When I was commanding the brigade in Valcartier in 1992, there were soldiers in Yugoslavia. So we wanted to send people, specialists, to assess the nature of the conflict, see what the operations were and the work that needed to be done. At that time, we limited the number of individuals we could send. So if we were entitled to send 1,200 people, it wasn't 1,201 or 1,202. These restrictions were set by the political authorities, necessarily. They wanted bayonets and not specialists. It's the same thing today. There are 2,500 men in Afghanistan. If we try to add another dozen to meet psychological needs, we are going beyond the limits set by the politicians. We are only authorized to have 2,500 troops in the field. Adding 10 guys means taking away 10 bayonets. If we continue to take away bayonets, there will no longer be any point to having anyone there, because there'll no longer be anyone left at the front.
Over the years, changes have been made, and we are somewhat more optimistic than you. As I indicated, a number of soldiers have fallen through the cracks, many of whom are in direct contact with me. When I was deputy minister, in 1997, I started to do research on this because a report claimed that suicides were not related to stress. I said to myself, no more lies. There was a small clinic in Ottawa, that was barely being used. No one wanted to go there, so as not to be stigmatized. You know people are afraid of being labelled as mentally ill, even civilians. Compare the number of civilian psychiatrists and psychologists to the number of surgeons, and you'll see there's a huge gap. It's the same thing in the military. We set up five clinics in the Canadian armed forces. They were overwhelmed and, finally, the Department of Veterans Affairs opened some clinics. Now there are 15 of them.
We started taking care of people and acknowledging their problems, but it is clear that we need to be able to prepare people for this kind of stress before they leave, through training and information, and by having specialists on the ground. We have a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a social worker in Kandahar. Five years ago, if you'd said that, you would have been kicked out of the army. They're there now. Do we need more of them?