Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to welcome the General and his aids.
On February 5, 2002, the ombudsman published a report entitled Systemic Treatment of CF Members with PTSD. Several months later, in December 2002, the Department of National Defence responded to each of the 31 recommendations. I have the document with me. This is a profile of the response to the recommendations. Amendments were suggested for only 3 of the 31 recommendations. As for the 28 remaining ones they received support, even full or entire support.
How do you explain the fact that seven years later, only 13 of the recommendations have been implemented? Moreover, 7 have been partially implemented and 11 have not been implemented at all.
It is important for me to say this right after your presentation. I do not think that this is a superficial problem. Instead, I think that it is a fundamental problem. I want to know what it can be attributed to. For example, could this be conceivably a cultural problem, with a predominating stereotype of the resilient man? I tried very hard to find a dictionary here. It says that resilience was at the outset a term that referred to the resistance of material to shock. It was first published in the field of psychology in 1939-1945, and Boris Cyrulnik developed the concept of psychological resilience based on his observations of concentration camp survivors. Thus, resilience could be the result of many processes that disrupt the negative trends.
At the Canadian Defence staff, they are so intent on developing resilience that they end up denying the real problem, which is present everywhere. Many witnesses have confirmed to us that these are not nearly small exceptions. What we heard is the contrary to what you are saying. It is false to say that 98% of the witnesses said that they had received adequate treatment. It was more like the contrary. Perhaps you were taking a preventive measure when you yourself said that this could sometimes seem to contradict what we have heard.
At the Canadian Defence staff there is so much emphasis on the resilience of the armed forces that there is an attempt to minimize the fundamental process and the reality of post-traumatic stress disorder. Do you agree with me?