Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to provide any biographical information. You all know me.
It feels strange to be facing you, but this is doing wonders for my ego. When my peers recognized all the work that I've done with regard to post-traumatic stress since I was elected, they are paying tribute to me and I am truly gratified.
Let's talk about the symposium I attended last week. My only problem is that I wasn't able to split myself into three or four. There were too many simultaneous workshops, and I wanted to attend them all. Unfortunately, this was not possible, but I tried to pick my workshops so as to best inform myself and you.
General Dallaire opened my eyes this morning when he said that a mental or intellectual injury, a war injury, was the same as a physical injury. This makes a lot of sense. However, I noted that General Dallaire still has a military culture. I am saying this because, last week at the conference, we were told that to effectively treat post-traumatic stress, some things were essential. First, the individual, like an alcoholic, must recognize that he or she has a problem. Second, the individual must be able to go somewhere to consult someone. Third, treatment must be available.
I believe that we should recommend that the Canadian Forces provide better training. When young people are in training, start to learn to fire an AK-47 and drive a tank, they should get some psychological training as well. We need to tell them how to recognize the symptoms of post-traumatic stress and recommend that they consult someone if they feel sick, because post-traumatic stress has a direct impact on physical health.
This morning, General Dallaire told us that these people need care and that it was urgent. Everyone who came to testify before the committee, including the experts, told us that the sooner this condition was diagnosed and individuals received treatment, the better their chances of healing. And there's more. I won't mention the names of the two or three individuals who talked to me about it because it's difficult, but I will say it anyway: we are wasting money trying to treat the mental injuries of soldiers and normal veterans, individuals aged 80 and over who fought in the Korean war and the Second World War and who are suffering from post-traumatic stress; instead, that money should be spent to improve their comfort level, so that they live out their remaining years in relative comfort. These individuals suffered their mental injuries 45 or 50 years ago or more, and they will not recover.
Therapists say that these individuals cannot recover. These people are marked for life. It's difficult to hear this and it's also difficult to say it. So let's spend the money making these people as comfortable as possible at home or wherever, instead of spending the money trying to fix something that they will never be able to recover from.
So we need to change the army mentality so that young macho men can recognize one day, during a mission, that they may be experiencing psychological problems and be injured. It's difficult to admit, but as soon as the individual recognizes what is happening, they need to seek treatment almost immediately.
I know of one case, and I provided the name to Alexander Roger. It concerns a young woman, Danielle, whom I met in Montreal. This young woman in her thirties suffered post-traumatic stress in Bosnia. She thought she was having a heart attack, and that is how her post-traumatic stress was diagnosed. Fortunately, a doctor told her that she wasn't having a heart attack but was rather suffering from a mental injury. She was brought here to Canada and treated immediately. She now works for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Kingston. She has completely recovered. It's interesting.
Something else that is somewhat unfortunate. To date, only 67% of young people suffering from mental injuries can recover, based on the statistics provided. So we have to treat them quickly.
What problems are we facing? I believe that the first is a shortage of professionals, psychiatrists and psychologists. When Mr. Dallaire says that Quebec psychologists can only treat 30% of all cases, he's right. I called the Quebec Federation of Psychologists. We need to attract more young people, among other things, and I have no idea how we're going to do it. Perhaps the universities need to train more experts in this field and teach them to treat serious post-traumatic stress. There are only 12 different stressful events that potentially require lifelong treatment: these include the accidental death of a best friend, rape, in the case of a young woman, incest, and a fire. In most cases, a serious trauma is related to a death or to an actual event. As a group, we must work to ensure that the society trains the greatest possible number of psychiatrists and psychologists.
Second, we must reduce the time that elapses between the moment when a young soldier on deployment recognizes that he may have post-traumatic stress and the time when he is assessed by specialists on the ground and brought back to the country to be treated as quickly as possible.
When General Dallaire talked to us about research at Ste. Anne's Hospital, I agreed. However, there is one thing we need to remember. We mustn't try to reinvent the wheel, since our American friends have been doing research on post-traumatic stress for 25 years already. The hair on my arms is almost standing on end when I think about how behind we are. I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that research centres such as those at McGill University, in Montreal, and the universities of Alberta or Manitoba were already doing research and had already identified solutions that they had shared with the Americans, who in turn were including in research done in Canada. This research must be continued, but as for making Ste. Anne's Hospital a specialized research facility... It could have a research department, but it is, first and foremost, a facility where mental injuries are healed. I use the term "injuries", because I liked my friend's choice of words.
One problem is that, currently, there is no way to determine how severe a mental injury is. We cannot say whether, percentage-wise, it is 50%, 75% or 80%. It almost depends on the technology or the caregiver's assessment. It's not like in other cases where we can rely on a chart or a blood analysis where, if various microbes are detected, a diagnosis of cancer is made. We are talking here about a little known illness. Twenty-five years is not a lot of time when it comes to medical research. So it is up to the doctor to say to what extent the brain has been damaged, and all the doctor has to go on is his or her instinct.
The problem is when the Department of Veterans Affairs decides to give a young CF member suffering from a mental injury 20% compensation because that is the rate of compensation at which the injury has been assessed. It's unfair. That approach is unfair because we don't really know to what extent the brain has been damaged. We don't know whether it is 10%, 15%, 50% or 92%.
Another major problem is the funding, both in the military, which is not allocating sufficient funds to the mental training of its recruits, and in civil society, where veterans are not receiving adequate treatment. For example, in Valcartier, Quebec, only 3.8% of the health care budget goes to mental health. Perhaps we also need to change the macho mentality of the young people joining the military. We need to tell them that they are strong, but they should also be told to be on the lookout for stress that can lead to mental problems.
That's essentially what I wanted to say. I'd be happy to have a discussion. I would prefer not to have any time limits imposed, but rather to operate on a principle of first come first served. This is a discussion among friends. I'm not going to pretend that I know everything and that I've seen everything; I simply want to share with you what I have learned.
Thank you.