National Defence Committee on April 17th, 2008

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

That's great. Maybe I missed something, as I thought decompression was only three days. I'm glad to hear it's five.

[MGen Tim Grant]

It's depending on when the flights arrive. There need to be three days of formal activities. For instance, we arrived on my flight at 10 o'clock on the first day. So we actually had an afternoon and an evening. The fifth day was a write-off because we went to the airport at about 4:30 in the morning. There are three days that are guaranteed to be set aside that folks can use.

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

I'm really glad to hear that. Are three days enough? Should it be a week? I know families are anxious to be reunited. They're out of that pressure cooker and they want to get home. There is pressure like that.

Maybe I'm asking the wrong three again here. Maybe you want to defer that to a psychologist, but I just throw that out. Is it enough, in your opinion?

[Col Omer Lavoie]

Certainly in my opinion I probably had the same sort of apprehensiveness that General Grant had mentioned about going there and thinking rather about just getting home. After the few days there I came to the same conclusion. It was a good and required buffer from going from a combat zone to meeting up with your family a few days later. Again, I'm sure there are a lot of medical health professionals who are looking at it to find the optimum timeframe, if it's not three days.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you, Mr. Lunney.

Mr. Cannis, and then back over to the government.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

My question is predicated by something my colleague Mr. Rota said, and I just want you to elaborate on it. In trying to put some recommendations together to this inquiry, General Grant, if I may, in response to my colleague in terms of how they seek help, how they get resolution, how they get the proper service, you said “You play a role in that”, referring to the member of Parliament, I presume. I just want to get this straight, only because it's very important.

As you know, part of our responsibility is to address the concerns our constituents have, whether they be revenue, disability application, or Veterans Affairs, for example. We speak with them directly.

To provide you with an example, I know our colleague here, Ms. Gallant, has CFB Petawawa in her riding. Please clarify for me. Are you telling us now that a person who has returned, who resides in the area, who has had these obstacles that we've heard of from individuals, mothers, and families, should call their member of Parliament—Ms. Gallant, for example—and say “You call so-and-so, Colonel such-and-such, or Major General such-and-such, and you talk to him”? Are you saying that we can have that access?

[MGen Tim Grant]

No, sir. Thank you for letting me clarify that point.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I just want a clarification on that.

[MGen Tim Grant]

The issue clearly is that in a perfect world the soldiers would have absolute faith in their chain of command and their chain of command would be able to deal with all those challenges that soldiers face and make sure they got the proper support.

My comment was specifically that if a soldier did come to an MP, did come to their representative, that the representative can then play a role in helping that individual.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

How, sir? A representative came to my office, as an example—you know, a soldier who had just finished his duty and encountered some problems, and was running into some obstacles. How can I help him? Can I then pick up the phone and call the medical officer or regiment such-and-such? How can we help?

[MGen Tim Grant]

Not to be glib, but I would suggest you phone the parliamentary secretary, and he would help you to deal with the issue to get the right access.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Now we're narrowing it down.

[MGen Tim Grant]

That's how I would do it if I were you.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Just to amplify that, if somebody has a problem or needs help—seriously—then let me know and I can pass it to the appropriate—

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

We know that. It's just that I was enticed, because we can play a role, and we're all more than receptive to see what kind of role we can play, not to step beyond what we can and cannot do. Sometimes we do get excited and do get attached to a certain file or a certain situation and we'll just pick up the phone and call somebody we're not supposed to call, and in essence we'll not get any result for the individual. We get in trouble, etc. So I just want to see how that venue works.

[MGen Tim Grant]

There's probably somebody sitting behind me from parliamentary affairs who's quite concerned with what I've just said, but that's what I would do.

[LCol Simon Hetherington]

If I may add something, my current position is one of record, and you can see it there. I'm the executive assistant to the army commander. I will say that I've lived through this, and this is how it works. I get calls from Minister MacKay's office, the military assistant's office, to say that someone has approached a member of Parliament and they have since gone to Mr. MacKay's office, potentially through Mr. Hawn, and this is the situation and can I deal with it. It could be something very innocuous, like he needs a contact number for X, and we get on it right away. We feed back that way, and then the loop is closed, either directly—I've made calls personally myself—or to the unit's commanding officer through the chain of command. It does work, and we are doing it, sir.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you for that explanation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

Over to Ms. Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

I just have a brief question for you, gentlemen.

Of course keeping on the ball in theatre, keeping your mind healthy also entails keeping your body healthy. Given the 24/7 nature of what you're doing there, how were each of you able to work through or maintain some type of physical fitness program for yourself--or were you?

[Col Omer Lavoie]

To be very frank, from my perspective, and I don't think it's changed, and also Colonel Hetherington's as a fellow CO, the time to try to get fit or even maintain fitness isn't when you're deployed into theatre and engaged in combat operations, as we were. The corollary to that is the absolute insistence on the high degree of physical fitness and preparation before going into theatre. So for that ten months I described, physical fitness was implicit, and doing hard physical training was implicit in all aspects of that ten-month training.

It depends really where you are. If you're back at Kandahar airfield, there are certainly a lot of opportunities to keep fit, if you're not in a front-line type of job. Weights are brought forward, and that sort of thing. But the reality of being deployed forward is a fairly limited ability to keep to a fitness program as you would do back in Canada. So it's imperative to be fit when you show up.

Having said that, walking around all day with 70 pounds of combat gear on assists your physical fitness level to some degree anyway.

[MGen Tim Grant]

I had a 25-year-old personal assistant who banged on my door at 5:30 every morning to make sure I went for a run, so that's how I dealt with it. I found that not only physically helpful, but mentally helpful.

Did you do anything, Simon?

[LCol Simon Hetherington]

Not at all, sir. You ate at the PRT. You know the food there.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

I'm sharing my time with Laurie.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I believe I've seen the statistics. I can't quote them for you, but I believe the suicide rate in the Canadian Forces is lower than the suicide rate in society in general. If not, then it's no different, although maybe for different reasons.

We talk about people, the outliers, and the problems they have for whatever reason. Obviously, if anybody's having a problem it's their problem, it's very personal, and sometimes nothing is ever enough to fix the problem. That's totally understandable when somebody's having a severe case of PTSD.

I'm not sure whether Colonel Lavoie is the best one to answer this, but can you give some examples of the extra effort that you or the unit have gone to in bending over backwards to help folks who are having difficulty getting the problem resolved to their satisfaction?