Perfect.
Evidence of meeting #78 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 care.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #78 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 care.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you very much.
I want to thank our witnesses for appearing. I know that time goes by quickly, but we appreciate the information you were able to bring to the committee to help us with our study on the care of the brave men and women who have served us so valiantly. We know that they appreciate all the care and attention that you both have shown them.
With that we'll suspend, then we'll call our next witnesses to the end of the table.
4:30 p.m.
LCol Alexandra Heber
Thank you.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
We'll call this meeting back to order and continue with our second hour.
Joining us now is Wounded Warriors Canada. We have Mr. Derrick Gleed, who is the board vice-chair and chief financial officer. He's joined by Padre Phil Ralph, who's a program director and regimental chaplain for the 32nd combat regiment in Toronto.
Welcome both of you to committee, and thank you for helping us out with our study.
Mr. Gleed, you have the floor.
4:35 p.m.
Derrick Gleed Board Vice-Chair and Chief Financial Officer, Wounded Warriors Canada
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, on behalf of Wounded Warriors Canada, we are truly honoured to be invited to appear before this committee and to be part of a very important discussion on the care of ill and injured Canadian Forces members.
By way of introduction, my name is Derrick Gleed, and I am the vice-chair and CFO of our board of directors. I am joined today by Captain Phil Ralph, padre and program director.
In our capacity as board members, I am proud to say we have been able to oversee the implementation of a robust slate of programming, benefiting our ill and injured Canadian Forces members.
To briefly introduce you to our organization, Wounded Warriors Canada was founded in 2006 by Captain Wayne Johnston, a distinguished serviceman with four decades of service within the CF, and is most widely know as the repatriation officer for the fallen in Afghanistan. Through a wide range of programs and services, we help find solutions where gaps have left our CF members in need, be they full-time or reservists.
With the majority of our troops having returned from Afghanistan, our primary focus has shifted from physical injury support to mental health, and as a result to the staggering impact of PTSD, perpetrated by operational stress injuries.
Overall, however, our mandate is to help any injured veteran in need as they transition into civilian life. We are a not-for-profit corporation operating exclusively as a result of donations made by Canadians and Canadian businesses from coast to coast to coast. One of our guiding principles is to keep our annual operational expenses below 20% of our annual revenue. Further, we work diligently to ensure the hard earned funds of our donors are allocated to best make a difference to the lives of our ill and injured soldiers, and their families.
The following is but a sample of our programs this year.
We launched Ontario's first veteran transition program as part of our $100,000 contribution to British Columbia's veterans transition network. At the end of May, we will be taking a team of CF members, who are battling with mental health, on the Big Battlefield Bike Ride, cycling from Paris to London. This is but one of our mental health challenge programs and follows the overwhelming success of our ride last year.
We contributed $50,000 toward Wounded Warriors Weekend, a provincially designated event in Nipawin, Saskatchewan, that brings together more than 130 Canadian, American, British, and Australian wounded soldiers for a weekend of camaraderie and mental healing. We've entered into partnership with a pioneering PTSD elite service dog program, which operates out of Manitoba. This year we will provide close to $100,000 in funding, targeted to assist this program for its national expansion.
We have partnered with an organization called Can Praxis, an innovative equine program in Calgary that uses horses and the staff's extensive experience in communication to promote personal renewal and improved quality of life for veterans coping with PTSD. We just recently launched a national awareness partnership with the Royal Canadian Legion, highlighting the support services available at all 1,450 Royal Canadian Legion branches in Canada.
On May 15, we will be launching a 10-year, $400,000 Wounded Warriors Canada doctoral scholarship in veterans mental health. This is in partnership with Queen's University and the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research. Just this week, we provided $15,000 in support funding to Fay Maddison's Natasha's Wood Foundation, aimed at assisting the children of service members affected by PTSD and related issues.
Much of our work, as our diverse slate of programs and initiatives highlights, is targeted toward ensuring our returning veterans, suffering from a range of personal, health, and financial issues, are supported as they transition to civilian life. Given the fact that we are not clinicians, psychologists, therapists, or even financial advisers, we put our money in the hands of the best people to deliver programs and ultimately the best results for those who need our support.
As you're all aware, the unique circumstances of military service, coupled with personal and environmental factors, affect and shape members of our Canadian Forces. It is understood that everyone is affected by the world they interact with. When CF members return home, they have been changed by their service. For some, these changes are as obvious as the physical scars they bear. Some have learned to appreciate life all the more. For others, their scars are invisible. In some ways, it is as if they left a part of themselves over there.
Friends and loved ones of those members affected by operational stress injuries often remark to us that the person who returned is not the same person who deployed. Having listened to the stories shared by our soldiers, their families, and their friends, that is the reason we've built into our mandate a simple yet powerful guiding ethos: honour the fallen, help the living. We seek to uphold this by doing our very best to empower members suffering from operational stress injuries and related conditions to return home in a holistic manner, psychologically, physically, financially, and spiritually.
Of course, developing partnerships is most critical when dealing with issues of this scope and scale. We not only partner with independent groups, we also work in conjunction with those who provide care to Canadian Forces members from VAC, including CF health services, OSISS, unit chaplains, and DCSM. In all, we seek to encourage members to avail themselves of the programs and services that are in place while providing a healthy environment to assist in their recovery.
Of particular importance related to partnerships, I am proud to state today, and as you will hear publicly in the coming days, that Senator Roméo Dallaire has accepted the position of national patron for Wounded Warriors Canada, an extreme honour for our organization, as you can well imagine.
It is also important to note that since our founding, we have paid particular attention to the well-being of our primary reserves. Anyone affected by an OSI faces a number of obstacles and challenges on their road to recovery and transition to civilian life. However, within the Canadian Forces community, these challenges are particularly daunting for members of the primary reserve. The often unspoken reality is that members of the primary reserve, whom Canadian Forces leadership have spoken of as being essential to their ability to accomplish the most recent mission, return home with little requisite support to manage the transition to civilian life.
Those who have provided 30% of the effective deployed forces return to a civilian society ill-equipped to appreciate, recognize, or deal with their needs. Further, should they seek to access the programs that are in place, they often feel abandoned due to the realities of time and space, coupled with the pressures of trying to provide for themselves and their families. In addition, members of the primary reserves face the real risk of losing their civilian job due to injuries resulting from their service. This is particularly true with respect to mental health injuries. Finally, they face real challenge getting on reserve-force compensation, commonly referred to as “dis comp”, when a mental health issue manifests itself after their final 30 days of class C service.
In summary, we consider ourselves to be a grassroots charity, interacting, listening, and responding as best we can to the needs of the men and women who so bravely serve our country. From our day-to-day interactions with our veterans and their families, we would be remiss if we did not offer some practical suggestions as to where the CF can work more effectively to address the needs that exist, for example, elimination of the long administrative delays for receipt of awards and compensation.
SISIP needs to be broader in their coverage definitions, particularly in the area of education, both in terms of programs offered and durations covered. CF should also improve retraining in education by providing the tools, such as laptops and related tools of their chosen trade, to enable them to complete their education and compete in the real world. Finally, the shift from the pension system to the lump sum payment as part of the new Veterans Charter is commonly brought to our attention as something requiring review.
In closing, we thank the committee for the invitation, and we wish you every success as you work on behalf of our veterans. We remain at your disposal should the committee have further questions now or at any time in the future.
Thank you.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you.
Padre Ralph, did you have anything you wanted to add to that?
4:45 p.m.
Phil Ralph Padre and Program Director, Regimental Chaplain, 32 Combat Regiment, Toronto, Wounded Warriors Canada
Nope.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Thank you very much for that presentation.
You've identified a few issues that probably need further exploration. First, let me ask, are you focusing now on the mental health aspects? We have Wounded Warriors. We have Soldier On. We have the Military Families Fund. We have the Maple Leaf fund, and we have other things out there.
Are we at a point at which there needs to be some specialization, or are there gaps that remain? We have the Canadian Legion doing work. We have, as you mentioned, the B.C. organization that's active. There are other advocacy groups out there as well.
Why is that?
4:45 p.m.
Board Vice-Chair and Chief Financial Officer, Wounded Warriors Canada
Why is that?
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Yes, do you have a problem? Are you not getting enough from the government?
4:45 p.m.
Board Vice-Chair and Chief Financial Officer, Wounded Warriors Canada
I don't think there's—
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Are we not looking after our soldiers well enough that we have to have various charities out there doing the job?
4:45 p.m.
Board Vice-Chair and Chief Financial Officer, Wounded Warriors Canada
Sir, with all due respect, the one thing about Canada is that we are a great country and great people. As the treasurer and CFO of this charity, and in my ongoing activities with various charities, I've never seen anything like this in my life where Canadians from all walks of life are donating to support—
4:45 p.m.
Board Vice-Chair and Chief Financial Officer, Wounded Warriors Canada
They want to help.
4:45 p.m.
Board Vice-Chair and Chief Financial Officer, Wounded Warriors Canada
In terms of Wounded Warriors, I can't speak for other charities and their mandates, but our mandate is focused primarily on the mental health issues that exist. That's mainly because.... In fairness, the CF have done a very good job with the physically injured. One thing about mental health issues is that unfortunately they have a much longer life cycle in terms of the needs and can manifest themselves in a number of different ways and over a longer period of time. That's where our focus is.
4:45 p.m.
Board Vice-Chair and Chief Financial Officer, Wounded Warriors Canada
That's correct.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Good. I'm glad to hear it.
Can you elaborate a little more on one of your last remarks about the concerns of class C reservists, the 30 days, and getting considered for compensation? We do know that with mental health and the progress of that disease, particularly PTSD, it emerges sometimes well after the incident took place.
What is wrong with that and what recommendations should we be making to try to fix it? We're talking about the care and treatment of injured soldiers. They're still injured soldiers when they've left the reserves, even though they may qualify as a veteran or whatever. The care for that person who was injured as a soldier is important.
4:45 p.m.
Board Vice-Chair and Chief Financial Officer, Wounded Warriors Canada
I will defer that question to our program director and padre for more specifics.
4:45 p.m.
Padre and Program Director, Regimental Chaplain, 32 Combat Regiment, Toronto, Wounded Warriors Canada
In a nutshell, when somebody has augmented from the reserve force and has deployed with the regular force, when they return to Canada they get a brief post-deployment screening, and then they have to take their leave. They have a couple of days at the reserve unit, where they parade half-time and have to be seen, and then they have to use up their leave. There's their 30 days.
They're asked questions right off the bat about having any symptoms. They go through the screening tools, but as we know—it's pretty common knowledge—mental health issues, as you said, sometimes take months and sometimes years to manifest themselves.
Once you've finished your 30 days and the class C contract ends, you're back, ostensibly, to civilian life. You might go back to being a class A soldier where you're parading at the regiment once a week and training on a monthly basis, but for the rest of your life you're out there in the workforce trying to make a living and provide for your family, for yourself, etc. If the mental health issues begin to surface as a result of your service, it's really difficult, especially for reservists.
There are two issues: time and space. If you're from Flin Flon, Manitoba, all these wonderful centres we hear about are kind of far away, so getting access from there is one issue. Secondly, because you are now a class A soldier, you come in and you sign into the regiment and you work with them on your Friday night or your Thursday night, whatever your parade night is, and that's your military service. However, your problem now is that you're having mental health issues, you need to get treatment, and you need to get issues looked at, but you're still trying to provide for your family, hold down your civilian job, and do all the things that everybody else has to do, and yet you have this additional problem.
You're right. My parents taught me when I was a kid that if I broke something, I had to fix it. I think that as the Canadian Forces it's incumbent upon us, if we break something in this context, we need to address it. I've seen soldiers, especially those with physical health issues, and they get addressed within that 30-day period. Great, you have an injury, we're going to treat it, extend your contract, give you a place to hang your hat, and make sure you're still getting paid. We're going to treat you and get you all the way through to recovery. That works really well in that model.
With mental health issues, they may come up six or eight months later. Try to get them back onto a contract and have the system take care of them; it's near impossible. I know. I've tried.
4:50 p.m.
NDP