Sir, it's a very good question.
You may be aware that there are a number of other committees that are run by Veterans Affairs Canada. To go back to Madame's question, there's the advisory group on special needs, which is 80% physically and psychologically damaged, to make sure that people don't drop through the cracks. That's chaired by Major Bruce Henwood, a double amputee. He had his legs blown off in Croatia. They in fact are going to meet next week, and Professor Westmorland and myself will be there as chairs of other committees.
In my own case, I chair the joint DND-Veterans Affairs-RCMP mental health advisory committee, and we will be meeting here for the third time on December 1 and 2. That advisory committee is divided into the family, the clinical, and innovative methods, and we are leaning on and seeking advice from what we call external experts—psychologists and academics, psychiatrists and so forth—from across the country. General Sharpe in fact is the vice-chairman of that committee. I can't go anywhere without him. He contributes, and they all contribute.
We will not be concentrating on suicide, but there's a great deal of concern, not only in Veterans Affairs Canada, but in DND. As you may have heard, there was an initiative put forward by the CDS in regard to mental health a number of months ago, and recently an enhanced suicide prevention program.
And it's not just Afghanistan. I've talked to many psychiatrists, and I'm a sufferer from PTSD myself, so I understand the process you go through, where an incident or incidents in Afghanistan.... I'm not a clinician. However, having personal experience, it's not necessarily that event that is causing their problem. It's triggered something that may have happened in Croatia. It may have been something in Bosnia. It may have been something in Central America, and so forth. It's accumulative.
So when you say the family should be told what happened in Afghanistan, first of all, there's a privacy issue. And secondly, with the individual, when he is going through the process, particularly with the OSISS group, the group that's going to refer them to the professionals, be it at an OSI clinic or a DND OTSSC clinic, as it's called, they're very careful that they don't ask the individual what happened. That's really what you don't want. That's for the psychiatrist and the clinical people to determine.
We have had a number. We're all well connected in the veterans community, and it's very tragic when we hear of J.T. Stirling in Calgary, who, a week after we talked to him, overdosed. Master Corporal Macdonald, back from Afghanistan, a year and a half with the Strathconas up in Edmonton, still got in uniform and killed himself. These are very tragic. And rest assured that there are many people, not only in the military but in Veterans Affairs and in the RCMP.... The RCMP is playing catch-up in regard to this. With all due respect, they need to play catch-up and they are participating in this committee.
So that's a rather rambling answer to what you have asked, sir, and hopefully it does clarify it.