Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the Standing Committee on Finance.
I'm Dr. Alice Aiken, the scientific director of the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, a professor at Queen's University, and a proud veteran of the Royal Canadian Navy.
I am joined today by my colleague Dr. Stéphanie Bélanger, the associate director, a professor at the Royal Military College, and an officer in the reserve force.
The Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, or CIMVHR, is a network of Canadian researchers from across the country who are committed strongly to working together to improve the health and employment outcomes of military personnel, veterans, and their families. We are proud to say that our network includes over 300 researchers and clinicians from over 25 universities across the country, and we are growing.
We are here today to recommend that the Government of Canada invest in the work undertaken by our network. Mental and physical health challenges prevent many Canadians from participating fully in society and contributing to the economy. Veterans and their families are particularly vulnerable. The goal of CIMVHR is to optimize the potential of every one of the more than 700,000 veterans living in Canada.
The evidence shows that this issue needs our focused attention. If we consider the number of people serving, those who have served, and their families, we are talking about two million to three million Canadians who can be positively impacted by the work we are doing. That's not to mention all the others in similar professions, such as police, firefighters, paramedics, and their families.
One major concern is that only 11% of Canadian veterans are clients of Veterans Affairs Canada, which means that almost 90% are part of a public health system that does not understand or address their particular needs.
The researchers working through the CIMVHR network know that good health is critical to gaining productive employment. Working at the coal face between clinicians and researchers, CIMVHR provides a critical platform for ensuring that cutting-edge research is immediately translated into new policies, programs, and practices that improve the outcomes for veterans and their families.
We also provide a much-needed platform for the coordination of researchers and health practitioners working in the area. For example, we've linked the sport concussion community together with defence scientists and practitioners working on blast injury so that they can find the best possible diagnosis and treatment techniques for traumatic brain injury.
In fact, the Ontario concussion network will be presenting a special workshop—on best practices for recognizing, diagnosing, and treating mild traumatic brain injury—to military physicians at our upcoming conference, the military and veteran health research forum, this November 26 to 28.
As a researcher, I am working with a team of collaborators to get information about the unique needs of veterans into the hands of civilian family physicians so that they can better understand this special population. We have the full support of the Canadian Medical Association and will be testing the methodology with 50,000 Canadian physicians in the new year. Veterans' health information will roll out by the end of 2013. We believe this has the capacity to immediately impact the health of hundreds of thousands of veterans.
Dr. Bélanger is the Canadian expert on testimony of war. She is now working with a pan-Canadian team of mental health researchers to determine the parts of these stories that can give insight into the mental health needs of a soldier and how the health care community can best address these needs.
These are only brief illustrations of the very important work the CIMVHR network has embarked upon. Government support for the network is an excellent investment, because it will directly impact the health and workforce productivity of Canadian veterans and their families. It will reduce the costs of health care insurance and benefits provided by VAC, and it will leverage, strengthen, and grow the impact of the work currently being undertaken by our national networkers of researchers and clinicians.
We are asking for a very modest investment of $15 million over five years. We will leverage this funding through public-private partnerships, with industry, through Canadian philanthropic support, and by partnering with research funding organizations and our military allies.
Of this money, 60% will go directly into funding new front-line research that will have an impact in a one- to five-year timeframe—for example, new ways to diagnose and treat post-traumatic stress disorder—and 40% will go to support arm's-length research that validates the many programs, practices, and policies that have been implemented for these beneficiaries.
At CIMVHR, we are committed to making a difference in the health and future of our veterans and their families. Diminishing the impact of combat-related stress, hastening recovery after injury, and getting veterans into good jobs is our mission.
With this investment the government had the unprecedented chance to affect the lives of millions of Canadians.
Thank you.