Evidence of meeting #11 for National Defence in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was illness.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe always asks good questions.
I want to get a clarification.
Admiral Bernatchez, in answering questions earlier you mentioned that if someone refuses treatment, they can actually be charged under the National Defence Act, or under the code of service discipline.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Okay, it could have been in the translation then.
If somebody refused to get treatment, whether for a physical injury, a mental health injury or refusing to take a vaccine, they wouldn't be charged or disciplined under the NDA, would they?
RAdm Geneviève Bernatchez
I'm going to pass it over to my specialist in these types of granular data. I'm going to ask my colleague Jill to answer.
Col Jill Wry
Thank you.
There is no specific obligation to undergo medical treatments. There is, I can say, an offence under the code of service discipline for refusing immunization or vaccination. I'd have to tell you the exact section—
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Are you telling me, then, that if somebody doesn't want to take the COVID-19 vaccine that's coming out right now, they can actually be disciplined for it?
Col Jill Wry
That would only be a situation where they're actually ordered to and it's an obligatory requirement. It's only if you are ordered to undertake an immunization or a vaccine. I would have to find the exact wording to give you for that particular section, but—
Conservative
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
That would be interesting for us, for sure, especially with some of the questions around efficacy and safety of the vaccines at this point in time. I know I will be taking the vaccine, but there might be others out there who don't want to, so I do appreciate that.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
While I'm talking to both of you, as judge advocate generals in the JAG office, one of your former colleagues, Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Guy Perron, testified when we were studying Bill C-77 back in November 2018. We were looking at whether paragraph 98(c) was a necessary under the National Defence Act, or whether there were other ways to deal with those who malinger. We heard from Professor Rotunda that they have found other avenues by which to do that in the United States
Under what other sections of the National Defence Act would we be able to charge those who use self-harm to avoid service, without paragraph 98(c)?
RAdm Geneviève Bernatchez
We would have to do some analysis to see how to get there. However, I would like to say at the outset that tribunals generally prefer to have specific offences, because when you have more general offences to address a specific behaviour, tribunal courts in Canada have a tendency to say that the accused did not get the opportunity to know exactly what they were facing. I think that the capacity to charge under other offences would require further analysis by my office. We currently have a specific offence that is incorporated in the code of service discipline, and if it were to disappear, it could signal also to the courts the parliamentary intent in that regard.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Admiral, could I just stop you there? We had a hearing back in November 2018 where we were looking at this section under Bill C-77. Colonel Strickey said at that point that they were going to look at that issue of self-harm and other areas. That was two years ago. I would have hoped that you had time during the past 25 month to actually pull together that analysis.
RAdm Geneviève Bernatchez
We have conducted quite significant analysis since 2018, as we committed to the committee at the time and we have elected to do it. That's the answer that I'm providing to you. I'm saying that there could be second and third degrees of effect of repealing a specific offence within the code of service discipline. That could signal parliamentary intent, and trying then to charge a member under a more general offence—for example, conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline—could be seen by either my military tribunals or civilian appeal courts as something that is no longer available to the military. This is something that I cannot positively declare at this point, because a court would have to opine on this. I'm just alerting the committee to the second- and third-order effects that could happen if this specific office were repealed from the code of service discipline in the National Defence Act.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
My final question revolves around the boards of inquiry that take place, especially when it relates to suicide. We already had Sheila Fynes at committee, whose son, Corporal Stuart Langridge, committed suicide. We are all also very familiar with the story of Lieutenant Shawna Rogers and how her family actually took the CF to court in Alberta to get access to the BOI report.
This adds insult to injury for families dealing with the loss of a loved one due to suicide. Has there been any advancement on sharing those findings and making sure that family get of all their questions answered in the unfortunate event of a suicide?
RAdm Geneviève Bernatchez
I am aware that those concerns have been shared with the committee. Unfortunately, this does not fall under my area of responsibility. It would have to be addressed by the chain of command.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karen McCrimmon
All right, thank you very much.
We'll move on to Mr. Spengemann, please.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Rear-Admiral Bernatchez, Colonel Wry and Colonel Jetly, thank you very much for giving us your testimony this afternoon. I also thank you for your service to our country. Through you, I would also like to thank the women and men serving under your command.
Colonel Jetly, congratulations on your pending retirement.
I want to take you back to conversations in previous rounds on the implications of serving in a combat role, either actively on the front lines of a kinetic environment or passively in a combat setting. We're seeing qualitatively and quantitatively different data out of that subset of members of the Canadian Forces and many other forces around the world.
Can you zoom in a bit and give us a bit more descriptive content on what you're seeing and hearing and how these data are being analyzed and compared to those of other settings that the women and men serve in?
Col Rakesh Jetly
As to the evolution of mental illness, we know there has been mental illness throughout the ages. There is the old saying that you're perfectly ready for the last war. Right now we've been analyzing this insurgency/counter-insurgency battle, how it happens in small groups without the formed units, what impact that has psychologically.
There is also the undeniable impact of physical injuries, such as concussions and the interaction between concussions and these things, so each mission tends to be different in the sense that we've gone.... And I've been around long enough to go to the massive humanitarian crises and peacekeeping missions, which have unique stressors—the inability to act sometimes and to prevent things that are happening in front of your eyes—to out and out war.
Each has a different, distinct flavour. There was the “peacekeeper syndrome”, the rage that people felt sometimes in the peacekeeping era. There was the hopelessness, the helplessness, that a Rwanda can bring out in people, and with Afghanistan we're seeing a mixture of both. We're seeing sometimes the classic PTSD with the anger, but we're also seeing the guilt, the shame and especially protracted grief because of the combat deaths that we have seen at a frequency that we, as Canadians, are not used to seeing.
I'm not sure if that answers your question.
I always talk about having these large studies that you are alluding to. My colleagues have done them and I love these studies, but at the end of the day, a person is sitting across from you who is suffering and you have to address their experience.
We try not to assume what somebody is going to experience, but we do understand the unique qualities of asymmetric warfare. The enemy, in the case of the Taliban, almost had a mystique to them in the sense that all of a sudden they were there.
The grief and loss of losing loved ones, colleagues, comrades is certainly part of it there.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Colonel, thank you very much.
In our previous session that was truncated for technological reasons, you made brief reference to the concept of unawareness of unwellness. That is a very important point.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
We know the resources available. In your assessment, is it still not based sufficiently on a demand-based model? Do we need to do more to push the services into the laps of serving members, if that's the right phraseology?
Col Rakesh Jetly
Yes, I think we do. Again, I'm going to talk about mental illness care writ large across the world, more than picking on the Canadian Armed Forces.
I think we have a traditional model of face-to-face care—“I'll see you every Tuesday at nine o'clock for an hour”—and a lot of that is an accident of how long it takes the earth to spin on its axis and how long it takes the world to go around. If we were on another planet, it would be 30-hour sessions every year.
I think we can leverage technology. I think we can put into people's hands information and self-help, because, number one, people have told us that they don't have an illness, but they also resoundingly say, both in civilian society and in the military, “I'd like to be able to handle things myself.”
I think we need to really leverage technology and give people the tools. Also, they can come to us. They can say, “Hey, Doc, I tried all of that stuff, but it's not working.” I think that would be the way of giving it that 24-7 kind of approach as well.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Very briefly, if I have a few seconds, are there any considerations with respect to proof of injury that the committee should be aware of on the part of a serving Canadian Forces member who is suffering a mental injury?