This is difficult to evaluate, because we had the means to evaluate post-traumatic stress disorder in the 1980s, between 1980 and 1985, but we have no data on the number of cases of post-traumatic stress disorder for the Second World War. There is little data on Vietnam veterans because the research was just beginning at that time. From now on, we will be able to document those cases. If our research can show the number of Canadian veterans who currently have post-traumatic stress disorder, in 10 years, we will be able to compare the figures with those of future wars. We will be able to determine whether the new kinds of warfare are more harmful and devastating and we will know what factors should be included in our practice, in our vision of the armed forces and in the training that we can provide the soldiers to bring the figures down. Therefore, it is very hard to tell if there is an increase in the number of post-traumatic stress disorder cases, because we had no way of detecting them in the past.
On February 27th, 2007. See this statement in context.