Evidence of meeting #36 for Veterans Affairs in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was care.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:20 a.m.
Acting Senior Staff Officer, Canadian Forces Mental Health Initiative, Department of National Defence
It was 5,000 regular force and 3,000 reservists.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
10:20 a.m.
Acting Senior Staff Officer, Canadian Forces Mental Health Initiative, Department of National Defence
Yes, it definitely was very substantive.
We had Statistics Canada do it because they were independent and it was all confidential. So there were no permanent records. They were all kept out at Statistics Canada.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Good. I just wanted to know the size of the sample—
10:20 a.m.
Acting Senior Staff Officer, Canadian Forces Mental Health Initiative, Department of National Defence
Yes, that was the size of the sample.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
—to know how much we could rely on that number. But a 5,000 sampling is very good.
Major, you'd mentioned that it's very difficult to treat PTSD. Is obsessive-compulsive behaviour in that vein as well, and is that why there are so few psychiatrists and psychologists who are available for that?
10:20 a.m.
Maj Chantal Descôteaux
What we know in psychiatry is that these two anxiety disorders are some of the most difficult to treat and treat the right way. We need to be à la fine pointe with these things, get the proper training, but also continue medical education on these things. If we're talking about VAC, ensuring that this psychologist downtown in little Saint-Meumeu-des-Creux is good to treat this is very tough. So if we could have these big clinics where we have experts and we are sure that when we're sending a patient there he's getting the best, that's what I would like.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
But as a professional, you feel that there's probably some aversion to psychiatrists and psychologists specializing in this because of the complexity and the difficulty of the disorders. Is that what I'm hearing?
10:20 a.m.
Maj Chantal Descôteaux
There's difficulty to access psychiatrists, for anything.
10:25 a.m.
Psychologist, Mental Health Services, Candian Forces Base Valcartier , Department of National Defence
It's because of the volume of clients. In the Canadian Forces, there are a fairly high number of consultations for post-traumatic stress. In the civilian environment, we do see cases of post-traumatic stress, but they're not related to military operations. The context is different, and the types of trauma involved are different. Pascale Brillon explained that there could be a variety of traumas experienced over a long period. This means that we can certainly identify trauma among police officers or firefighters, but the trauma experienced by soldiers is quite specific.
With regard to the issue of keeping abreast of knowledge, we must point out that our client volume does make it possible to acquire the needed expertise. With regard to training, however—and training is something I consider important—we do need to keep abreast of things, given that our mandate is very specific. However, we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel to get training budgets, and that is disgraceful. We have a duty to keep abreast of current knowledge, and when international conferences or important events are held, we are almost down to drawing the short straw to see who gets the chance to go. It's a real problem.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Okay. And you're talking about a training budget for development for your own professionals there, right?
10:25 a.m.
Psychologist, Mental Health Services, Candian Forces Base Valcartier , Department of National Defence
Yes.
10:25 a.m.
Maj Chantal Descôteaux
And VAC.
10:25 a.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Your information was a lot more encouraging regarding the deployment of soldiers and exactly the kind of training that you give them to be more resilient, as you had mentioned.
You had alluded to this, but I just want to be specific: Is there research going on right now on two things, the first one being to broaden the predictors? Most of the predictors are extraneous, they're external—right?—substance abuse, whether the person was abused earlier in life, that kind of thing. You only mentioned one, a rigid personality as far what's happening existentially in their mind. Is there research going on right now to broaden the base of predictors so that psychiatrists and psychologists can maybe train those social workers in order to dig deeper to determine whether someone is going to react? That's really the nature of it. It's a reaction to the trauma that is non-resilient and becomes, of course, a behavioural problem or a psychological problem. Are you aware of more research going on?
As to the second one, has there been some research to date about sensitizing, or whatever terminology you want to use, but exposing the soldier to the stress that they're going to experience, in order to give them the capability of being more resilient when that comes? I know they do training, war games so to speak, but that's with their own personnel. That's not, as one witnesses said before, seeing a young boy who is nine years old strapped with munitions and actually killing people. That's something that is absolutely obscene in our culture.
So I'll leave those two with you.
10:25 a.m.
Psychologist, Mental Health Services, Candian Forces Base Valcartier , Department of National Defence
I am not a researcher. It would have been interesting to have put this question to Stéphane Guay, for instance, who does research that is really specific to this issue. He no doubt does research in this field, I am convinced, but I cannot tell you what type, nor can I tell you what is being done exactly.
10:25 a.m.
Maj Chantal Descôteaux
In Valcartier there is a research centre next to us. They have a cyber room. Again, that's another initiative we have. We attended a cyber therapy meeting and the American army was there to train people. You go into a cyber chamber and you're 3D—on the ceiling and the floor. And you are in the theatre. This is where we would like to connect with the research centre, and we have started to do so. But again, it is on our own free time, which we don't have.
One of our psychologists is trying to see if we could do a training program that could help with people's resiliency, by maybe seeing dead people and reacting— We would also like to use the same centre to screen people before they go. If they don't react well to the cyber room, they are probably not fit to go.
There are avenues in which we could go, but right now we do not have enough people to do all that. We wish we could. There is research being done, but not on our part for now.
I think we are going to cooperate with that research centre for that cyber room. Research will come out of that.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
What was very encouraging was that you're developing these teams of professionals. Have you actually gone to the major institutions in Canada and communicated with them about the shortage of psychologists and psychiatrists?
10:30 a.m.
Acting Senior Staff Officer, Canadian Forces Mental Health Initiative, Department of National Defence
Absolutely. We are doing that all the time at major conventions. In fact there is a symposium at Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue in May. We will have a recruiting booth there for both public service HR and Canadian Forces HR.
10:30 a.m.
Maj Chantal Descôteaux
We could have more people working with us, but we're not allowed. We don't have the organizational charter to hire. I know they are looking at that. It is a work in progress. We have to see how efficient we are before they allow us to have more people in that trade. We wish we could. I think we would get civilian psychiatrists and psychologists to join us, because it is a really interesting and dynamic team. Right now, and I can only talk for Valcartier, I realize that we should be allowed to have more people on our positions charter.
10:30 a.m.
Acting Senior Staff Officer, Canadian Forces Mental Health Initiative, Department of National Defence
We're validating that as we go base by base, to see what is the right mix and number of clinical providers at each base.
10:30 a.m.
Psychologist, Mental Health Services, Candian Forces Base Valcartier , Department of National Defence
With respect to Valcartier, that also raises an infrastructure problem because, even if we did have the staff, we would have to put them in the parking lot or on the roof at present. We do not have the required facilities.
10:30 a.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Madam, would it be possible for the committee to have a copy of the survey questions that were done?
10:30 a.m.
Acting Senior Staff Officer, Canadian Forces Mental Health Initiative, Department of National Defence
Absolutely.
10:30 a.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
It would be great to have that. It would be interesting to see what kinds of questions were asked of the 5,000 and 3,000.
Also, what is the average age of the health care providers of the various groups you've identified within DND?
