National Defence committee  I think that is only a part of it, you have to look at the bigger picture. Part of the mental health strategy, and it's already being implemented, is training the recruits about the aspects of mental health. At various levels of leadership training, both for the NCMs and officers

National Defence committee  Yes, we have. We're doing that now, immediately on recruitment. All the recruits get it, and they get it at the junior leadership course, the intermediate leadership course, and so on.

National Defence committee  That's a very interesting question. You've heard “physician heal thyself”. The mental health medical community is not that large, particularly in a base sense, unlike the civilian health care sector where there is no such thing as a supervisor. If you're a private doctor, you're

National Defence committee  I don't know. I don't think there's any pressure on the health care system to do anything of that nature. I've been very clear: you make medical decisions based upon the medical natural history. They're very clear on that. We don't push people out; in fact, you will find people o

National Defence committee  I think the biggest thing was Rx2000. That was the realization of the leadership, and remember that this project took almost 11 years. It was a long project. During that time, we have had various chiefs of defence staff and governments. During that time, there has been steady su

National Defence committee  I think for the vast majority, that what I call creative tension between the two opposing forces is handled well. This is one of the things we train our new doctors in the military in, including our civilians. We teach them a lot about those diametrically opposed forces and how t

National Defence committee  Well, you need more of it.

National Defence committee  In the world, I suppose, if you want a yes or no, anything is possible. The decision to send somebody home unaccompanied would mean that there was a decision made in the theatre that they didn't have any concern that this person going home through civilian air would have any issu

National Defence committee  On the whole issue about JPSU, I'm not sure if there's an answer to that one. There are people who went to JPSU and say that it was the best thing that happened to them and their whole lives changed. There are others who say that as soon as they went there, it was the kiss of dea

National Defence committee  I really can't explain that. I recognize that the units have to understand where their people are. For supervisors to know that someone is going to the clinic would be fine, but to say that someone is going to see a mental health practitioner, or shrink, or something like that, w

National Defence committee  As I said, I think the stigma has been reduced significantly. I know the military has taken a leadership role in trying to reduce stigma in general in Canadian society. A lot of that credit can be given to the senior leadership. General Hillier, General Natynczyk, and the command

National Defence committee  Again, I think we have to be a bit careful with an experience that one individual has had. I'm sure that, from that person's experience, that's the way it was. I think you have to go a little deeper, and of course, given the confidentiality issues, you really can't do that. You h

National Defence committee  I think one of the biggest things we've done is to train our medics and soldiers well so that in the moment of injury, which is what we call—we hate to use these terms but it's very colourful—the platinum 10 minutes, the soldiers and medics can make sure the person does not bleed

National Defence committee  Well, obviously I can only talk about the health care requirement. I guess in DND and the CF all the expertise for health care management and leadership and organization is within the health services. In my ideal world, it would be wonderful if the leadership said to me that thi

National Defence committee  The resources that were given to me were sufficient prior to the potential cuts. The issue wasn't even the cuts themselves. It was the rapidity of the submissions we had to provide to make those cuts that by their very nature constrained my flexibility to search out what would ha