National Defence Committee on April 17th, 2008

[Col Omer Lavoie]

I think it was very fortunate that we deployed back to Canada between February and March, and I didn't change command until the following June. So I had those four or five months with my entire team to maintain the cohesion. But before I changed command and my team changed, my number one priority was to look after both the soldiers and the families of soldiers who were injured and the families who had lost soldiers there. That was where 99% of my energy was placed in those four months before I changed command.

A number of incidents there ranged from soldiers who had experienced combat stress reactions in theatre, to soldiers who had some pretty severe physical wounds. I engaged with the chain of command and my superior chain of command to make sure those soldiers were taken care of. From my perspective, in the ones we dealt with, I can't think of any who didn't get the treatment they either requested or required.

[LCol Simon Hetherington]

In my current position I can see some of the additional measures we've taken to assist those soldiers. For example, on providing assisting officers to the injured, if a family is uncomfortable with a certain assisting officer and they know of another military member they would like to be an assisting officer, we've been able to facilitate that.

We've assigned personal trainers to soldiers who are unable to interact in a public gym, to develop their fitness. There are those types of things, and the list goes on. Again, with leadership set from the top by General Hillier, there's nothing we won't do to try to assist our injured.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

That wraps up the second round. In the third round we have Mr. McGuire, the government, and then the Bloc.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Will it ever come to me?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

It should get to you. I'm very hopeful.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

In this age of sophisticated communications, and seeing there's such a relationship between yourselves and DVA, are there any advances being made between the two departments in servicing the returned men and their families now compared to before? Are you aware of any improved barriers?

The walls go down between the departments all the time--their territory and your territory--and never the twain shall meet. Are those walls coming down? Is there better communication between the two departments to better serve our servicemen?

[MGen Tim Grant]

In general, I think there is much better service than there was in the past. I know assisting officers dealing with the Department of Veterans Affairs get exceptionally speedy service. When there have been serious injuries or death in theatre, I haven't heard any complaints in western Canada that people haven't been getting an exceptional level of service.

I'll ask the COs if they have anything beyond that.

[Col Omer Lavoie]

The only thing I would add from my perspective is that it is similar. Now we have four detachments of casualty support people in Petawawa. We also have four detachments from DVA, which is something we hadn't seen years ago. Now there are DVA detachments on bases.

I've noticed a shift in perception in DVA. It's an organization that I think for a long time was focused on veterans of past wars, World War II and Korea, for instance. I think the shift is to the reality that we now have veterans who also need their assistance and who aren't in their sixties but in their twenties and they are returning from Afghanistan and other theatres. This is my perception in dealing on a very limited basis and from the feedback I've received from families.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Are you familiar or do you have any dealings with the family resource centres across the country? I know some provinces don't have one. P.E.I. doesn't have a military base or anything like that, and our veterans have to go to New Brunswick for support.

Is there any way to improve what they are delivering? I know a lot of this is voluntary, and they're undermanned and underfunded. Is there any way you can see that these organizations can be improved, from your point of view?

[MGen Tim Grant]

I know the chief of military personnel is looking at military family resource centres with the aim of improving them and making them even better than they are today.

I will acknowledgethat there are probably different levels of service across the country, depending on where you are. I would speak from an Edmonton standpoint and say I think the soldiers in Edmonton were very well served by the people and the programs in that service.

The challenge comes when you're trying to deal with families that are not close to a major base. I know in Edmonton the director of the MFRC spent a great deal of her time making sure that either other MFRCs across the country had taken ownership for a file, for a soldier's family, or they were on the phone or the Internet trying to make contact with folks wherever they were.

I think it's a good service. Like anything else, we can probably make it better.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you.

My first question would be about soldiers coming back, particularly the reservists, and the isolation once they get back. They're off the base, and they're back in their community sometimes quite a bit removed from a base. Where I am out in Nanaimo we have some reservists with the Canadian Scottish Regiment. Is there follow-up for reservists?

For example, if they're having trouble after the decompression time when they're back a month or a couple of months, is there any reuniting with other members they'd been in the combat zone with to decompress a little further or just talk about how they're reintegrating? Has that happened?

[Col Omer Lavoie]

Again, I can speak of my experience as CO of 1 RCR. Certainly when we came back after the leave period of a month to six weeks, depending on when you come back from theatre, we very purposely put together a series of activities. They consisted of a medals parade, a memorial service, and then what amounted to a battle group celebration over a period of three days. We are very insistent that reservists are told to come back to Petawawa on duty travel to participate in that. Part of it was to celebrate and honour sacrifices and achievements, but at the same time it was an opportunity for them to get back and have the chain of command they fought with, whether at a platoon or section level, and have a chance to talk with their buddies on the regular force side and others in one spot.

Colonel Hetherington may be best to answer from his position now as EACLS, but within that mechanism, at least for the army within the area structure, the area commanders and reserve brigade commanders have that duty as well to continue to track those soldiers who have come back from a deployment to make sure that if they require assistance it's put in place.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Okay, I'm surely glad to hear that, as I would think it would be very helpful.

Going back to the question of the provincial reconstruction team, Colonel Hetherington, this may have been answered somewhat before, but in your time there as head of the PRT, you had CIDA, DFAIT, RCMP, and the municipal police all part of it. Were you also responsible for overseeing the engineers or the people working at building bridges and roads? Were they soldiers who were doing most of that work?

[LCol Simon Hetherington]

I'm not sure who you mean by the engineers. We had engineers integrated with us who were military engineers.

Our modus operandi was not to do the work that we could engage Afghans to do, and that process is still continuing. You may have read of a road that's been constructed that could have been done a lot faster by hiring big pieces of machinery, but they chose to hire local Afghans to do it by hand to encourage economic development at the lowest level.

With locally engaged civilians, life, limb, and eyesight were the terms we would go by. If there was an Afghan working with us who suffered an injury in those three areas, we would certainly address it and treat him. But as for the Canadian civilians on the team, they were treated as any of our soldiers.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

I'm certainly glad to hear that. I think it makes a lot of sense to employ the local people absolutely as much as possible. It leads to buy-in to the project, and they're certainly going to have an investment in wanting to protect it afterwards, so I certainly appreciate that.

Another question would be, with the other people who aren't military personnel there but are part of the PRTs, do you witness PTSD or operational stress injuries? Did you observe that in your time over there? Are these people experiencing these types of challenges as well?

[LCol Simon Hetherington]

In my time there I did not, but again, as is recognized and as is implied by the name, post-traumatic stress comes after the fact. I still keep in contact with the team I was with, and we look after ourselves.

General Grant, as many know, was close to his time to return home when his vehicle was attacked by a suicide bomber, and there was a CIDA representative in the vehicle with them. I can let General Grant address that.

I would like to say that we have a responsibility, I believe, for our civilian counterparts. While they were on the team, they were certainly part of the team in every respect—and that was in my little PRT, and I know it was the same with Joint Task Force Afghanistan, as well.

[MGen Tim Grant]

It was interesting that as a result of that suicide bombing attack, a young CIDA officer's first concern when she climbed out of the vehicle that had rolled over two and a half times was the impact it would have on CIDA's policy of letting her travel outside the wire.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Very interesting.

All right, over to Mr. Bachand.

Your turn is getting close, Ms. Black.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Am I after him?

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Do you want to go right now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Go ahead if you want, Ms. Black.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair, and Claude.

I just have a quick question.

In the time you spent in Kandahar in operations, all of you were commanders and were dealing with these issues, so there was a lot of stress on you as well. I wonder if you noticed any particular trends or patterns in occupational stress injuries vis-à-vis the age groups of the people. Did that show up? Did rank seem to make any difference in that? Was it more difficult for some occupational groups than others? And I also wonder about gender, because when I was there I noticed there was quite a large number of women. Did gender play a role at all in the occupational stress injuries that you noticed or were reported to you?

[MGen Tim Grant]

Certainly from my standpoint I didn't see a trend in any of those discriminators. There wasn't a specific rank; there wasn't a specific trade; there wasn't a male or female pattern to it. It almost struck randomly, or it struck across all ranks and trades almost equally.