The statistics are pretty interesting. At 17%, in the study done in 1992, we were just behind post-war Vietnam veterans. There was a recent CBC report that put us actually higher, and I don't mean to disrespect my police colleagues and firefighters, but they said we were around 25% to 27%. Ms. MacDonald testified this week here in front of the committee that the statistics were around 36% in a survey that was done.
The numbers are really right off the chart, and I guess when you put those numbers in perspective, they're extremely high in comparison to other first responder occupations. Obviously, we were ecstatic about the presumption that has been passed in Manitoba and Ontario, because correctional officers have never ever in our history been recognized as first responders.
I can't tell you how pleased we were about that, and the fact that these two governments have taken the initiative to say, look, when there's a diagnosis of PTSD, we're going to fast-track these cases, and treat these people and get them back to work. When you look at the numbers overall, we're way up there, and that's why we continue to insist, with every government, that we are first responders, and we're asking governments to recognize us as first responders, because as I said, we're all three inside. We don't disrespect our colleagues, but at the end of the day, we're doing them all. I don't know whether that's a contributing factor to why the rates might be slightly higher than those of other first responder occupations.