Evidence of meeting #72 for National Defence in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was reservists.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Yes, you have some sympathy with an officer who says “I can't fund something for which I don't have any empirical evidence”. But then, that person is not going out and getting empirical evidence, so it's never going to be funded. It becomes a complete circle.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
A final point is with respect to something that Ombudsman Daigle said about the soldier burying his illness. Not only does the soldier have an issue with respect to whatever his illness might be, whether physical or mental—though primarily it's mental—but also with respect to his job security, that if he comes clean with respect to his mental illness, he will be shuffled off to a special unit.
Have you made any observations with respect to men and women in the forces actually burying their illness so as to not face the consequences of losing their serviceability?
Managing Director, True Patriot Love Foundation
Definitely, and this was what we heard a lot about at the symposium in Washington. This is why we think it's important to have .
It can be really difficult. I take it that if you receive psychiatric services through the Canadian Forces, and the psychiatrist deems that you may not be fit to work, and to somebody approaching this it can seem like a very subjective thing, then why would you go ahead and do it, if you're putting your career at risk?
Another interesting area that we've just started to hear some things about anecdotally involves the fact that women in the Canadian Forces may be even more reluctant to come forward to get supports around mental health.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Time has expired, so I'll just let you finish that comment, Ms. Evans.
Managing Director, True Patriot Love Foundation
They may be more reluctant to come forward because they're already in a situation in which people look at them and say, “You're a woman. Can you really handle this?” For them to have to say, “I'm not handling this” is a sort of double whammy for them. I think this is an interesting area, one on which the White House is currently doing quite a bit of research.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Earlier in your remarks, you mentioned that you are helping our soldiers with both mental and physical injuries.
In what ways do you help out with physical injuries? Are you there, or do you have some rehabilitation programs that you fund, or do you work directly with the hospitals? Could you elaborate on that?
Managing Director, True Patriot Love Foundation
We don't provide funding for services that are covered by government, so it wouldn't be direct therapy per se. That's already covered by public dollars. There's a range of things that we do.
As I mentioned, some of it's around the retrofitting of vehicles and homes. We heard of an example where a soldier had to have a ramp. The government funded paving the half of the driveway that led up to the ramp, but not the other half, so we paid for the other half that didn't lead up to the ramp. It's a quality of life type of thing; it's sort of embarrassing to have only half your driveway paved.
The other area that we're looking at more—and actually I just had a conversation with the representative from the Paralympics today—is providing soldiers who have been seriously wounded with the opportunity to see what's possible. Through Soldier On, we did help to send some injured soldiers to the Paralympics in B.C. I think it was in our first year. The ability to witness that and see what's possible was quite amazing for them. In fact, one of the soldiers who attended is on the Paralympic sledge hockey team for the coming Olympics.
There's that piece of it too. A bit of it is, “Wow, look at the things I can do, and if I put my mind to it, there's still quite a meaningful life ahead of me.”
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Have you worked at all with the Canadian adaptive sports organizations?
Managing Director, True Patriot Love Foundation
We haven't, but it has come up. They have never approached us for funding, although I'm trying to think....
Our ski program, Mariane?
Manager, Disbursements and Community Outreach, True Patriot Love Foundation
They are the ones who—
Managing Director, True Patriot Love Foundation
Was it the ski program? Okay. Yes, we have provided funding for skiing for soldiers who have been injured.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
What is the process to apply for the funding?
Managing Director, True Patriot Love Foundation
We have an application process that's laid out on our website. This year, there are three different rounds of applications that are happening. In order to receive funding, you need to have charitable status and you need to be able to issue a charitable tax receipt. Really, it's a question of looking at our criteria and filling out the application. Then it goes through our internal review process and we come back with a decision.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
To both of you, had you been involved in the rehabilitation of our soldiers, both mentally and physically, before you were a part of True Patriot Love?
Managing Director, True Patriot Love Foundation
No. Really, this initiative.... Part of the reason we don't deliver programs is that it's not our area of expertise. We rely on charities that are experts at delivering these kind of programs to make sure that the funds are disbursed to the right people who need the programs.
As for the original intention of True Patriot Love, there was this feeling that there was such a disconnect between Bay Street and the military. We're Toronto-based, and we saw this really strong desire by corporate Canada to do something to give back to the men and women who have served and to their families. That was where it came from. It was almost that lack of experience that the group felt they had with this that made us want to do something.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
The reason I asked was that I wanted to know if over the course of the last 10 years, so maybe in the course of your career with this organization, whether or not you've seen significant.... What improvements have you seen, being a part of this organization, over how our troops were treated beforehand as to how they're treated now?
Conservative
Managing Director, True Patriot Love Foundation
I think that's a difficult thing to answer. What I would say is there are programs being funded that would not be funded if we weren't raising dollars to do so.
As Mariane mentioned, the actual health care services are only one part of being a healthy individual, so there are supports that we can provide for families. When a soldier is over in Afghanistan and is worrying about their child who might be struggling with homework, or their child with special needs back home, or about a spouse who has left their family in another part of the country to move to a different base and doesn't have any child care help from immediate family members, if we can provide that kind of support so the soldier can just focus on what they need to be doing without doing that worrying, that benefits the mental health of the whole family.
Conservative
