I just want to really thank the committee for looking at this. I think it's really important that the committee look at the fact that the reason the new Veterans Charter was created was that there had been 10 to 15 years of slightly negligent behaviour, abandoning the veterans. That was well-recognized. When the minister was before the Senate committee, she admitted in her speech that there had been adverse effects on this population of veterans. We were promised that the charter would address all of that. Yet when the charter came, it was more prospective as opposed to being retrospective in the way it dealt with the issues.
There are no intensive programs to help, as we heard from Mr. Zimmerman when he came in to talk to you. The long-term results for people who have been unemployed for a while are not good, as the statistics show. But why doesn't Canada step in, just as we did after World War II? Just as we rethought rehabilitation back then, let's rethink rehabilitation now.
The words “psychosocial rehabilitation” have been bandied about. It mostly applies to, and has been developed for, people with organic brain trauma, with schizophrenia, but it has some good principles that could be adapted. We could have our own definition of psychosocial rehabilitation to include transition from the military and taking people.... I believe that many of these veterans, as they've told me, want to work. They want to contribute, but they need some long-term coaching, some long-term psychosocial rehabilitation.
It's going to cost money, but what better investment can you make? The return is not only in terms of quality of life for the veteran, but also in terms of the taxes they are going start paying when they become employed. They're going to start paying them back to the very government that invested in them.
Thank you.