Evidence of meeting #58 for National Defence in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was services.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Lise Bourgon  Acting Chief of Military Personnel and Acting Commander Military Personnel Command, Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence
Daniel Bouchard  Commander, Canadian Armed Forces Transition Group, Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence
Scott Malcolm  Commander, Canadian Forces Health Services Group, Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence
Marc Bilodeau  Surgeon General, Canadian Armed Forces, Department of National Defence
Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Andrew Wilson

LGen Lise Bourgon

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll return the floor to General Malcolm.

If you have the info....

BGen Scott Malcolm

Mr. Chair, thanks for the question. I don't have the specific numbers on how many folks we have in Petawawa. Across the country, we have approximately 500 military, public service and contracted psychiatrists and psychologists, mental health nurses and social workers.

Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON

How are the medical personnel, including doctors, regular physicians and pharmacists, recruited into military? How do you get the people who are actually serving the members? Are they all military, or do you have civilians as well to augment them?

MGen Marc Bilodeau

Mr. Chair, we have a hybrid of health care professionals, some in uniform, and there are different ways by which they come to duty in uniform.

Some of them come directly from the civilian sector through civilian health care professional development programs. That's the case for many of our physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, social workers, pharmacists and so on. We also have public service positions in our clinics that are for our physicians, nurses and some of our mental health professionals as well.

Obviously we have some vacancies in those positions, which we're backfilling through contractors.

9:40 a.m.

Conservative

Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON

How are these contractors recruited?

MGen Marc Bilodeau

We have a contract with a big firm. It's Calian that has that contract currently. Basically, they're responsible to meet our needs. We're signifying the needs that we have for whatever professional in whichever location, and they're responsible to do the recruiting and to find those professionals.

9:40 a.m.

Conservative

Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON

Calian is given a contract. In essence, they get a cut of the salaries for the physicians, pharmacists, etc., whom they recruit. How competitive are the salaries of these physicians and other medical health care professionals to salaries in the private sector—to anyone not dealing through Calian?

MGen Marc Bilodeau

Mr. Chair, I can't comment on the specifics of the numbers of the contract. What I know is that our contractor is adjusting its rate based on the cost of living and the ability to hire in different areas of the country. For example, a physician hired in Edmonton won't be paid the same as someone hired in Nova Scotia.

9:40 a.m.

Conservative

Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON

Do we currently have any mental health providers on base in Petawawa?

The reason I ask is that a number of years ago, this committee travelled to Base Petawawa in the dying days of the Afghanistan conflict. We visited the mental health centre. I drove there, but the rest of the committee took a bus. They were held up for over an hour and half by a general who was giving them a briefing before the bus even left. Subsequent to that meeting, we learned that while they were being detained in Ottawa, the people at the centre for mental health on the base were scrambling to find people to make it look like the offices were actually occupied.

That's why I'm concerned right now that we have psychologists or psychiatrists on hand, or do our people get loaded into buses and sent to Ottawa for their treatment?

BGen Scott Malcolm

We do absolutely have mental health practitioners in Petawawa. I did a unit visit there less than two weeks ago in the new facility, so we absolutely do. There are times when, if members in Petawawa require more specialized services, they can be referred to practitioners here in Ottawa, but we certainly do have mental health providers in Petawawa.

The Chair Liberal John McKay

Thank you, Ms. Gallant.

We will move on to Mr. May for five minutes.

Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of you for being here and helping us kick off this study.

General, you talked a little bit about Seamless Canada, which I obviously have an affinity for, as co-chair. I have the opportunity to co-chair that steering committee with the Honourable Mary Wilson from New Brunswick. Last year, of course—and you talked a little bit about this—we were able to get the provinces to waive the 90-day waiting period for health cards, not just for CAF members but for their families. We are meeting again in Gagetown next month.

My question is, what should that steering committee be addressing next, in your opinion?

LGen Lise Bourgon

Thank you, Mr. May, for the effort and for co-chairing Seamless Canada, because it is very important.

Again, when we look at the military, the strength behind our uniforms is our families. We are all tracking the recruitment and the retention.

One of the main reasons people leave the military is the impact of service on their families. From a point of view of health care access, by the time you get on the list to have access to a doctor, you're moving again. It's the same thing for child care. It's very difficult to find child care every time you move.

There's also spousal employment. Again, when one of our members is posted, their spouse needs to find a new job in the new location. Usually they end up at the bottom of the list again, with the lowest salary.

Those three lines of effort are the core of Seamless Canada. If the provinces can work on those three lines of efforts and on finding.... It's not going to be magic. There are small victories that we have to achieve through the years to facilitate those three areas of friction when our members are moving across the country.

For me, that's the core. I'm a mother. My husband was in the military. Raising two kids and having to wait for child care access when you're deployed and when you're working crazy hours is so stressful. If I had a magic wand, I would use it for access to child care.

It's great if we can look at subsidized child care. That's great for our members, but having access is absolutely essential for our service members to be able to do their jobs and to be operationally effective because they don't have to worry about what's going to happen to their kids.

I landed a Sea King in Halifax in a parking lot. It was quarter to six, and my husband was deployed. I was like, “Oh my God, who's going to go get the children, because the MFRC closes at six? What are they going to do?” We didn't have family members because we were not posted where we had family members.

That access to child care, for me, would be critical. We're working very hard, but if I had one wish, it would be that one.

Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON

Thank you, General.

I was at CFB Esquimalt a couple of weeks ago, and I had the opportunity to connect with the family resource centre on the base.

I'm wondering whether you can take a moment to explain that to the committee. Is that a model that we are hoping to expand to other bases?

LGen Lise Bourgon

The military family resource centres were established in the late eighties or early nineties. My history fails me, but it was in that area.

They're a jewel too. They're bricks and mortar areas where our families and our service members can go to seek support ranging from family support—like homework support for our children doing homework—to mental health and socialization. Some of our military family centres have day care. They're provincially run day cares, not run by the military, but there's a location. There's a day care there. Many of the services are being provided for our spouses. There's a network of employment opportunities at the tactical level in different communities.

It's interesting, because Australia came for a visit a few months ago, and they went to visit our military family resource centre because it's something that they don't have. It is something that they're going to create for their veterans, because veterans also have access. Family members have access. We don't turn away anyone from accessing the programs that are being delivered at those military family resource centres.

I would encourage.... If you want to go visit, we can provide a session on what they provide, because it's incredible.

Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON

Thank you.

The Chair Liberal John McKay

Thank you, Mr. May.

I must admit that showing up at day care with a Sea King is pretty impressive.

Voices

Oh, oh!

LGen Lise Bourgon

Mr. Chair, I didn't make it.

The Chair Liberal John McKay

It's almost as good as landing on top of a Tim Hortons.

Madame Normandin, you have two and a half minutes.

Hang on, it's Mr. Kelly.

Colleagues, before Mr. Kelly.... It's 10 minutes to 10. I propose two more five-minute rounds. Is that okay?

Some hon. members

Agreed.

The Chair Liberal John McKay

I'm sorry about that. Go ahead.

9:45 a.m.

Conservative

Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB

I'm going to carry on with the military family resource centres because those were identified within the total health and wellness strategy. I want to talk about the status of the goals set out under that strategy.

How much have wait times for mental health services been reduced through the expansion of the military family resource centres?

LGen Lise Bourgon

As we are tracking the total health and wellness strategy released in March of 2022, which looks at that holistic, evidence-based approach to health and looks at the physical, the mental and the spiritual, on your specific question, I know there were funds provided to the MFRC to increase the support they provide to the families, but I don't have that data.

9:50 a.m.

Conservative

Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB

What about telemedicine service improvement? Do we have a measurable improvement on that one under this strategy, or is it—