Thank you. That's an excellent question.
First of all, thank you for your kind remarks. I appreciate them.
I'll get around to your question in a minute, but just to go back to your point on experience in regard to clinical staff, psychologists and so forth, as you may be aware, the first ones went out to the field for two to three weeks initially in Bosnia, which wasn't long enough. Having been there, the troops viewed them with a bit of a jaundiced eye—that “I'm from NDHQ and I'm here to help you” kind of thing. The troops would much rather talk to their peers.
Having said that, it's my understanding—and this is a personal opinion—that the Canadian Forces health system is intentionally pushing clinical staff out into the field in Afghanistan, as you've heard. There's one there. The chief psychiatrist just came back from a four-month tour, and there are two psychiatrists who have replaced him. There is an individual in Halifax who was at one time a unit medical officer in Rwanda and a unit medical officer on the Golan Heights, who has specialist training and has spent one, if not two, tours in Afghanistan as the psychiatrist. He is the kind of guy who will take off his rank and talk to the soldiers; he is very, very good at it. So experience is building among the clinical staff, in addition to the experienced field soldiers who are talking to each other. But thank you for making that a point.
The change for the VAC or Veterans Affairs—and I'm saying this more as an individual rather than as a departmental employee of either department, which I'm not—has been dramatic, you could almost say, from ten years ago in regard to a caring attitude. Ten years ago there was almost an adversarial approach when somebody came forward to VAC for some type of annuity, treatment, and so forth. It's changed dramatically because the benefit of the doubt now goes to the individual—and obviously there's a certain bureaucracy individuals have to go through.
The culture is different, in my opinion, and that started with some significant changes within VAC six to eight years ago, when the emphasis was put on the individual rather than the system, with the benefit of the doubt now going to the individual. So I'm very positive that this type of activity will continue. With the example of the two circles overlapping, as Mr. Stoffer has indicated, or the seamless approach I mentioned, people are less likely to drop through the cracks than they were a number of years ago. Are there going to be people who will drop through the cracks? Of course. No system is perfect. But at least we've made significant inroads.
I don't know if that answers the question or not, Ms. Hinton, but thank you for asking it.