Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
I appreciate the fact that we've once again been invited to appear before this committee.
I'm happy to say that since we were here last, a number of developments have arisen that are to our advantage. Perhaps the most significant thing is--if you'll bear with me for a little history--that for about 15 years we were concerned about the fact that many of our career veterans were suffering from pulmonary diseases, respiratory diseases, and a number of ailments we seem to suffer to a greater extent than the general public. We had one individual--I think I mentioned him last time, a chap named Carter--and just about every organ in his body was ineffective.
We were concerned because in Korea we were exposed a lot to DDT and a number of other harmful chemicals.
We took our concerns to Veterans Affairs. We did a study ourselves and we found that certainly there was a much higher rate of these disorders among Korea veterans than there was elsewhere.
The only problem was, we did a study they didn't like to accept because we sent out a random sample study with about twice as many participants as we needed, to be on the safe side. But when we sent the study to the units, our units decided they wanted to prove they were suffering, so instead of giving out the samples of the questionnaires at random, they gave them to people they knew were suffering from various ailments. So this tended to flaw our study a little.
We've been discussing this with Veterans Affairs, and one of the things they decided to do was sponsor a Canadian study. We even got as far as having a study team appointed and funds allocated. And then came an election, a change of government; we had changes of deputy ministers, and the thing was more or less on hold.
We've been dealing quite a lot with veterans associations throughout the world. We're part of an international group, and we found out the Australians had commissioned a study on the effects of Korean War service. We think their living standards are pretty much the same as ours, their diets are the same as ours, their income is the same as ours, their work is pretty much the same as ours, so what applies to Australia would probably apply to Canada. We spoke to a number of people from Veterans Affairs, and they accepted this.
I'm not going to give you the whole thing to read, but there are three studies. One is a cancer incidence study, one is a mortality study, and the other is a health study. I'm not going to read the whole thing to you, so you can relax.
These were studied by Veterans Affairs, and Veterans Affairs originally agreed to accept the findings in the cancer study. One of the things they found was that in at least eight forms of cancer, the casualty rate or the sickness rate in Korea veterans was significantly higher than in the general population. I think the overall average was about 23% higher than the equivalent.
Veterans Affairs accepted eight of the major causes of cancer--the ones that have the biggest difference--and they decided they would accept Korea service as a prima facie cause of the cancer. In other words, we thought this was a breakthrough, because instead of the veteran having to prove his ailment was caused by Korea service, now it was accepted it would be unless it was proven otherwise.
For instance, we had a few people who worked at Chalk River, so this could have been a little questionable.
This was fine, and as a result I'm happy to say that about six or seven months ago I had reports that well over 500 people who previously either hadn't applied for a pension because they felt they couldn't prove the cause or they had been turned down for a pension.... Over 500 veterans are now in receipt of pensions and treatment for these eight forms of cancer.
This is one thing, but we're still a little concerned, because as I mentioned, we had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, and heart problems, which a lot of our people seem to have at a much higher rate than the general public. We went back, and the same study team took a look at this and looked at the other Australian study, which dealt with ailments other than cancer. As a result, we now have a policy, and when your material comes around you'll be getting a copy of the press release that went out.
During the last year, it was decided that if any veteran is suffering from chronic obstructive lung disease, as they put it, which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, or from arterial sclerosis and related ailments, once again, if they served in Korea during the period 1950 to 1956, that would be accepted as a cause, unless proven otherwise.
This is the one we won. We're rather pleased with that one. I must give credit to the team in Veterans Affairs. If you want names, the guy who did the study was a gentleman by the name of Dave Pedlar. They are the people who really worked on it, and they saw it our way. As I said, I think Veterans Affairs deserves credit. They get a lot of blame—people say they're trying to take our pensions away and trying to deprive us—but in this case I think they went out of their way and devoted a lot of time to seeing that our veterans got what was due.
Those are the two that we won.
The next point that rather concerns me is that, surprisingly enough, veterans complain that they're not getting service from Veterans Affairs: we still have complaints about time of service and complaints about decisions. But one of the things that Veterans Affairs have actually been complaining to us about is that we're not having enough of our veterans apply for PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. They feel that many more of them should be claiming it.
We've put it down to the fact that in our generation from back in the 1950s, if you have sleepless nights or become an alcoholic or are nervous, you live with it. You're macho about it; you don't like to admit it. They sense it as a form of weakness to apply for a pension and for treatment for it. We're trying to educate our people on that one, and hopefully we will. Again, as I have it here, it's a proud bunch, and we hate to admit that our nerves have been affected by our experience.
Those are the concerns we have that are particular to our Korean War veterans.
I would point out that we are a member association of the National Council of Veterans Associations. Cliff Chadderton heads the group, of course. As a form of unity, and because they are in a way acting on our behalf, we support a lot of the initiatives they're coming out with. You may or may not know, but the NCVAC parliamentary submissions include possible medals for prisoners of war, people who were wounded, and at least a medal or a bar or some recognition for people who served at Dieppe and those who were in Hong Kong.
Among other issues we've been dealing with, one of the items that has been suggested, without too much substance, is that perhaps Veterans Affairs should have a separate department dealing with widows or widowers. In particular nowadays, we have more and more widows who are eligible for pensions or for VIP and who have a lot of concerns. It was the contention of many of the NCVAC groups that perhaps Veterans Affairs should give a thought to a widows branch, widows directorate, or something like that to look specifically at the concerns of widows.
In conclusion, I'd like to mention that like most war veterans, most old war veterans--we used to be the young fellows and they were the old guys--our numbers are gradually decreasing. The Korea Veterans Association has moved down from almost 5,000 to something like 2,400. The number of Korea veterans in Canada is hard to guess. Some of them are veterans of other wars, and the only ones we can really keep track of are the clients of Veterans Affairs. But we estimate that there are now between 12,000 and 15,000 of us left, out of the almost 28,000 who went to Korea.
That is all I have. As I said, I will be attaching the new policy that I mentioned, on the pulmonary and heart functions, together with a brief summary of what I've just said.