Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 13th, 2007

[Ronald Griffis]

With respect to Chris Beattie, on Monday of this week I joined a committee called the client advisory committee, out of Halifax. Mrs. Beattie sat to my right, and she has a folder that is approximately four or five inches thick with respect to the difficulties that took place in Chalk River in 1958. I appreciate her difficulties in that she wants the government to recognize that her husband passed away as a result of nuclear poisoning.

With respect to the firefighter whose article was in the paper just the other day, I appreciate his difficulties, bearing in mind that several provinces—and the one that comes to mind is the Province of Ontario—have recognized without question that the firefighting equipment has, over the last number of years, improved to such a degree that, when it was not to such a degree and firefighters were fighting fires, they breathed in a tremendous amount of chemicals. If they develop a cancer, I understand in Ontario it's recognized automatically with respect to that particular difficulty.

On the Agent Orange difficulty in Camp Gagetown, the government has recognized that there are about 10 or 11 categories of illnesses that will be recognized automatically if you served in Gagetown at a particular time, date, and place. Those would be type 2 diabetes, skin cancer, and high blood pressure, just to name a few. The government has automatically recognized it.

This was an American situation, where the Americans indicated that they will recognize this if you were subjected to Agent Orange, Agent Purple, or whatever the agent may be.

So I appreciate it, and I would imagine it's just a matter of time before our government will recognize that certain difficulties are caused by certain conditions that were not addressed in the past.

One of those, of course, would be Mr. Beattie, indicating that Mrs. Beattie just wants the government to recognize that her husband received nuclear poisoning at Chalk River. I understand there was a spill of some nature at Chalk River in May 1958, and that he was a member of the Canadian Guards at that particular time—they were stationed in Petawawa—and he was on a cleanup detail.

I appreciate that, and I appreciate the difficulties as put forth by Mrs. Beattie and by the Department of National Defence firefighter.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Now we're going to the Conservative Party of Canada, with Mr. Shipley for seven minutes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you again, Mr. Griffis, for coming. I've had the pleasure of being here when you've made I think more than one presentation to us. Just so you know, Ms. Hinton is not here. She's home with some medical issues, so I will pass on to her the comments you've made today.

I also want to welcome the young people who have come in. I think we can never stress enough the importance of what Veterans Affairs are doing--not of what we're doing, but what our veterans have done for our great country of Canada. Any opportunity we have to raise that recognition to our young people, we should do. I appreciate their coming in today.

Mr. Griffis, earlier on you talked about communications. Many times, in many areas, communication seems to be one of the barriers that we come up against. It happens in here, it happens with veterans, it happens in our family, and it happens in our business, where direct communications and clarity of communications to help people are sometimes hard to get across.

When we're talking of the 220,000 veterans who are there now, we know that some of those veterans likely have heard the communications, especially our traditional veterans who have a mindset, as we heard about the other day, as an example, that they don't want to take a service for free. When they're feeling they don't need the service, they don't always pay much attention to that. I think we're likely all a little guilty of that. When we're feeling good about something, we may read the notices, but if it doesn't necessarily affect us, we don't pay much attention to it.

You had mentioned that you sent out, in terms of communication, a magazine called Salute! . I'm wondering whether that gets to all the 220,000. Or is that going to the peacekeepers?

[Ronald Griffis]

The Salute! magazine is sent out by Veterans Affairs Canada and it goes to every one of their clients. In addition, they send to me about 1,000 copies and I distribute 1,000 copies to the peacekeepers. Now the peacekeepers in some cases, of course, will receive two copies, one from Veterans Affairs Canada and one from me.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Do you see that as a vehicle that we need to emphasize more, then, through Veterans Affairs, to carry that communication?

[Ronald Griffis]

Yes, but I also feel there could be regional contact. Perhaps under contract, I guess, they can't always do volunteer work on a continuing and regular basis, but perhaps they could have someone who goes out and speaks to the veterans organizations and goes out and speaks to community organizations so that they can expand on the services available to the veterans.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I appreciate your comments that, in general, your organization is happy with the VIP, and I think most are. As in everything, there are always people who seem to fall through the cracks or there are barriers that people come up against. Actually, what this committee is trying to do is to lower or get rid of some of those barriers that tend to affect our veterans.

I don't know about your understanding of this because of the new veterans. Do you see a difference, though, between what we would call the traditional veterans and the new veterans in terms of getting the information to them and the way in which we have to get it out to them?

[Ronald Griffis]

Yes, I do.

Regarding new veterans, I understand that the general retirement age for a new veteran is 36 years of age, or in that vicinity. Once they leave the forces, for whatever reason—their end of engagement, or some other reason—they want to move on. If they have a problem and it does not surface for a number of years, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, that's when they'll address something.

But by the same token, regarding the young man from the area 90 kilometres southeast of Montreal who committed suicide just a while back, I gather we didn't recognize the difficulty of post-traumatic stress disorder. He lost his foot on a landmine in Afghanistan, and then when he came home he decided to end it. It's a terrible tragedy.

So we have to recognize that. We have to get out there and tell them it's not a bad thing that they're seeking help; it's not a bad thing that they're seeking assistance. Don Ethell will be going around to some of the armed forces bases in the near future, asking what we can do for them—and not necessarily asking that question on the base, but asking that question off the base in surroundings where you can communicate without any difficulties, for example, at a Tim Hortons, or some other place, a curling rink or something of that nature.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

We've done a fairly significant study on post-traumatic stress, because it's an issue that we recognized as a large concern. There is a report that's been tabled on that, I believe. I hope we can help with awareness.

One of the things we heard is that there is not an awareness, that there's a resistance by some individuals to stepping forward and acknowledging that they have symptoms or have issues that may be leading them to, or that they are in, the early steps of post-traumatic stress.

So even though we've heard it's something people don't want to step forward on, I also believe, from what we've heard, that people have become more open to doing that—likely more so with the newer vets than with whom we call the traditional vets.

I'm finished. I'll come back.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Did you wish to respond to what he said?

[Ronald Griffis]

I agree that post-traumatic stress disorder is going to be an illness of the future, although the illness is already here. It's going to be a severe illness of the future for these young men and women who are serving overseas. The difficulties they regularly encounter are reported in the newspapers, and while the media perhaps express it differently, by the same token, I feel it's going to be a recognizable and severe illness now and in the future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Thank you.

Now we're into what is known as our second round, so each questioner at this stage has five minutes.

Over to the Liberal Party of Canada and Mr. Russell.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to you.

I just want to know a little bit more about your organization. I'm new on this committee and am learning as I go forward. In our notes it says you have about 1,000 members, but surely there have been more people within the forces who have served on peacekeeping missions abroad.

Is your organization only dealing with peacekeepers? Does it include any other types of veterans? Are there people who served on peacekeeping missions who are not members of your association?

I just want to know a little bit more about your organization.

[Ronald Griffis]

Our association is right across Canada. We have 27 chapters. We're part of what might be described as the “big six”, or the “three big and the three little” type of thing, and we're on the “three little” end of it.

The criterion for joining our organization is that you must have been awarded the Canadian Peacekeeping Service Medal that came into effect several years back. There's another organization called the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association. I'm unaware of what their criteria are, except that if you're a retired or ex-member of the Canadian Armed Forces you can join.

All of the veterans organizations are working together--as recently as November 16 of this year--where there's an effort to bring all of the veterans organizations together under one umbrella. There is a possibility that it may be called the Royal Canadian Legion Federation of Veterans.

We appreciate that the difficulty with veterans is that there are traditional veterans and older veterans that we can't draw from any more. For instance, when the last member of the Korean War passes away, the Korea Veterans Association will disappear. When the last person from the air arm of the navy passes away, that association will disappear. So what we're trying to do--and the Legion held a very informative and good session on or about November 16--is bring all of the associations under one roof.

With respect to our association, we're growing, but ever so slowly. For instance, just about three months ago we opened up another chapter in St. Catharines, Ontario. I can only suggest that when the Afghanistan veterans return, they may in fact form an association, such as the Gulf War Veterans Association did. We can only suggest that once the Royal Canadian Legion gets together, and we understand and prepare a constitution, we may in fact all be under one umbrella.

Now, it's not something that's going to happen overnight, but it's something that's there and it's visible.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Well, I certainly thank you for that information.

Let me say personally, and I'm sure on behalf of my colleagues--I'm a Liberal, but I do appreciate and value your colour blue and the work you've done. I don't say I appreciate blue all that often, but in this particular context I appreciate it very much, and I honour what you do.

[An hon. member]

That's a nice blue colour there.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

That's dark blue. I didn't want to open up heckling at this hour in the day.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

We embrace you.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Yes, I'm sure.

I want to get back to an issue that was raised by my colleague. As I understand it, disproportionately, a lot of people who go into the forces come from rural areas, for any variety of reasons. If you look at some of the numbers in Atlantic Canada, disproportionately we have a higher number of people per capita in the forces than other areas of the country. Atlantic Canada is very rural, as is my riding of Labrador.

The issue is, again, around communications. Have people made proposals about how we get more information out? Is there an awareness that we have to get more information out on the veterans independence program and other types of programs? Is there a concerted effort to do that, particularly in a rural setting?

[Ronald Griffis]

Yes, there is an effort to get out more communications. It is not particularly addressed to a rural setting.

I live in Nova Scotia, in the Annapolis Valley, in a rural setting, although I'm only six kilometres north of a small town called Berwick. On the same token, my neighbour down the road is an ex-military person and he's not aware of the availabilities. Now, he's aware of our organization. He's a UN veteran. But it sort of stops there.

Yes, there is an effort to communicate more.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Is that time? Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

It was five minutes, thirty-seven seconds, just to let you know.

Now we're on to the Bloc Québécois, Monsieur Gaudet, five minutes.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, since I have to leave soon, I'd like to take a few moments to wish a Merry Christmas to you and to Mr. Griffis, to all my colleagues, the interpreters, the clerk, the analysts and all the House employees. I also wish everyone a good year and good health.

Mr. Griffis, what do you think about the 1-800 telephone system?

[Ronald Griffis]

It could be better operated. There's room for improvement.