military uniform perspective, we have challenges with our uniformed physician cadre, in that attraction and retention have become an issue for us.

National Defence committee  I'll ask Colonel Downes.

National Defence committee  When soldiers are vaccinated for deployments, yes, they meet with a clinician and are advised on what the vaccines are. We do a screening for contraindications, allergies, and those kinds of things. They don't necessarily sign an informed consent, but the discussion is with their clinician as to whether or not they want to receive the vaccine.

National Defence committee  The percentage of positions filled fluctuates. It is nearly impossible to reach 100% and sustain 100%, just because of the natural turnover of staff, which goes on in every organization. Right now I believe we're sitting at about an 8% vacancy rate, of which about 7% are clinical care providers.

National Defence committee  I don't know if I have a percentage.

National Defence committee  I'm not sure it's my place to advise you, from a political level, as to what you can or cannot do.

National Defence committee  It is not exactly as you have presented it, in that physicians in the military evaluate employment limitations. They don't make a decision as to whether or not it's going to result in somebody being released. It's the DMCA that makes that decision. Our physicians don't actually make a decision with respect to attributability to service at the present time.

National Defence committee  These numbers do not include the veteran population. They're strictly based on serving members.

National Defence committee  We have been working with Veterans Affairs. The first time we did a report that included veteran population suicide rates was a Canadian Forces cancer and mortality study that we did. That was the study in which we identified that there was perhaps a 1.5 times greater risk of suicide in veterans.

National Defence committee  At the present time, there isn't a clear delineation of my authority over clinicians with respect to the work that they do, in fact. Primarily, my authority is through the chain of command at the present time.

National Defence committee  The clinicians are answerable to me through the chain of command, yes.

National Defence committee  We have seen no evidence to date of mefloquine's relationship to suicide. In fact, if you look at our current data with respect to our mefloquine use and our data on suicide statistics, starting in 2003 the use of mefloquine in the Canadian Armed Forces started to decline from about 85% to where it is today, at about 5%.