National Defence Committee on April 28th, 2023

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'm going to try to put two questions in together so that I can trick the chair into giving me more time.

I didn't get a response, so can you let us know the timeline for the renewal of the benefits for CAF members under Medavie Blue Cross extended care?

Also, is the team considering increasing coverage for chiropractic services, as I understand has been requested by many service members?

In addition, I have a colleague who has introduced Bill C-206, a private member's bill that ultimately would change the National Defence Act, which makes self-harm a disciplinary offence. He wants to recognize that self-harm is obviously a mental health issue. Removing it would represent taking a step forward against a lot of that stigma that you're talking about and recognizing that mental health is an issue that we address differently, from a physician's point of view.

[MGen Marc Bilodeau]

On the question of renewal of benefits, there are two pieces there that I might answer on. I don't know if I'm going to touch on what you're looking for.

First, we're in the process of renewing the contract with Blue Cross. Is that what...?

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

It's the timeline, yes.

[MGen Marc Bilodeau]

That's done by Veterans Affairs. That's a three-department contract among us, the RCMP and Veterans Affairs. They're the lead. I can't comment on the specifics of it.

With regard to chiropractic care specifically, it's already included in our list of benefits. We are allowed to refer our members to receive chiropractic care. It's basically funded through our payment mechanism with Blue Cross. That already exists.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay.

[LGen Lise Bourgon]

On the aspect of subsection 98(c) and self-harm, this is more of a legal question. They are looking into that legislation.

At the end of the day, self-harm due to mental health is never going to be actioned in a punitive way.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

The point of the bill.... We've been told that it's never going to be actioned, so why wouldn't the act just be changed?

[LGen Lise Bourgon]

You have to go and look at unlimited liability and going to war. Look at World War I and World War II. People were cutting their fingers so as not to be.... I know it's based on history. Mental health in that aspect will not be used. I think it's well protected in the health services.

It is something we have on our list to amend, but it's a question of priorities and sequencing, because there's a lot of legislation that needs to be modified right now. We have limited resources and bandwidth.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Mr. Bezan, you have five minutes.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We've referred to the total health and wellness strategy. It touches on parts of what you're doing in health care. It also touches on other parts.

I know there are deadlines tied to that strategy. Would you be able to table in the House how the strategy has been executed and whether or not we're meeting those deadlines?

A few times in the testimony today, we talked about the Seamless Canada initiative and how that's especially impacting the consistency and the continuity of care for CAF members as well as their families, especially when they are moving back and forth across the country.

Could we have a copy of that agreement with the provinces tabled with committee so that we can see exactly how it's going to be implemented?

[LGen Lise Bourgon]

We'll look into this.

I think we provide a report every year on the total health and wellness strategy implementation plan.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

We looked online and we couldn't find it.

[LGen Lise Bourgon]

I think it's releasable.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Even if you could get the link....

[LGen Lise Bourgon]

We'll go back and look into it. It might be in the process of making its way up to the minister for a signature.

It's something that we have to do every year anyway, so we'll ensure that it's made available when it's ready to be made available.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Okay. Thank you.

We supported the government's announcement to expedite the pathway to citizenship and recruit permanent residents into the Canadian Forces. Have you looked at using that as a tool to recruit specific new Canadians who are trained in health care but don't have their credentials recognized here in Canada? It would provide the opportunity to have their credentials recognized while serving in the Canadian Armed Forces in their field of expertise and training.

[MGen Marc Bilodeau]

The challenge with that is we're not a regulator. I'm not giving licences to practise. The colleges of physicians, for example, are in the provinces. They are the ones that will give them the authority to practise or tell them what they need to do it order to gain their permits.

That would be a very challenging space for us to get engaged in, as we don't have all the levers.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I think it would be an opportunity for the Canadian Armed Forces to fill in vacancies and work with those colleges to ensure that those professionals are getting accredited while providing the care that our members need.

Moving on and going to the CAF transition group, we have some of the numbers there. Originally, when they go into the transition group, not everyone hears, “Okay, we're going to release you.” There are some we may want to retain and retrain. Do we know what those numbers are? What are the percentages and success rates?

Finding people, especially those with national security clearances, is getting more and more difficult, it seems.

[Cmdre Daniel Bouchard]

I do not have the numbers, because in the transition group for all regular force members, we are not at full operational capability at this time. However, we are tracking these numbers. It is something that I have asked the team to look at to make sure that we have an idea.

We've also—

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Could you provide those numbers to the committee as well?

I would be interested to see what careers they're transitioning from and into, even if they are going to transition as civilians and go back and work for DND. I think there's an opportunity there to take those people with operational know-how and put them in on the civilian side.

Talking about recruitment, I'm hearing that the percentage of women who walk into our recruitment centres across this country is on the decline. Of course, we've had bad news with CAF for a number of years. I wanted to know if you could confirm that number.

I have heard that only 8% of women have actually darkened the doors of recruitment centres across Canada.

[LGen Lise Bourgon]

Thank you for the question.

That is not a fact, actually. When we look at the numbers of women, about 28% of the applicants in our recruiting numbers right now are women.

The issue we are seeing right now is that a lot of women are going for the same occupations. Canadians and Canada as a society are still quite traditional and gender-traditional in roles, so they're going towards those traditional occupations, which are mostly medical, logistics and support. Those numbers are actually limited. That is where the issue is. If we could get more women to go into the non-gender-traditional roles across the CAF, we could have 28% women.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Bezan.

I'll take the last question. There's a saying that there are no atheists in foxholes, yet we managed to have an almost two-hour discussion without discussing the spiritual well-being of CAF members.

In my riding, the rhythms of a lot of my constituents are governed by their spiritual and religious affiliation, whether it's Muslim or Christian, primarily, yet we've had no discussion about the spiritual well-being of our people.

Do you think that this is an impediment to recruitment?

[LGen Lise Bourgon]

I said the word “spiritual” when I talked about the total health and wellness strategy. Again, it's the physical, spiritual and mental.

We have a robust spiritual section under the chaplain general. The chaplain general is responsible for providing chaplains across the CAF and DND. When we look at the chaplains, we've seen in the last 18 months a growth in chaplains and a growth in the non-traditional faiths of chaplains. Now we have a Muslim chaplain, an indigenous chaplain and a humanist chaplain available across the CAF. It is so important. It's part of the command team aspect that's part of the support at the tactical level.

The chaplains, regardless of their faith base, are all trained. A lot of them have social work backgrounds, so on top of that social work help, they also provide that spiritual base—not based on a religion—across the spectrum.

It is an important piece of the total health and wellness strategy. We've been working very hard with the chaplain general to broaden the spectrum of what is available for our troops.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Putting aside the distinction between spiritual and religious, which many would say there is no difference between, do you think that chaplains who represent or are affiliated with organized religions whose beliefs are not synonymous with the diverse and inclusive workplace are being excluded from chaplaincy? A misinterpretation would pretty well eliminate all of the Abrahamic religions from any application to be chaplains in the forces.

I'd be interested in knowing how you square that circle. It does, on the face of it, appear to be hostile to a large percentage of Canadians whose faith determines how they live.

[LGen Lise Bourgon]

We're looking at what the role of a chaplain is. That spiritual aspect is more important in service to our CAF members. Right now, every chaplain coming into the CAF, regardless of their faith group, has to first respect the values of the CAF by serving every member and being inclusive. If a chaplain coming in cannot meet the CAF values because their faith restricts them from doing that, then honestly, the CAF is not the place for them.

The first thing is being able to serve and provide support to every CAF member regardless of their faith, gender, identity and everything else. That has been very clear across all of our chaplains.

I think, personally, that we have to also provide our members with religious support. It is important, but every religion must also be respected, so those services are available for all of our CAF members. We are looking at a much more inclusive chaplain group, and one that respects the CAF values and our ethos first.