Veterans Affairs Committee on May 15th, 2007

[Roméo Dallaire]

It's incredible. I'll use Valcartier as an example, which is seen as one of the more progressive arenas in which they are doing work to help both VAC and DND, and so on. They have one guy who's handling the reservists at the family support centre—nice guy, works hard, but he's totally overwhelmed.

There's no one who is going to the school where this kid came from, the university, to talk to the teachers. There's no one going to his boss, wherever this guy is, to talk to him. In fact, even in the militia regiments, some regiments have organized themselves to take care of these kids themselves. They do it out of their own very limited training resources. So they take training days, and instead of doing training to prepare others, they'll take some of that to help the local kids. They are not specifically supported to do that, the local militia regiment, let alone the regular force that does the follow-through all the way.

There's where the failing happens. Once they are committed to the mission, they are the same, but when they come back, we have the two systems.

So what is required is for both Veterans Affairs and DND to work out the process so that every soldier counts, not the regular force counting more than the reservists, or the regular force getting more than the reservists after the fact, but that they still count the same way after they've served.

It's more complex, but it's resolvable. The militia units that these kids come from could be given extra resources so they could put in an NCO and an officer, and they all have veterans now who could specifically follow each one of these kids in the local area. Going from Valcartier to Matane is one hell of a drive, or from Saskatoon to North Battleford. It's a big drive for a militia regiment. However, it can be done, if they have some resources to do it. Right now, there's nothing on that side.

The incredible thing is that the regulars know you will not have the Canadian Forces sustain operations without those reservists, until that 23,000 that has been promised starts to show its face in the field. So until then, and even then, the reservist system has to have a dedicated new capability. We've been reticent, and it has been mostly resources—again, cash committed to that need.

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

On the resources, as you know, there was a story out of Petawawa the other day. There was quite a picture in the Globe and Mail, where they had a soldier in the background and his kid in the front. It said, ”If you die, I'll never forgive you.” And this is before he goes on the mission. I just can't imagine, as a soldier, preparing to leave on a mission and your child saying that to you. The strain and the mental anguish, before you even go, must be absolutely tremendous.

Of course, there was a discussion as to who should be responsible for the mental health of these children. Should it be the provincial government, which has the responsibility for the delivery of mental health services, or, because it's a military base, should not the federal government assist? I'm glad to see there was some arrangement made.

In your mind, who should take sole responsibility, instead of this political...?

The second question is around the media. Because we're embedded now over in Afghanistan, we're getting different media reports about what's happening over there. So it's conflicting, not only for politicians but for family members and friends, about what's happening.

What role can the government play in...I don't want to say influencing the media, but encouraging the media to understand that what they write and what they say has a direct influence on families and can have a direct influence on the men and women who serve?

[Roméo Dallaire]

On the first one, rapidly, we used to be called dependants. My wife used to be called a dependant wife when we served in Germany. That was the term.

When we served in Germany, everything was handled by National Defence--the medical; the legal, when we went in front of a judge advocate, because of the SOFAs we signed with Germany, and so on. So when we were committed in that operational theatre, all of the civilians fell under the National Defence structure.

We are now committed to real operations in a foreign land, but because we're back home, all of a sudden, all those bets are off. Well, it doesn't work like that, in my opinion, and that's what we were trying.... If you are dependants of National Defence...and I would contend that the RCMP gang going over are the same thing. I even went in front of Madame Boucher in Quebec City, who was wondering whether or not she should still send policemen to Haiti and so on. I said, “Once they go to these missions, we should take care of them--not the city, not the RCMP.” So they belong--if I can use the term--to National Defence or Veterans Affairs Canada, and we do that and we acquire those capabilities.

Now, people will say that's a two-tier system. That's crap. That is a red herring. It is not two tier. It is responsible government to its citizens who are being committed to scenarios that the government specifically wants them to do, and the price of that is those sacrifices and those injuries, and you are then held accountable for that--the whole length. The new charter, in fact, essentially says that.

So no. The provincial government has its capabilities, but those who are linked to the military commitment and so on should be brought into the same or a similar process we had when we served in Germany. We ran everything and provided that capability. That's the cost of doing business.

On the media side, you never lie to the media, you never play coy with them, and you open up your doors to them. I think those are the three things the commanders in the field are doing now. The interpretation of the media, meeting locally and taking every Tom, Dick, and Harry pseudo-expert and NGO commentary and making that as fact...that is not particularly credible.

However, the only way the real story gets to you, ladies and gentlemen, is that you get your bodies over there—often. That's how you do it. You have to go and smell it, taste it, touch it, feel it, and sense it. Look into the eyes of those soldiers and look into the eyes of all those Afghans and Taliban; that's how you get the answer. The media is there floating around, and we should not even try to play with them, except the three principles I indicated.

But, ladies and gentlemen, we are apprentices compared—and I'll say it—to the Americans in regard to our politicians going into the field. You have to get out there. You're committing the reputation of this nation; you're committing Canadian blood in these foreign lands. There is nothing that should restrain you from going over.

And generals are essentially willing to do that. It's often a lot of the intermediate gang that tends to throw up roadblocks rather than the general officer corps. We want to know our politicians. We want politicians to hear from the general what's going on and from the corporal what's going on. And these people are eloquent. They know what the hell they're talking about. They'll tell you the real story and they won't bullshit you, and you can come back and you can bank on that. I think that is the way to go about it. Go get your boots dirty out there and bring that back home to your colleagues in caucus.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

All right. Thank you very much.

Now on to Mrs. Hinton, for seven minutes, for the Conservative Party.

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

Thank you.

One of the problems with asking questions at this point in the thing is that you've heard so many comments, you want to ask questions on all of the comments, but that's not possible.

On getting your bodies over there, all of us getting over there, I guess we have a slightly different point of view, because I think when civilians end up in an area of conflict, all we do is cause more grief for our troops. But that's my opinion.

Anyway, I have some questions. I agree with you wholeheartedly that there is a backlog of names that have been overlooked, underestimated, and misunderstood for too many years. We are in the process of trying to correct those.

We've implemented the charter, as you mentioned earlier. We did that last May. We've put the ombudsman in place. It's not ready yet, but it's getting there. There's the bill of rights. We're now going through the process of improving the health care. We've improved the equipment and the intelligence. It's improved dramatically. We've opened up the clinics, as you've already mentioned as well, so we're moving in the right direction. But I suppose it's never fast enough, although you don't want to have any holes appear.

I was very surprised to hear you say today that there are shortcomings in the charter. I think that's probably the first time I have ever heard anyone say that there are shortcomings in the charter. Sorry, I'm talking politically now, but I agree with you. I think there are things that need to be plugged, and it is a living document, so we can do that.

I want to go back to what you mentioned, and I thought you were extremely candid. You said you believed that PTSD is an injury, not an illness, and I would agree in quite a few ways that it is. But you were also candid enough to say that you take nine pills a day. That was part of what you said.

If it's not intrusive, are you prepared to share what those pills help you with on a day-to-day basis? Is it essential that you take these pills to keep on an even keel? If you could just share some of that, it would be very helpful, but I don't want to intrude into your privacy.

[Roméo Dallaire]

No, I learned that lesson in 1997, when I went public to change things.

First of all, if I may just clarify, it is not the charter that has failings; it is the apprenticeship of implementing it. So it's the process of implementing, and it's whether or not the cash is going to the right places in implementing, whether or not it is the right number of staff in the right places, and if they have the experience. We're into a whole new world, so it's part of the process.

I spoke with the deputy minister last week, and I recommended that an advisory body like we were before, when we brought in the changes for VAC that ultimately led to the charter, be recreated with a variety of people to look at how the implementation is going and to provide advice to as high as the deputy minister.

The minister at the time used to listen in, but we used to advise directly to the deputy minister. I think that might be a very effective tool. When I had it approved through the Senate at the Senate committee, I had the minister agree that an advisory body would be created. We didn't squeeze them too much over the last year and a half because they were so busy trying to put it...but it's time now. It's time to have that independent body to advise and sniff it out.

In regard to the implementation, of course, it's never fast enough. I think maybe I would like to speak to you for a moment as a general and say that you will never have a general say he has enough. The aim of the general is to achieve the mission with the least possible casualties, so if he can get more to reduce casualties, he will do it. And that is in his mandate as a general. He must pursue every venue he can to reduce casualties to achieve the mission. So they will always come with a list. It's not because they're unsatisfied; it's because “I'm the guy who is court-martialled when those kids die unnecessarily”.

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

I understand.

Excuse me, Senator, but he's going to cut off your time.

[Roméo Dallaire]

Okay. I was going to give you a bit more on Perrin Beatty and the 1987 white paper under the Conservatives and how that crashed, but I won't do that.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Roméo Dallaire]

I was personally involved with it in army equipment, but that could be another time.

I take uppers and downers during the day and I take pills to sleep at night. If I don't take them, I am not human...literally. I become an impossible entity because I'm either way up there or I'm way down there, and I become suicidal. So just like someone who has diabetes and has to take things every day, I take pills. And it took years for me to accept that. That keeps me reasonable. And PTSD never goes away.

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

This is lifelong.

[Roméo Dallaire]

Those traumas are there forever; it's just how you manage them so that they're not invading you every now and again. It's how to build a prosthesis for it.

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

You mentioned a buddy system. I think that's an invaluable tool or support.

[Roméo Dallaire]

May I just add to that? Unofficial statistics say that OSISS--this volunteer, informal thing that was created--has saved a suicide a day a year.

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

I don't doubt that for an instant. I don't doubt that.

[Roméo Dallaire]

That's a lot of people.

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

It may be harder for non-military people to understand this. The buddy system is a terrific idea, but most people listening out there who've never had military experience would say that's what friends are for. Is it a different situation? Is there some sort of stigma attached, because basically your friends would also be military people? Do you see that improving? I think you sort of alluded to it earlier, but is it getting easier for someone who's gone through this to talk to someone who's in the military who isn't going through it and not feel inferior in any way?

[Roméo Dallaire]

I wish I could say that it's now resolved, but it's not, as I indicated earlier on the culture. Those who are the buddies are ex-military, so that link is there. Those who are still serving are going so flat out that they just don't have four hours to sit with a buddy and do it. They barely have enough time to be with their families, and so on, so it is very difficult.

We should try to make OSISS more mandatory as an instrument, and not just as a volunteer capability. We should create it as a living entity within the structure of support, instead of having it as an appendage, as it is now. Getting it into the clinics and having it formally recognized is I think most important.

In regard to culture, commanding officers now take classes. Officers and NCOs take programs on recognizing PTSD and trying to understand it.

You are living something here that we lived in the 1950s. In the 1950s we had a whole bunch of veterans and we had a whole bunch of non-veterans, and there were clashes between the two. The non-veterans essentially looked up to the veterans because they had done the real thing. These guys had gone to war; they'd had bullets shot at them and so on, had been injured, so there was a bit of awe towards them, and there was this respect. However, those who suffered PTSD in those days were shunned. You'd see them drinking in the corner. They ended up as drunks and so on; the street people of the 1950s were veterans. The rubbydubs were veterans whom we all abandoned. Those were the street people.

Today they're not treated in the same fashion, but there is still this friction between the veteran and the non-veteran, who says he's not going to be injured by this stuff and is stronger than they are and so on. Among the veterans you have those who are very vociferous. They create clashes and get thrown out because of the problem. You get those who are able to handle it and whom we send back, as we did with a couple who are now in Afghanistan, to help them recuperate, because if they get a light case, sending them back often helps--but it's not necessarily in the same job.

Then you get the other one, the really dangerous one. That's the guy who sits there in the corner and is trying to hide between the paint and the wall and is literally killing himself, either by work, by drinking, by drugs, or by something else. We still don't have the solution culturally to handle those.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you.

We will go on to Mr. Valley.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Senator. You used the term “overwhelmed” a number of times. I think you've overwhelmed us this morning with some of your information.

I'm going to go to the last thing I wrote down following Ms. Hinton's comments. The veterans need a bosom buddy and they need another veteran. It goes to some of the other comments you made earlier about the legions, and I understand that. I spent nine years in municipal government trying to make sure my Legion survived in my home town. After becoming an MP...I have eight of them now that need help and support. As you mentioned, veterans need veterans, but when you get out into areas like ours, there's no one out there. We have a very sparse population. My riding is a thousand miles top to bottom, 600 miles across, so it's a long way between anything, and if we can't support the local organizations that really support the veterans and the reservists, we're really going to have a problem.

So we have that issue where there is no support out in those far-flung regions, and how do we reach out? You've given us a couple of ideas on that.

You did mention one other person who I've had a chance to work with, Dennis Wallace. I was very surprised when I actually met the individual, because he had the ability to bring everybody together in the room, and I was amazed at that. No matter how controversial the issue was, he could bring everyone together, and that's the kind of advice we need.

But my question goes to the point, which you've mentioned and which we've seen here in this committee already, about the silos that are built up. You mentioned that we should be out in the field talking to the people who are serving now because they're going to be our clients. But when we try to do that the walls come up right away. We're here as the veterans affairs committee to deal with veterans, and when we see an issue that's going to affect our people in the field, we want to address it, because everyone who is in the field now is going to be our client eventually, yet we're not allowed to pursue that or to talk about it.

So that's the challenge we have. There are the silos that are here. We can only devise policy and everything else that will deal with veterans, yet we've got how many thousands or hundreds of thousands coming towards us in the future. We need to be talking about how we protect them now so that when they are our clients in the future, we can have some protection for them then.

[Roméo Dallaire]

That's an interesting point. Maybe you've got to go back to the definition of veteran. We modified it when we were working to include all those who have completed their training and are qualified for one year. So even though they're in uniform, they're veterans, and even when they're serving, if they've got an injury they can get a dossier with Veterans Affairs, of course, and they could already be getting a Veterans Affairs pension even though they're still serving.

You've got a whole bunch your clients out in the field, so not being able to go to the field because you're from Veterans Affairs is not logical. It doesn't make any sense at all.

Secondly, and going back to Madame, who is not here, if I had had more civilian visitors in Rwanda, I might not have ended up with nothing in the field. So yes, it's a pain in the neck, getting them, but I'll tell you the smart generals know how to ensure that you get all the information you need to improve on the mission.

So there's nothing to be hidden in the field. The real danger is when politicians back here make decisions based on pseudo-strategists and great intellectuals, who really are talking often a lot of bullshit and preconceived ideas. When the generals tell me, when the humanitarians and the diplomats in the field tell me that we can't win Afghanistan, then I'll think about Afghanistan as a problem. Until then, no one in the periphery is ever going to come close to influencing me.

In regard to helping the troops, and this might relate to veterans, the Legion handles about 15% to 20% of the dossiers. When I was injured, I put my dossier through the Legion. I wanted to see how the Legion did it. I think there might be something that might be done between Veterans Affairs Canada and the Legion, to bring the Legion into the modern era. The Legion is not attracting the new generation of veterans enough, and they are crucial. It's not just because it's a drinking hole. It's because it's a therapeutic institution for the betterment of the people, and it's a sense that when you come back there is a place where you can go and talk to people, and not just the bar. Just like that guy in London who went to the bar and got beaten up, for Christ's sake. He wouldn't have gotten beat up in the Legion. They would have carried him on their shoulders, and they'd pay his beer for the rest of his life in that place.

So maybe there's work to be done on how we bring the Legion into the era of getting those new veterans joining them and assisting you in that capacity.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

We have to find a way to make sure the Legions stay a part of Canadian society. That would be my last point. I thank you for that.

[Roméo Dallaire]

It's not because the gang from World War I, World War II, and Korea are dying that the Legion ends. On the contrary, it has a new mandate. VAC picked up a new charter. The Legion should write itself a new charter to meet the new era.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you.

Now we'll go on to Monsieur Gaudet, from the Bloc, for five minutes.