Veterans Affairs committee  According to the rules that we've looked at, I'm entitled to sit at the table but not to ask questions. I don't have the right to participate but I have the right to sit.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you. I'm not here to cause a problem. The clerk said I could come. So I'm not here to embarrass anybody. I didn't invent the rules. We'll have to just recheck that and make sure we're—

Veterans Affairs committee  No. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. David is here to slip pertinent notes to me every now and again to keep me on track, if that's suitable with you.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's Madame Ladouceur's first time in committee. She joined me not long ago. So it's an on-the-job-training experience. I propose to speak, hopefully not for 20 minutes, but I will power talk my way through a few points in order to give you a bit of information, and then I'll be

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for inviting me to testify before this committee, which is looking at the issue of health care and services provided to veterans, particularly at this time, given the new Charter and its repercussions on the services prov

Veterans Affairs committee  I think first, internally in Defence, although it is not the case, we have argued, and I have argued--and they are moving slowly--to change the culture with regard to PTSD as an injury. The macho dimension still has to be cleaned up, and that is ongoing. I think an absolute effor

Veterans Affairs committee  The charter is a living document, and one of the greatest things about it is that it gives the minister so much more power. It is not a charter that's in the hands of the technocrats within the department; it's in the interpretation and the philosophy of the minister. That has to

Veterans Affairs committee  In what riding?

Veterans Affairs committee  When I was commanding the brigade in Valcartier in 1992, there were soldiers in Yugoslavia. So we wanted to send people, specialists, to assess the nature of the conflict, see what the operations were and the work that needed to be done. At that time, we limited the number of ind

Veterans Affairs committee  People said it was ridiculous, that we needed guys with bayonets, that's it. However, we realized that these people have increased operational capacity because soldiers have access to counseling services. I want to give an example. In Rwanda, in the midst of the conflict, some s

Veterans Affairs committee  Let me quickly reply to that. We mustn't forget, Mr. Perron, that the training they receive is one of the main tools to ensure that they do not suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. A well-trained, well-equipped, properly motivated solider under good leadership is much less

Veterans Affairs committee  It's incredible. I'll use Valcartier as an example, which is seen as one of the more progressive arenas in which they are doing work to help both VAC and DND, and so on. They have one guy who's handling the reservists at the family support centre—nice guy, works hard, but he's to

Veterans Affairs committee  On the first one, rapidly, we used to be called dependants. My wife used to be called a dependant wife when we served in Germany. That was the term. When we served in Germany, everything was handled by National Defence--the medical; the legal, when we went in front of a judge ad

Veterans Affairs committee  No, I learned that lesson in 1997, when I went public to change things. First of all, if I may just clarify, it is not the charter that has failings; it is the apprenticeship of implementing it. So it's the process of implementing, and it's whether or not the cash is going to th

Veterans Affairs committee  Okay. I was going to give you a bit more on Perrin Beatty and the 1987 white paper under the Conservatives and how that crashed, but I won't do that.