National Defence Committee on March 13th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

We're out of time on that slot, so we'll have to come back to this.

We go over to Mr. Blaney.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses. I hope the road here was good and that it will be on the return as well. A storm has been forecasted. I apologize for missing your testimony. Whatever the case may be, I have seven questions, and we have seven minutes. I hope we can get an overview of the subject.

Ms. Black, looking at your chart, I wondered what distinction there was between CF members and War Service members?

[Raymond Lalonde]

The people who are in the War Service category are those who fought in the world wars and the Korean War. Those appearing in the CF category are those who served from 1945 to the present, with the exception of those who fought in the Korean War.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

I thought these statistics concerned members of the regular forces, in other words active members of the RCMP and veterans. Is that correct?

[Doug Clorey]

That's correct.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Is there a distribution between active members and veterans?

[Doug Clorey]

If you take a look at the chart on page 4, the bars show the different combinations of war service veterans, Canadian Forces veterans, and RCMP. The blue bar in the middle is the increase in Canadian Forces veterans. The top one in the greenish colour is the war service veterans, and the RCMP is at the bottom. That's how the numbers are divided.

If we look at 2006 and 2007, of the total number of clients we have receiving disability pensions for psychiatric conditions, we have 3,125 who are war service veterans—that's World War II and Korea, essentially—we have 5,872 Canadian Forces veterans who are receiving benefits that are basically peacetime in Afghanistan, and 1,253 from the RCMP.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Okay, so they are veterans. They are not still active in the forces. None of them are still active?

[Doug Clorey]

Some are. We don't have the breakdown there. I can actually give you the breakdown for Afghanistan, if that would be of interest to you.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Yes, sure.

[Doug Clorey]

It is not in your slides. It gives you a sense of how they break out.

This is as of the end of February this year, so for most of 2007-08. We had a total of 3,500 clients in the department who have served with a special duty area of Afghanistan, of which 2,150 are still serving, and 1,350 have been released.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

That's good.

[Doug Clorey]

It's 1,350. I can also tell you how many of those, if you have an interest, have psychiatric conditions.

Of the total 3,500 who are clients of the department who have served in Afghanistan, 681 currently have disability benefits with a psychiatric condition, of which 412 are still serving and 269 have been medically released.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Wow. Those are large numbers.

As you mentioned, you expect those numbers to grow within five years. Have you made any projections? Because I guess you have to plan on there being an increase.

[Raymond Lalonde]

I'd like to answer.

If you rely on the table showing the increase in recent years, you may think that this will continue to increase. It's very hard to make forecasts, in view of the fact that we don't know how long our military members will be deployed, on the one hand. On the other hand, you also have to consider the improvement in mental health services in the Canadian Forces. Much screening is done before, during and after return. The Canadian Forces have significantly increased their mental health resources. We hope this improvement will have an impact that will mean that the number of veterans with mental health problems will decline. So it's hard to make forecasts.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

What's the average length of a stay? When someone's referred to you and is taken in charge, how long does that person take advantage of your psychiatric services?

[Raymond Lalonde]

He may have them all his life. That depends on the client. The intensive phases of post-traumatic stress, for example, can last a year or two. However, many of our clients will need services throughout their lives and will remain our clients. That's not the case for the majority of them, but, unlike members of the Canadian Forces, some have been in hospital since the war.

[Rachel Corneille Gravel]

What we hope—and that's what we're working toward—is that they can return to the community, have a paying job and regain their dignity and self-sufficiency. That doesn't prevent the fact that they may occasionally need to come to Ste. Anne's Hospital, for example. Ideally, an operational stress injury clinic works toward giving people their discharge, even if it means them having follow-up in the community or, if necessary, with a psychologist. That could be done at Ste. Anne's Hospital, for those living in the region.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

All right.

[Rachel Corneille Gravel]

This is still new; we're still laying the foundation.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

These people aren't placed in an institution, are they?

[Rachel Corneille Gravel]

No one is.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

All right.

Do you ever decide to remove someone from the active forces? Do you make that kind of medical decision?

[Rachel Corneille Gravel]

Not at all.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

It's not you who make that decision.