Public Safety Committee on March 10th, 2016

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Stamatakis, would you have anything to add to that?

[Tom Stamatakis]

Sure. I have a colleague who killed himself on New Year's Eve, December 31, 2014. He was working a project targeting a number of high-level criminals. He was away from home working an excessive amount of overtime for an extended period of time, away from his two young children and his spouse over the Christmas vacation when they were expecting him to be home. There's a lot more to this story but ultimately it appears to have culminated in this police officer becoming so overwhelmed by his circumstances—he also suffered a head injury during that time that was misdiagnosed—that he went to his hotel room on New Year's Eve 2014 and killed himself with his own service pistol.

I'm still supporting his spouse who's now left with no husband and no father to her two children. She has received no benefits. She's now lost the primary provider in the home, and is still now, over a year later, waiting for a response from the local workers' compensation board. I don't want to come across as being critical of the board because they are, of course, investigating and doing all those things, but there's a clear example of something that has resulted in the loss of a life. It's left two children without a father, a wife without a husband, and a lot of questions and uncertainty around their future.

That's just one example. We had four suicides in the police community early this year. I can give you many more examples, and that's just on the personal side. There's an impact organizationally when you have people suffering from operational stress injury or PTSD. The absences from work, the suffering, the issues with their performance that manifest themselves in disciplinary processes, and how that consumes an individual and the individual's family and an organization, and how inefficient that is, it's just a travesty.

That's why this is so important and why we have to get so ahead of it so that we understand it, so that we can diagnose it early, so that we can prevent it, and treat it, and provide people with support so they can stay productive, not just in their personal lives but also professionally.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you for that.

These are only four stories. Suffice it to say that there's a tremendous economic cost. I won't ask about that.

What I wanted to seek your help on is some clarification of concepts—again for the benefit of the Canadian public—and separation of what we're talking about here and what else might be going on in the workplace. You've already alluded to it, but one of the terms that floats around a lot is “burnout”. It's a common Canadian term. You can have burnout in investment banking, but you won't get PTSD. Could you talk about the stressors that exist in the workplace outside of the actual events that would trigger OSI or PTSD, and how they might serve as an accelerant and how we need to focus on those as well as the actual symptoms that we're looking at here?

[Louise Bradley]

I have—

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Stamatakis, go ahead.

[Tom Stamatakis]

There was work done by Professor Linda Duxbury a few years ago. She's at Carleton University. She found—and this is a huge contributor I think, particularly in the police community—that most police officers were working an excessive number of hours on a weekly basis. Let's say roughly that we work about a 40-hour work week, as everybody else does. But she found through her research, which is a national research project, that police officers were regularly putting in between 10 and 20 additional hours on top of the 40 that they normally work. So when you talk about burnout, there's not a police agency or a police officer across this country who won't tell you that on a weekly basis they're having to put in additional time.

Sometimes that's because they're appearing in court to help prosecute the cases in which they've arrested people, so victims can be supported and the accused can be convicted of the serious crimes they were committing. There are special events. There are always additional demands on police officers, in addition to the regular hours of work they typically do.

That's just one example that leads to this burnout, this constant demand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. O'Toole.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to be dividing my time with my colleague Mr. Doherty.

I want to welcome and thank all the witnesses for your frank testimony, personal in some cases, and your advocacy. I've had the pleasure of working directly with many of you in the last few years. Particularly, I think one of the real achievements of the Conservative government was the Mental Health Commission of Canada, and I applaud this new government if it's going to build upon that. I hope to see some of you at the Sam Sharpe mental health breakfast on May 5, which Roméo Dallaire and I host on the Hill each year.

Thank you for your work and the training program that, Mr. Upshall, your organization's been critical in creating for family physicians, because as you said, that's a first point of contact for veterans and first responders, and we need to empower them with knowledge.

My question will really be for Mr. Stamatakis. I had the honour of addressing your group. I talked about PTSD and OSIs and the need for the federal government to share, and the road to mental readiness program is being shared and built upon. Dr. Sareen, who was just before you, talked about the dosage issue and that a single event, as you said, or prolonged exposure can lead to OSIs. How do you track that sort of prolonged exposure at the police level? Is it being monitored now, so that there can be a health check for your members?

[Tom Stamatakis]

No. That's the short answer. We've done a terrible job of tracking, and I think that's tied a little bit into this notion of stigma and an unwillingness in our culture, in particular, to acknowledge the scope of the problem and the fact that it is an issue that must be tracked. We're just starting now to try to track that as best we can. I think programs like the road to mental readiness are a step in the right direction.

We in policing also have done a terrible job, in my view, of building the capacity that you need to build in order to allow programs like R2MR to be successful, so that, when police officers and first responders are educated and able to self-identify that they're in one of these stressful situations for whatever reason, there's the capacity then to manage that without adding to the whole stigma issue. If I declare that I'm suffering and I need some time away, I need to be in a position where my colleagues aren't going to be left short-handed and upset because they've just lost someone and now they have to work twice as hard because there's a vacancy in that work unit.

We've done a terrible job, and that's where I think this committee can play a significant role by creating some broad framework around what we need to do nationally to make sure we track these issues more carefully and understand the scope of the problem.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Stamatakis, I just want to say thank you to our guests as well.

In developing my bill, Bill C-211, I am deeply familiar with some of the concerns that are being experienced, but one of the things that I failed to do adequately, and the question has been raised.... How would you define the term “first responder”?

[Tom Stamatakis]

Typically what people look to are the front-line police officers who are wearing the uniform and responding to calls for service and ambulance paramedics wearing uniforms and who are responding. It's the same for firefighters.

We have a number of people who work in policing, in particular, because that's my area of familiarity. We have 911 operators, so communications operators who take the calls from the public, and these are sometimes pretty traumatic calls. We have analysts that work side by side with our police investigators, who are looking often at some pretty horrendous evidence and dealing with horrendous images and scenes.

There's all manner of other police personnel or personnel in the other partners in the first responder community who also need to be included in this discussion.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Really quickly, I'm glad you brought it up in terms of the compensation act, and having survivors, the friends and family members who are left behind.... We really need to build a real-world solution by engaging those who are putting their boots on the ground, those who are putting their lives in danger every day, and those who are tasked to take charge and look after those who are putting their lives in danger.

How do you see that moving forward in terms of developing that national framework so that we can develop a framework that is most effective, so that it's not just for now but for the long term?

[Tom Stamatakis]

One of the things I see is that we need to first of all come up with some common understanding of what we're talking about.

Let's define terms like “occupational stress injury” or “PTSD” clearly. Let's all talk the same talk. You can talk to different groups or advocates in this area that have different definitions around common terms.

Then let's get to some common discussion about what we think those appropriate tools are or what we think those appropriate treatments or supports are for people who are suffering, so there's some consistency around that across the country. I think again that's where this body can play a significant role.

There's been lots of talk about presumptive legislation provincially, which I know doesn't fall within the jurisdiction of the federal government, but the most important piece from my perspective is what happens after. Just getting the diagnosis and the acceptance of the claim is one part of the problem, but it's what happens after.

In the example I gave you about the spouse whose husband killed himself, she herself was diagnosed with PTSD because of the circumstances around the death of her husband, and she's still paying out of pocket to get the counselling service that is helping her manage her own diagnosis. This is over a year later, and there's no mechanism for providing people with access to that counselling. In her case she's getting lots of support, but the common theme is where people don't have the financial capacity to manage that on their own. They go without.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Mr. Dubé.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here with us today.

Ms. Bradley, you mentioned the support program, the pilot project.

[Louise Bradley]

I'm sorry, but I don't speak French.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

While the clerk shows you where the translation earpiece is, I'll continue in English.

You talked about the pilot projects that are being organized with Corrections Canada in the Pacific region and in Quebec. That's under way now, I believe. Can you perhaps give an update on how that's going and where things are at?

[Louise Bradley]

We're seeing a large uptake right across the country, so we're very pleased about that in terms of R2MR and mental health first aid.

Another component relates to several of the other questions that were asked along with yours, which is that the commission has the “National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace”. We are seeing some areas in health care and first responders looking at this, because regardless of whether the workplace is in an office or out on the streets or wherever it may be, it applies equally. This can look at and address the stigma that is associated with the thought that it's a career-limiting move to admit that you're experiencing difficulties. It also allows people to take steps to make sure that things like this are prevented. It could involve everything from peer support groups to accommodating people. We know how to accommodate somebody in a physical setting if they have a physical injury, but psychological ones, not so much.

It's costing Canada over $51 billion a year in lost productivity, so we are promoting the psychological safety standard in the workplace. We are seeing more of them take this up, so that allows for a much broader and in-depth approach to prevention and being able to respond quickly to a situation than just the two tools—which are extremely effective, by the way—R2MR and mental health first aid.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

I know that you guys are only partners, but do you know where that specific pilot project is right now? I appreciate the overarching theme, but is that going well? Is it going to be adopted at large?

[Louise Bradley]

Do you mean R2MR specifically?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Yes, but the pilot project with Corrections Canada that was kicked off in August....

[Louise Bradley]

It's still at the very beginning. Some correctional centres are doing some training for train-the-trainers, but I couldn't say that it's widespread.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

It's still early, fair enough.

I will continue in French.

In your road map—it was in 2012, if I'm not mistaken—you talked about the importance of better collaboration with the provinces on mental health services. Although the issues we are focusing on here today have more to do with what the federal government can do, would you still say that services need to be better integrated in order to really be able to provide as many services as possible to those who need them?

[Louise Bradley]

Yes, I do think that more work can and should be done in that regard. After all, the provinces are largely responsible for providing health care.

I think the good news is that with a mental health strategy for Canada where all these items are identified, several of the provinces have now developed individual provincial mental health strategies that overlap with the national one. That's a good thing, but I think that is dependent. Not all provinces are dealing with it and doing as well as others, so there isn't all that much consistency.

I think that working with the provinces and territories is absolutely critical. The issues that are occurring, for example, in the Northwest Territories are going to be quite different from those in Toronto. Yes, the outcomes are very frequently the same, but the issues are different and therefore have to be dealt with differently, which is why we've done adaptations specific to mental health first aid for northern peoples, first nations, and seniors.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

That's an interesting point.

When we think about the federal government's role in terms of public safety for indigenous people, one has to wonder how an approach that is more tailor-made for first nations could be developed. This could include mental health services and various actions by the RCMP, for instance, as well as other similar situations.