Evidence of meeting #73 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 military.
A recording is available from Parliament.
As an Individual
In my case, remember that the undiagnosed issue is post-Rwanda. In Rwanda there was no pre-deployment screening. There was no post-deployment screening in those days, in 1994.
Conservative
As an Individual
In some cases, but it wasn't systemic.
In any case, the issue for me is when I became suicidal in 1995, about six months after my return, I showed up at the hospital, went through tests and all that, and was basically given a few sleeping pills and sent back home. This was in 1995. About a year later, a diagnosis appeared in my medical documents. At first I was undiagnosed and I lived like that for a year. Eventually I was diagnosed, but what the bio doesn't say is that nobody called me to say, “We just found out what's wrong with you”, so I was untreated for many years. But that was back then and it's important not to think that what happened to Grenier in 1994, 1995, and 1996 is still happening; no, I think it's very different now, but this is why....
When I went to get help, no diagnosis was given, and when a diagnosis was given, nobody bothered to tell me. That wasn't very helpful back then, which is why I became so passionate about stopping this system that was letting the walking wounded, like me, just wander off and try to fix themselves.
Conservative
Corneliu Chisu Conservative Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
That's how it is now. You have a pre-deployment—
Conservative
Corneliu Chisu Conservative Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
There are differences between these checkups. I noticed that when you are in post-deployment, it is very superficial, and I served in the regular force.
Conservative
Corneliu Chisu Conservative Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
When you are leaving, it is non-existent.
Conservative
Corneliu Chisu Conservative Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
They're just asking you to tell them if you have high blood pressure, to pay attention to that one, and so on. Should that not be a little bit more serious?
As an Individual
I don't know. You see, if I were a medical practitioner, I could comment on that, but I'm not an occupational doctor, so I would reserve judgment.
My issue, though, is if a soldier is diagnosed with a condition that is caused by the military that Veterans Affairs should pick up, that transition should be very seamless. I could have cancer right now, but the military doesn't know. Maybe they didn't do a thorough checkup. If I have cancer, and I die of cancer later on, it won't be the military's fault. In a sense, for those injuries and conditions that the military is aware of, well, those should be properly transitioned. Whether the release transition medical process is thorough enough, I couldn't comment. Honestly, it's not my area of expertise.
Conservative
Corneliu Chisu Conservative Pickering—Scarborough East, ON
Okay.
I have another question.
The most traumatic day in the life of a soldier is when he's forced to retire or is retiring from the armed forces. How would you comment on this?
As an Individual
I think the military culture is a very demanding one. I don't think it is worse. It's not an issue of degree, whether it is worse or better. It's very demanding and it's unique. The whole transition, I believe, from the military mindset and the military way of doing things to the rest of society and how society operates, and how they reintegrate into the other ways of functioning is a big change for a healthy person. Therefore, for a person injured in the mind, who is literally ejected and rejected from the system, I believe it is very damaging. I think the system has improved that process; however, there are many people who go through that process who should not go through that process. They should be retained in the military. They could continue to serve. That's the sad thing.
NDP
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Lieutenant-Colonel Grenier, for your testimony.
I'm going to posit the civilian side of this. I actually have experience around the civilian side, coming out of a trade union movement, where I represented workers. I don't want to suggest by any stretch of the imagination that the occupations are similar, or the cultures, or the sense of duty of what has to happen or not. Clearly, the military has a different sense of what it needs as preparedness versus a worker in a work environment, but the work environment, at least in the province of Ontario, has what's called the duty to accommodate. This simply means that if you're injured, regardless of the injury, physical or mental, an employer has the duty to accommodate within certain parameters. It's not at all costs, clearly. Sometimes a worker is not able to return to any work that the employer has.
Help me if I went down the wrong path with this. What I heard from you earlier, and I'll use your example of someone who's in the armoured corps, was that the duty to accommodate, if I can use that term in the military sense, is you must be able to do the piece that you're in rather than something else. You must be fit for the armoured corps, period, or sorry.
If the military took the position within the confines of the things it needs to do—and I'll grant it's a limited field versus perhaps that of civilian employers, in that their field might be wider in some but not all cases, but it seems the military one might be a narrower place—is there not a sense that folks sign up voluntarily? They're looking for careers. They're looking to put in their time, whatever that is, 25 or 30 years. These are not folks who want to serve one term and go. These are folks who've opted to continue. Is there not a duty to accommodate them somehow, give them opportunities? Should we not have a system that checks the boxes off along the way: can this person from the armoured corps go to this position; if not that one why not this one; and if not that one, why not this one; and then sorry, there are no more other places and the person will have to be transitioned out. The debate about the transition services is a different piece.
In your sense, sir, is that something perhaps this committee needs to think about in recommendations when it comes to folks who have limitations, whatever those limitations happen to be, because of an injury?
As an Individual
The committee should be aware that there is a duty to accommodate process in the military. Do I agree with the process? The answer is no. Do I trust the process? No. I simply don't agree with the way it is being applied.
Every year every trade in the military provides a certain percentage of vacancies for every trade and at every rank level. As an example, there could be three billets for infantry warrant officers in the entire infantry corps for accommodation purposes. That means the military has embraced the duty to accommodate process and will actually select people to fill those billets on an accommodation provision.
As you are probably aware, it's until there's undue hardship on the organization, which is why it limits the number of billets per rank, per trade. It's understandable that if an entire trade were to be plagued with injured members and it couldn't deploy, then they would not be serving you.
Where I have an issue with the duty to accommodate process is that it's on a first-come, first-served basis, which makes no sense to me. If you are up for an accommodation at your rank in your trade on January 2 and the list was published on January 1, you are automatically pigeonholed in that billet and you block a billet. It might have changed, but as far as I know there is not yet a process by which we also recognize length of service, merit, and other factors. In other words—I hate to be crude—what if an incompetent.... We do have incompetent sergeants or captains.
To me, there is an issue there. There are limitations to the process, and I understand that, but I find that it could be upped a little bit. Duty to accommodate does exist in the CF. It is being applied. I think it could be improved a little bit and it should not be on a first-come, first-served basis.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Turning to our witness, thank you very much for being here, Colonel. I do appreciate it sincerely.
I hear you on duty to accommodate. I think that bears a little bit more examination on how it's being applied because things do change when we leave, too, and I think we need to do some due diligence to find out. Because the military isn't always the first to tell you that it's changed something, I think it bears some looking into.
I want to talk about families right now. You said at the beginning of your comments that families are the last to know, or the last involved, in some cases. In some of my experiences where I've been personally involved in this, I've made sure that families were part and parcel first and right there every step of the way.
Can you describe why you think families tend to fall to the bottom of this list, in your view?
As an Individual
Quite clearly the military is not allowed to treat families, and therefore in theory they don't. However, in my past role in the military as stress injury adviser to the chief military personnel, I visited bases and came across some very innovative social workers who would see families unbeknownst to the system. If the base surgeon would ask questions, the social worker would say, “Well, I was seeing the military member and the family”—that's legal—“but the military member had gone to the washroom”. It's a very innovative way to deliver health care to families, and that shouldn't be. I think it's putting our health care professionals in a very.... They know that they need to provide treatment to the family, and they have to do it au noir, and I think that's just not called for, but by law, National Defence cannot deliver health care services to families.
That is why I think you will see literature in the military that indicates “for our members and their families”. Veterans Affairs will publish things indicating “for veterans and their families”. Families are always an afterthought. Of course something needs to come first or second, but strategically and philosophically, families have been forgotten.
I strongly believe, and there is literature to prove that I'm correct, that if you can finally deliver health care to the entire family system, it will pay back, because if the family system is allowed to implode, your military person will continue to implode and leave the military. If you manage to intervene at the family level, the benefits to the military member will come back in droves to the federal government.
It's simply a different approach, and there is a precedent. In Germany, military wives could go on the base and seek health care from the military. There were exceptions in history. I think it's time to look at those exceptions again to see if we can't change things.
Conservative
Ted Opitz Conservative Etobicoke Centre, ON
Point taken.
I'd like to shift a little bit to outside organizations and get your opinion on how effective they may be in working with soldiers who may have OSIs, and just transitioning, not necessarily remustering or anything like this. You're familiar with True Patriot Love, Canada Company, and the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, and folks like that. What is your opinion of their effectiveness in how they treat soldiers who have OSIs and general injuries as well?
As an Individual
I hate to say this, but I'm not familiar enough with their success and their programs to comment, but what I do find is that there is a continued need for organizations like this. The Wounded Warriors foundation was very effective in some areas. I believe it's a great complementary system. When our federal bureaucrats cannot fix a problem because the soldier's falling through a gap, then these programs can probably pick up where legislation drops the ball.
I'm not saying it's deliberate, but I have seen the efficacy of such programs. I think they're instrumental, generally speaking, in making sure there's a safety net around our federal programs, so, bravo to them, but I can't comment any further.
Conservative
