With respect to witnesses like Lieutenant-Colonel Dave Grossman, there appear to be things that are DND from one perspective and Veterans Affairs from another. There is this grey zone, transition zone, or elements of the piece that, depending on whether the person is in active service or retired, are either DND or Veterans Affairs. I think we make a mistake by drawing a black-and-white division between what's DND and what's not.
If there is a veterans perspective on an issue that appears to be DND on the face of it but we can see--for example, with Mr. Grossman--that learning to kill affects you later when you're a veteran.... That was the whole point of the intervention at the Shearwater meeting. It was an excellent meeting, Peter, thank you. Rather than having that silo prevent us from understanding something happening to a future veteran--a current military person--let's consider anything reasonable that has the potential to be a veterans issue. Then we can sort it out later. If we make a DND recommendation and feel strongly about it, we'll send it to the DND chairman and say, “Look, we've come up with this. Would your committee consider such and such? Or maybe a joint meeting with the DND committee would be appropriate.” Rather than let silos separate us, let's look at these as an opportunity.
For example, I don't know if it makes sense to have this person appear again, but she was certainly a compelling witness at the Shearwater meeting. Dr. McKinnon, who is with the Royal United Services Institute, was a military doctor and is now retired. She specializes in veterans. She recommends that there be a medical transition service. It's debatable what that would entail, but when a military person leaves the military, they're really lost in finding a doctor who understands what they went through, if there are any issues more than just normal health issues. She gets all kinds of referrals from other doctors who don't know what to do with these new veterans because their mental or physical conditions aren't in the normal range of things.
I would argue that if there's any association with a veteran's concern, even if it's in the active military, we shouldn't dismiss it out of hand.