Veterans Affairs Committee on May 3rd, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Good morning, folks.

We're at the point where we're going to be calling more witnesses with regard to the health care review. Part of that health care review, early on, was the study on post-traumatic stress disorder. This morning I thought it would be wise to give some suggestions to the men who will be writing that.

I also want to let people know that yesterday the clerk did a good bunch of work to make sure we have an ability to report on the private member's bill, Bill C-287. I was told by our whip's office that to negotiate at the last minute to remove the vote on proceeding, or allowing it to carry forward, was problematic. Today we have our meeting from 9 until 11. I have the ability to present it at 10 this morning, depending on how the committee goes. The other option is tomorrow at 12. I'm attending a wedding, though, so today at 10 is better.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

It would probably be fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right. You're happy with that.

That being said, do we have any thoughts with regard to the report that Michel is going to prepare?

Monsieur Perron.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I'm pleased to receive confirmation that a separate report will be produced on post-traumatic stress disorder. That's wonderful news.

We've done a fine job, but we're missing one small piece of the puzzle. We haven't heard from witnesses like Louise Richard, Sean Bruyea and other veterans who are suffering from PTSD. Shouldn't we hear what they have to say? Their testimony could be interesting.

So far, these hearings have been highly educational. We've learned about the existence of PTSD. We know that we could recommend to DND that it better prepare its members prior to deployment and that better treatment options be available to them when their tour of duty ends. As far as I'm concerned, we've done an excellent job. However, we're missing one small piece of the puzzle, namely testimony from actual sufferers.

Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I suggest that we invite a few people to testify. We don't need to hear from 25 or 50 people, only from four, five or six witnesses. That would round out our study of PTSD.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Stoffer is next, and I see Mr. St. Denis' hand up.

Mr. Stoffer.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Quite quickly, although we didn't go into it in depth, I'd like to talk about the situation of Petawawa, with the children on the base. I know the delivery of the mental health services is a provincial responsibility, but there was an agreement--correct me if I'm wrong--between the federal government and the provincial government to assess those concerns. Maybe in our report we could give advice and further recommendations to the federal government on how to cooperate in a better and timely manner to assist children on military bases whose parents are overseas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. St. Denis.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I think this interim report should be portrayed as the pre-release of a section of a larger report. Whether you want to say chapter or section, it's clearly part of a series. We don't know if the series is going to have two, ten, or a hundred sections, but it's an early release of a section.

In this interim report we should stay away from a whole series of detailed recommendations. But as Gilles suggests, maybe we can make some generalized, kind of global suggestions in the belief that, as we do the rest of this health review, when we get to the end maybe our thinking on specific recommendations for PTSD some months from now might be different versus now. Let's not limit ourselves later on by making too detailed a series of recommendations now.

In my mind, it would be an overview of what we've heard with some general themes, some of which might include a recognition that we need to do more with this one, or the department should look in more detail at such and such. Hopefully they can get something back to us.

It's hard to know how long this is going to take. We may be out of here as early as after the first week of June. I heard that the government's talking about that.

[A voice]

You know something we don't know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

It's exciting to me.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I heard that on the news. You know the asterisk weeks on the calendar--we might not get to them.

Those are my general comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right. Are there any further comments?

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I certainly have no objection to anything I've heard. I agree with you that it's always wise to look at the big picture before making specific recommendations.

On having witnesses who are suffering from PTSD, I don't object to that either. I think it's safe to say that every person at this table has had individual constituents come to them who are suffering from PTSD. My only concern is that we might put added pressure on someone who is already very fragile. But I certainly don't object to having the witnesses, if that's what everyone wants.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. Perron.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Betty, like you, I too am concerned about the potential impact on these individuals. However, I don't think it would affect someone like Louise Richard or Sean Bruyea, to mention only two people. We would have to select our witnesses very carefully.

My objective in including the testimony of these individuals in our report is to have their stories formally on the record. Like everyone, I know of hundreds of individuals suffering from PTSD. It's all well and good to discuss the problem amongst ourselves, but if we hear from witnesses who formally testify, then it's even better. The credibility factor increases. Therefore, my goal, as Peter as just said, is to hear testimony relating to the children of military personnel who, down the road, may develop... We can start to look into this, in order to include it in the first part of our final report.

I want to hear people's first hand experience with this disorder. It's good to rely on the testimony of our experts, who have really shed light on this issue for us. I was really pleased with the testimony of all of the witnesses, including Ms. LeBeau , Dr. Descôteaux and Ms. Brillon. They helped us to realize that our Canadian Forces members and our veterans are experiencing real problems. The government—and I don't care what political bent it happens to have—absolutely needs to take this into account. We cannot let PTSD sufferers, who are primarily young people, fall through the cracks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Mr. St. Denis is next, and Mr. Sweet is on deck.

I'm just going to suggest something from my sense of chivalry, if you will. We had Senator Dallaire attend one of our meetings. It was an awkward situation, because he wanted to sit on the committee. I wish he'd given us more advance notice, and what have you. It was an unusual circumstance, but he certainly is recognized as somebody who has knowledge or interest in this issue, so he may be one of these witnesses.

Anyhow, Mr. St. Denis.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I support the idea.

I think that's a great idea.

I recently met a victim of PTSD in my riding in Wawa last Thursday. He had moved to Wawa, which is in northern Ontario, from his town somewhere in southern Ontario. He's out of the military now. Just talking to him, you knew he was able to go to this event, but you knew he was suffering.

It occurs to me that the ideal would be to take two and a half or three hours, maybe cut in half, among the PTSD victims in the Ottawa area. We can spread the word out to Sean and some others, to help us gather some volunteers who are willing to come here in two groups, in camera. Let them know that the meeting will be in camera—except for our staff, obviously—so they feel they could speak more freely. We could treat them to a nice little evening, maybe with more than coffee that night; we could have a food tray, or something like that, and make this meeting very hospitable in our newly named Veterans' Room. So make it in camera, and rather than having people from all over the place, let's just maybe assume we can find a small set of victims here, who would come voluntarily, and that they would represent, generally, victims across the country, for the purposes of having a very....

Rather than sitting like this, maybe we can spread out and have these people in-between us, more like a kitchen or living room setting, if we can somehow make it more informal—though we will still have our translators, of course.

I agree with those—Gilles and all of us—who say that, yes, we've talked to constituents, but that we should have our researchers hear this as well, and that we be in a situation where we can at least have a confidential recording of the meeting.

To conclude, if we felt we had to get some people from outside, I think we could just have some people by telephone, to save them the travel and the additional trauma of having to speak. We're only asking for local volunteers willing to come and share with us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

At that thought, I'm still going to say that Perry has brought a lot of acuity to the meetings.

Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I wanted to say that it's very important, but if we should be efficient enough to finish by ten, the restored flag from the former Victoria Tower, the flag that we spoke about the other day, is being unveiled at the Bytown Museum just next door. I know many parliamentarians participated financially, because that's how they raised the funds for that restoration, so that might be something the committee would be interested in if we're efficient in our work here.

Regarding a path forward, I kind of like that idea. That resonates, to have an informal setting where there'd be some comfort level, where, as Ms. Hinton just said, no added stress would be inflicted on these folks. I'm concerned about the child aspect, not because it's not important--and we know here on the Hill there's no end to things that are important and urgent and tug at our heartstrings--but it does fall outside of the realm of the veterans affairs committee. I'd like to stay focused on veterans.

Roméo Dallaire is actually a good name, because I think one of the things we should try to focus on, if we're going to go this way, where we have sufferers of PTSD, is to try to find those who've suffered the trauma, who've gone through the therapy, and are healthy enough to be able to reflect back for us and say “Here are the things that stymied my capability to come to psychological health, and here are the things that were very encouraging in the therapy.”

I just think that would be good to target, and then we could really get some insight, because we have the professionals here already describing the symptoms, describing how this happens, and the kind of research you're doing, and we've heard some pretty good witnesses. But I'd really like to hear what they felt was working, if there was any intervention that was unproductive, that in fact caused what they thought was a delay in coming to full psychological health. I think that would be very productive and would be something I'd certainly support.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thanks, Mr. Sweet.

Just to interject, it reminds me of dealing with people who've been survivors of rape, for example. The ones who have worked through their trauma and can speak about it are the ones who are probably best to talk to, because it's harder for the ones who are still dealing with some of those issues.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

They're in the middle of it, and it's very difficult for them to speak rationally and reflectively when they're still coming through that process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Fair enough.

Monsieur Perron.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I'd simply like to respond to Brent, not argue with him.

Yes, ideally, it would be nice to work with people from this area, with “victims”, as you called them.

[An hon. member]

On both sides.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

That's not exactly the point.

However, how would it look if this process were self-contained? I'm sure one or two victims live in the Maritimes or in Manitoba. By restricting the process, will we give the impression that we are excluding them from the process? It comes down to appearances. We have to be careful in dealing with PTSD sufferers. I don't know, but I think we need to give this matter some thought, as a committee. How will our actions look to others? What message will we be conveying?

As you know, in politics, the appearance of a conflict of interest is just as important as an actual conflict of interest. Are we walking a tightrope by restricting ourselves to the Ottawa area? I really can't' say.