If you look at our report, we made six recommendations. The first four recommendations were agreed to by the CDS and the Canadian Forces. The fifth one was agreed to halfway, because it has to do with the relations between the commanders and the doctors in terms of sharing information. The sixth one was not agreed to. It was to have a look at the modern application of universality of service. We all know and we are very much cognizant and supportive of universality of service. When you join an armed force, an organization like that, you have to be in shape regardless of the trade classification you're working in. The first thing you have to be able to do is be a soldier and defend and fight for your country.
We find as we go around the country, and we try to go often, that there's a perception that exists. In fact among people who are injured, the perception is growing that the CF is no longer loyal to them in the sense that yes, some people will be kept in the system, but others won't be kept in the system. We tell the Canadian Forces and the leadership that they need to be aware of this, because this is repeated to us with a lot of emotion.
Talking about universality of service and keeping people in when they're injured or they've lost their livelihood forever because they served their country, I would probably open the door here to a little bit of stigma. We have met with a lot of people and as I said before and you know, a lot of capability was developed across the country. The IPSCs, the integrated personnel support centres, are one example. Their mandate is to provide integrated medical and administrative support to people who are injured. People who are injured and are suffering physically or mentally are put into those units, and the objective of those units is to return them as quickly as possible to optimal health so they can resume their career.
In November and December of last year after we had done this report, we started working on the family files, looking at the impact of military on the family. In 10 of those IPSCs we visited, their statistics showed that of those going into those units to be fixed and returned to their unit, about 10%, and in some case 5%, were going back to their unit, which means that most of them are kicked out of or leave the forces.
This explains why some of them don't come forward with their injuries. They love the military and this is their career. When they are injured mentally, they prefer to try to cope with their buddies instead of going there, because they figure that they're going to lose their job.
All this shows us that there is distrust in the system. They think it doesn't take care about them and so on. With universality of service we're just saying today that maybe there are some kinds of illness...because what they're losing in their life was attributable to their service. Maybe there are ways of doing it differently without affecting the operational effectiveness.