Veterans Affairs committee  I could perhaps answer that, only because of my previous life in the disability pension program. Bruxism, or people who have had problems with that.... Certainly it's acknowledged that it's consequential to PTSD, and we've done that. So if there's a disconnect between the award t

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm surprised I remembered it too.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. Well, actually, 50% of the clients who have Afghanistan service are still in. But in terms of the overall population of our clients who have a psychiatric condition, because it's more than only clients who have had deployment to Afghanistan, it's 12%. So 12% of our clients w

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, absolutely. I think that's a really positive story as well, because it shows they're getting early treatment, early intervention. Things are happening in terms of reducing stigma in the military. That has the effect, then, of keeping people employed in the military, which is

Veterans Affairs committee  It's starting, yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  When you compare our population of clients who have been to Afghanistan in multiple deployments and are suffering from mental health issues, 56% of them are under the age of 39; in our general population of veterans who have mental health conditions, 14% of them are under the age

Veterans Affairs committee  I can't speak to how much it's costing to do that, but I can certainly emphasize—and this is another tremendous capacity that we have with our operational stress injury clinics, the ten clinics we have across the country—that they are involved not only in outreach to the communit

Veterans Affairs committee  I could start. Certainly there's a recognition that this is very important to the veterans and the family to have access to the counselling. We have a vast provider network, certainly for mental health supports: social workers, psychologists, and that kind of counselling. We have

Veterans Affairs committee  In response to your question, there is activity under way to streamline. That has been recognized, I think, even through our peer support coordinators who work with people who have PTSD. As you've indicated, it's a struggle sometimes to get up out of bed, never mind having to com

Veterans Affairs committee  I could probably start. In terms of particularly clients who have mental health conditions, who are transitioning out of the military, I think it's fair to say that most of these folks would prefer to remain in the military. It's partly perhaps because of their illness as well,

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you. Actually, as you indicated, on the impact on families in terms of people with mental illness, it's recognized that it doesn't just impact the individual, it's the whole family, and the whole family needs to be part of the solution and be part of the planning too. So

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely, they are key. As a matter of fact, just in Mental Health Week,which we celebrated not too long ago, one of the things we did was to involve the family military centres in joining up with the district offices with their peer support program with DND around the mental h

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, and I certainly could add to that. Again, it's going to be a decision of the minister at the end of the day. As you know, in terms of what we can do for families, particularly on the mental health piece and health care, the provinces have the jurisdiction for health care for

Veterans Affairs committee  Let me add to that. As Brenda indicated earlier, about one-third of the folks in the rehabilitation program have been released for longer than eight years. When you consider that 50% of them have mental health conditions—in fact, up to 75% of them are struggling with mental healt

Veterans Affairs committee  In terms of our mental health clients, or clients who suffer from mental illness or PTSD, depression, or anxiety, I have to add--again, I've been working with the department for quite a number of years--I have seen the old system. I have seen our mental health clients struggle. I