I don't think I actually criticized the Liberal government. I was criticizing the Canadian Forces and its inability to move in a direction I thought was necessay.
Certainly things are going in the right direction. It's much better than it was. There's still an issue around reservists and families that needs to be addressed. We could spend a whole afternoon on this, and I've sat on a VAC committee doing just those sorts of things.
To go back quickly to the comorbid diagnosis, we know that with PTSD about 50% of men will actually abuse or become dependent on alcohol. About a third will also either abuse or become dependent on other drugs. Almost 50% of men and women will also develop a major depression. We know that a person who has PTSD is 90 times more likely to develop physical symptoms than a person who does not have PTSD. We also know that for a peacekeeper with PTSD, the expense to the health services is 37 times more than for a peacekeeper without PTSD. So there is a mind-body link. There is a problem in regard to sensitivity to pain, etc. Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue are absolutely associated. There is a much higher risk of developing those if you have post-traumatic stress disorder. The comorbid stuff is absolutely there.
You've given me an hour, but I've spent 16 years of my life on PTSD. You've asked the impossible from someone who is improbable at the best of times. PTSD, the assessment, the treatment—we're going in the right direction. Both Veterans Affairs and the Canadian Forces are going in the right direction. I still think that a lot needs to be done. There are still gaps in the number of resources, the competency of the resources, training, acquisition, etc.
We need to think outside the box in recruiting professionals. It may be something like the rural family physicians, where you go in early with training and funding while people are still students. With psychology, psychiatry, you have a real lag time of more than eight years. I think that we need to look at bringing other sorts of professionals onto the team, so that we have a surge capacity, which we don't have right now.