Government Operations Committee on April 10th, 2019

[Danielle Boutilier]

Everything is done for a vet. When my husband came home.... Everything was done for him in Petawawa. Their power bill comes off their pay. If they need a couch, they go to the CANEX. When my husband came home to Nova Scotia and saw what our power bill was every three months, he was asking, “What is this? How do we pay this?”

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

You're both very well educated and you probably wouldn't be able to figure out how to apply for a government job today, it's so difficult. That's a big part of what we're hoping to do—

[Danielle Boutilier]

It's convoluted.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

—in a non-partisan way: to make it streamlined for everyone.

[Katherine Lamy]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. McCauley, I'm afraid you're out of time, but that was good questioning nonetheless.

We'll go to Madam Laverdière.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the two witnesses for their presentations today.

I like to go back to English, as you know, to talk about the public service.

I think it shows a lot that a service number is not recognized as a PRI. There is this kind of separation.... That the major public service, which is to serve one's country abroad at the peril of one's safety and one's life, is not considered public service, I have a huge problem with that.

I think there are things that are often part of your testimony and that we have heard before, including the need to train public servants for employment. There seems to be a very significant obstacle to that. Targets should perhaps also be established. I was being told earlier that the United States Department of Energy has a target of 20%, which is pretty impressive. I think that is a key point.

From another perspective, I will ask you to dream a little. We are talking about a transition plan that would be applied before people leave the military to help them face the cultural shock, the fact that they no longer have their daily lives managed, that they have to learn how to answer during an interview—going beyond medical or other needs. It would be about having a transition plan that would be implemented before demobilization.

I would like you to dream for us to see what that might include.

[Danielle Boutilier]

First, to become military members, individuals need at least 13 weeks of basic training. Then they need six more months to pursue a specific career. Afterwards, they need two years to rise in the ranks—get their “stripes”, as we say—regardless of the career they choose. However, when it is time to leave the military, there is no training as such.

Why is there no mandatory 13 weeks of training, at career's end, when explanations would be provided on how a mortgage, a credit check, or a security clearance transfer works? That is exactly what we need: a transition course, at least two years before people leave the military.

There are courses on learning to use a chainsaw and on other minor matters. There are courses to learn all sorts of things, so why isn't there a transition course?

[Katherine Lamy]

I fully agree with Ms. Boutilier.

As she said, a lot of training is required to get into the Canadian Armed Forces and start a career. However, as soon as the individual receives a notice informing them that they're at a high risk in terms of health and that they would be medically released, they have to wait. The government tells us that the wait time should be eight weeks, but that is not the case, as it takes about eight months.

At that point, the individual receives what is referred to as a disclosure package and they can ask to remain in the forces indefinitely, or for three years, or request their release.

As soon as the decision is made,

they facilitate the release very quickly.

A commonly used proverb is “out of sight, out of mind”. As soon as it is stated that an individual will be medically released, the chain of command could care less. I apologize for using that expression, but the superiors could care less. Over my last six months in the armed forces, no one in my chain of command contacted me to ask whether I needed support or assistance. I want to point out that I was part of a medical unit and am a medical professional.

So I think that, as Ms. Boutilier said, whether the transition course is 13 weeks or six months, a period of two or three years should be offered, not necessarily four years, to facilitate the release.

The person in question could meet with someone to learn how to get a mortgage, how to apply for a health card. If the individual has forms to fill out—for example, to obtain tax credit for disabled individuals—they need assistance. As a nurse practitioner, I see a lot of veterans who need help filling out forms and that's a legitimate issue.

They also have to learn how to present themselves during interviews, how to make a resume, be it for a job in the public service, in a hospital, at Enbridge or elsewhere.

There should be a two or three-year period to facilitate release, if the individual wants it. There is currently nothing.

As for bilingualism, a francophone or an anglophone should be able to learn a second language, and it should be free of charge.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

We have understood from all the testimony today that no transition program is provided to military members who are leaving the armed forces. There is no follow-up. Once it's done, you no longer exist. I assume there isn't much available for families either.

[Katherine Lamy]

No, there is nothing.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Jowhari, you have seven minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to open by thanking you for your service and for the support you have given to our servicemen.

As I was sitting back and listening to the testimonies being given, really, I compartmentalized this into three pieces.

One is the period following a service person being given the notice, whether it's two years or six months, etc. We heard about the fact that there is no transition plan in place. We got some recommendations from witnesses, and I'm sure our analysts would be able to document those. There is another piece, after they have been released, and we heard there is nothing there as well. Then we heard from Danielle that once her husband even got a job and he could not handle the job, he had to take a step back and look for an alternative.

To me, the second compartment is, when you transition into a job, what kind of support should there be? Once you are there and when you come out and you are looking to transition into a new role, what kind of supports do you need? There should be a transition plan before, a transition plan to get you into a job, and a transition plan to support—it's not so much a plan for transition as it is a plan for support.

Can you give us some recommendations for these next two compartments, as I call them?

[Danielle Boutilier]

When Adam was injured in Afghanistan in 2009, he was one of the first in the Atlantic provinces to come home injured. After us, they had a family liaison officer, and little aides-mémoire were put out.

We had all kinds of help to get him back to the unit. If they did the exact same thing and had a liaison officer to walk you through your new career.... I mean just to check in. It shouldn't be somebody from an insurance company like Manulife or SISIP asking you how many hours you are doing, wanting to push you a little more. The insurance chasing has to stop. There needs to be a sit-down conversation with a career manager, because they have those, or a family liaison officer to walk you through how it is going and whether or not it is working. If it's not, then let's transition you out. Let's help you with the disability paperwork.

I helped Adam through it only because I'm educated. I'm in that world. Paper is my thing. I'm a logistics officer. He could not do that on his own. When I brought up the fact that we were going to apply for a disability pension, I might as well have kicked him, because it took him six months and a bottle of pills and a forty-ouncer, a suicide attempt, to get over that. So, there definitely is a drop of the ball.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

What would be your recommendation?

[Danielle Boutilier]

I'd say having a family liaison officer or some kind of career manager. They are already in place in the military. I don't see why, when you're transitioning out or into another career, that can't happen. There is the Canadian Forces Liaison Council that recognizes all those public service jobs that hire reservists and helps them. A part of their mandate should be to help these transitioning members.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Katherine, do you want to add something?

[Katherine Lamy]

Yes. I totally agree with what she is saying. Definitely you need a liaison officer to facilitate, maybe for the first six months or a year or two years, to see how they are progressing, because there are some vets who are truly broken. They are so physically and/or psychologically injured that they can't function. I heard stories while I was in service and even now being out and dealing with patients through Spartan Wellness about some of these people who get out. They are just lost because they don't have either a family doctor or a nurse practitioner to get a grip on their health care with them. It goes pear-shaped. A lot of them turn to alcohol and drugs. There is family violence and suicide attempts. People are lost. I can speak from the medical side. We need to work with the provincial ministries of health to ensure that when someone gets out, there is already a family doctor in place or a nurse practitioner, because a lot of this could be helped if they had a family doctor or nurse practitioner. A lot of people have physical injuries for which they need appropriately prescribed narcotics or antidepressants or a referral for physio or massage therapy. There are a lots of things that vets need that are not getting done because they are missing pieces in part of their transitioning out.

[Danielle Boutilier]

To add to that, when you transition out, you go to your local military hospital and they give you four or five months' worth of prescription medication. They give you a little card. They say, “See you later and good luck.”

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

All at once.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

All at once.

[Danielle Boutilier]

Yes, all at once.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

As we are transitioning and putting the support in place—we are hoping to put the support in place—before the release and while released and then on, let's say, a steady state, what kind of handshake do we need between those service providers? I still hear silos, “We need this. We need that.” But there's no one who's taking care of the individual from the point there's a decision made that we're going to release the person to the point that the person is settled. Now the family is taken care of. Now the person is taken care of, and so now I'm disengaging.

What role should there be for someone who can oversee the whole thing from the pre-release to full settlement?

[Danielle Boutilier]

You do the reverse of what you did when you entered. They career manage you right through that system. They tell you how to apply for provincial health care. They give you the doctor list. They put you on these things. They can do it when you come in, so I don't understand why they can't do it when you go out.