Thank you.
I'm not sure if you've had a chance to see it yet, but last Sunday The Chronicle Herald, a newspaper in Nova Scotia, did a really interesting article on military personnel who had been more or less forced out of the military.
One of the biggest problems I find for service personnel is that when they're no longer deployable, it means they're no longer employable within the military. They get, in their words, “kicked out” of the military. Some veterans have even said that what DND has done is offload the problem onto VAC.
In the private sector, where I used to work, in the Canadian airlines there was a thing called “duty to accommodate”. When you became injured, there was a responsibility on the company to try, as well as it could, to accommodate you to go back to work. I don't think that applies to the military, because many service personnel who believe they can still work in DND have been asked to leave. They're being “3(b)'d”, which means medically released from the military. That adds a tremendous amount of stress to them and their families.
As you know, sir, the DND is a culture. It's a way of life. It's in their DNA. It's who they are, and all of the sudden that is gone, for whatever reason, through no fault of their own and because of an injury. Now they have to go into a completely different world that they haven't been adjusted to for quite some time.
I'd like you to expand on something for a second. If you don't have the answer for it now, could you provide it later?
First, how many DND personnel who are serving right now receive a VAC pension? Then, on the question of the duty to accommodate, is DND doing a good enough job of keeping injured soldiers within the department, or are you finding a rush out the door--once you're injured, you're no longer employable with DND?