Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I call the meeting to order.

I welcome everyone here today. This is the 33rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are studying combat stress and its consequences on the mental health of veterans and their families.

I welcome our witnesses. From the Royal Canadian Legion we have Brad White, dominion secretary, and Andrea Siew, service officer. From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police we have Murray Brown, staff relations representative, occupational health and safety.

Mr. White, you're first on the docket. I will ask you to make your presentation, followed by Mr. Brown. Then we can ask questions around the table.

[Brad White, Dominion Secretary, Dominion Command, Royal Canadian Legion]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and honourable members of the committee, for your welcome.

I'd like to introduce Andrea Siew, who is with me today. Andrea is one of our service officers in the dominion command service bureau. She is a 28-year member of the Canadian Forces and a recently retired commodore. She has joined us to help with our advocacy for veterans.

On behalf of our dominion president, Patricia Varga, it's an honour to be here again today to discuss the issue of what we call “combat stress”, or operational stress. For those members of the Canadian Forces who have served on operational combat missions around the world, the experience of those deployments may never end. The experience will also affect their families both during and after their deployment periods.

We've looked at a number of factors that will affect how members of the Canadian Forces will react to combat stress. You have that in the presentation before you.

We look at pre-existing vulnerabilities, which include things like age, family background, and their emotional state.

We also look at the training and the organizational environment, which includes such things as how many reservists are in the deployment. A large percentage of reservists are going out on deployments on the operational side now. You can imagine that any casualties that happen in a given deployment will certainly affect the whole psyche and structure not only of that command element but also of those people on that deployment.

Of course there is the nature of the stressors linked to deployment. They include the duration of the deployment--sometimes when Canadian Forces members deploy, they're deployed longer than what they anticipated at the beginning--the number of additional deployments, how many deployments a person goes through during his very short span, and the complexity and the exposure of those deployments. Some deployments are easy. Some deployments are not so easy.

As well, there's the multiplication effect of pre-existing comorbidity problems, such as chronic pain, depression, and things like alcohol and drugs.

Trauma directly affects how individuals define themselves. Some individuals react to trauma more than others do, for various reasons. Those more at risk are sometimes individuals with multiple and/or fragmented personalities. They may have difficulties adapting. They may have changing perceptions of not only themselves but also the world around them.

Trauma will affect soldiers differently based on gender. Female soldiers exposed to trauma will have less PTSD and fewer alcohol abuse problems, but they will most likely suffer from greater levels of depression and eating disorders. It is also likely that their trauma will be associated with increased exposure to sexual stressors, which will require a completely different type of intervention to deal with.

Traumatic effects can be minimized depending on the duration of the exposure and on the environment, such as the workload, the goals and values of the organization, the support of leaders, and group cohesion. Group cohesion is important. Exposure to stressors in early childhood will also reduce resiliency later in life. The more a person is exposed to them, the less likely it is that he is going to suffer in later years.

During deployment, exposure to warfare can be seen in different ways, based on the perceived threat and concerns about relationships that may already be fragile, especially if the deployment is of a long duration--12 months or more--and if one is subjected to multiple deployments.

Research done in the United Kingdom indicates that one should never deploy for longer than 12 months in a three-year period. I hazard to say that some of the deployments today are for a shorter timeframe than that. If you cross that threshold, the rate of PTSD doubles.

Try to take that relationship back to those who went to World War I and World War II. They were gone for four years. They never came home during the four years.

Research in mental health has established a direct link to trauma exposure, operational stress injuries, and suicidal behaviours. Those impacted see themselves as different, but not necessarily in a negative way. They do, however, see their world in negative terms. They develop a we-them relationship with civilians and sometimes with other organizations within the Canadian Forces itself, and often express hostility and contempt toward those outside agencies.

While they live deliberately to the full, they have to deal with a diminished self and they exhibit emotional fragility. Unfortunately, this emotional fragility draws a toll on spouses and children, who actually live the mission through our modern IT connectivity these days. For example, how many times have you heard that six NATO soldiers were killed in Afghanistan? Imagine the impact that has on the families sitting back in Canada, knowing that their people are deployed and not having any idea of what's happening. The world of media brings it closer into the home today.

Families not only live the mission through IT connectivity, but they're also directly affected by the impact of returning injured family members. The bottom line is that they're all casualties. The Canadian Forces and Veterans Affairs must take responsibility for not only the soldiers but also their families. The current status quo is no longer a choice.

It should also be recognized that there are numerous barriers to improved mental health. Some may have no interest in treatment. Some will abandon treatment after too short an intervention period. Young males may be more inclined to refuse the treatment or the intervention. Young males with major problems are often those who leave the Canadian Forces early. They are often alone--marriages have broken down--and they spiral downwards into alcohol, drugs, and homelessness. They go all the way to the bottom. They have not built up the necessary resiliency to actually deal with their conditions. For those silent sufferers, barriers to mental health must be eliminated. The leadership must continue to provide support at all levels. That's starting to change these days. It's starting to happen.

Practitioners need to establish trust. All barriers to access must be eliminated. Treatment must focus on resiliency rather than pathology. What I mean is treat the individual; don't give him a bunch of drugs. Drugs may be a necessary aspect of it, but don't just give him drugs.

Unfortunately, in the CF there is no model that provides prescriptive guidelines for intervention by either Canadian Forces or Veterans Affairs mental health practitioners. This is the norm in the United Kingdom and the United States. In Canada, Canadian Forces and Veterans Affairs mental health practitioners at both the operational stress injury and the operational trauma stress support clinics rely on informative guidelines provided by the Canadian Psychiatric Association.

Additionally, access to a single point of service for Canadian Forces members and their families remains an unattainable objective. A more cohesive approach must be found to deal with the fact that access to mental health services is dependent on the CF member coming forward, self-identifying, and asking for that treatment.

A critical issue is services for family members who are also victims of interpersonal violence. Assistance to families of reservists who come back and are back in their home environment must be improved to break down the sense of isolation. Imagine: they've been trained and deployed, they have group cohesion, they come back, they go through the decompression period, they go back to their home units, and they're isolated.

Programs that can meet the needs of children must be developed, keeping in mind that the needs of children when they're five years old will be different from their needs when they are teenagers.

Though progress has been made, from our perspective significant challenges remain. The OSI and the OTSSC clinics are not always in the right locations. More importantly, there's a profound lack of academic research in Canada on the life course of mental health issues related to Canadian Forces members. We have to rely on information that comes from the United States and elsewhere.

Even though we see the recently announced Canadian Forces cancer and mortality study as a step in the right direction, there needs to be greater coordination between the Canadian Forces and Veterans Affairs on what is needed in analyzing all life-course issues related to the mental health of Canadian Forces members, veterans, and their families.

I'll step back in time. In its day the Legion played a valuable role, and it still plays a very valuable role today. Back when PTSD was not a common community thing you could identify, members came back from World War I, World War II, and Korea and went to the Legion halls where they self-medicated. They closed circle with their friends and buddies they trusted. That's where they got their treatment for PTSD, or what was called “shell shock” back in those days.

We continue to be engaged in various programs, including transition programs for the homeless, such as the Cockrell House in Victoria--a very effective program--and the B.C.-Yukon transition program for those with mental health issues. This has been in place since 1998, in cooperation with both UBC and the University of Victoria. It's a very effective program for treating individuals with PTSD.

The recent Leave the Streets Behind program, which is in partnership with Veterans Affairs and centred out of Toronto, Ontario, is a model that is working well. We're starting to transport that model to our other provincial commands across the country so they can start looking at homeless programs for veterans in their communities.

There's also the Alberta-Northwest Territories command program with Outward Bound. You may have seen some of that on the CBC report Connect with Mark Kelley. They did a report on the Outward Bound program for people with PTSD. The Legion funds members to go on that program. It doesn't cost them a thing.

In Alberta, and particularly in Edmonton, we are supporting the Alberta military family resource centre child program for children of parents who have experienced trauma. So far we've funded eight serials of that program in Edmonton.

While it is said that we sleep to forget, one must not forget the impact of operational stress on Canadian Forces members, veterans, and families. The Government of Canada must provide support to those who served and to their families, who are now alienated through no fault of their own. The status quo is no longer a choice. If we do not become more proactive rather than reactive, we will regress.

At the bottom of the page you will see the various organizations we have consulted. The Royal Canadian Legion makes presentations such as this, and we shop it around to various organizations. The Army, Navy, and Air Force Veterans in Canada, the Canadian Naval Air Group, the National Aboriginal Veterans Association, the Royal Canadian Naval Association, the Air Force Association of Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Veterans Association, and the Company of Master Mariners all support our presentation here today.

Thank you for the time to make our presentation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you, Mr. White.

Next is Mr. Brown.

[S/Sgt Murray Brown, Staff Relations Representative, Occupational Health & Safety, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

It's a good day for colours, eh?

Mr. Chairman, with your patience, I would like to take this moment to acknowledge the presence of my own constituency's member of Parliament, Mr. Stoffer. I don't have to go back to our area and say that I saw him working; most of us take Peter for the good job he does.

I'd also like to acknowledge an old family friend through politics, Mr. Kerr, from Yarmouth, and also Dr. Duncan, whom I've met a couple of times. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Duncan at a Legion about two weeks ago during a town hall discussion.

With that, good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, committee members, and guests. I am particularly honoured to be here today on behalf of my organization, although as yet I don't speak for the commissioner. I want to acknowledge that I'm here with the presence of the Legion. I couldn't think of better company I could associate with during this presentation.

I am a senior staff sergeant with 37 years of service in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. My duties have taken me throughout much of our country, but my primary provincial postings have been in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. My service to Canadians started where most members begin their careers: in front-line, uniformed policing in the communities throughout our nation.

These duties transitioned in later years to include drug enforcement, undercover operations and covert duties, drug awareness roles in two provinces to meet the federal government mandate on the national drug strategy, and criminal intelligence within the world of organized crime, with a dedicated specialty in outlaw biker gangs.

During this service, I have also been a volunteer member for more than 10 years with a tactical weapons team in an emergency response capability. I acted in two primary roles: one as a marksman or a sniper, and the second as an assaulter, the person who is usually one of the first or second guys in the door, depending on what door we're going in. These collective duties have left some life-impacting experiences and injuries with me.

My current duties as a staff relations representative involve the well-being and safety of our members. I have had numerous responsibilities within this program, which is a non-unionized system of labour. I've been continuously elected by the members of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island for more than 16 years. Along with my SRR partner, I represent over 900 members in the province of Nova Scotia.

I also represent thousands of members nationally from coast to coast to coast, and I'm involved in that role through the national occupational health and safety projects. This is a role I've held for many years, and I plan to follow it into retirement as an advocate for those members and their spouses and families who continue to give but do not receive.

In the time that I am privileged to have in your presence today, I've been asked to speak about the issue of suicide among our members and about the impact on mental health and related issues I have encountered with both serving and retired members.

I am not as yet a member of the RCMP Veterans Association and therefore do not speak for them officially. However, I have been advised that our interests and theirs are very similar. I am a member of the RCMP, and in our family there are few secrets, as collectively those still in service and those out of service continue to try to help each other.

Without having prior knowledge of this appearance, earlier this week I sent out over 30 letters to some of you and to many others. In fact, this opportunity, which came out of the blue for me, is going to give us as an organization two chances to refresh your memory on a number of issues.

I come to you today to tell you that I work for an organization that knows very little about occupational stress injuries and has done less than is necessary in that area. Our veterans have been served by Veterans Affairs Canada since 1947-1948, which is about 64 years, but this organization knows little about the serving and retired members of my organization.

The RCMP and VAC should both be ashamed. We are the distant cousins of our sisters and brothers in the Canadian armed forces. That said, our collective belief in each other is very strong. We serve jointly in various capacities, both domestically and internationally. We support their cry for justice, as they do ours.

The lack of VAC understanding was so evident that several years ago we jointly created two positions to enhance education and operational efficiencies within Veterans Affairs Canada. An experienced RCMP inspector was assigned to be embedded with Veterans Affairs, and they, in turn, assigned a senior person with us. Both of those men were excellent selections.

It's sad to say that today that program is essentially dead. Our position of experience and operational exposure for those who work in Veterans Affairs has been replaced by a civilian member. I want you to know that this comment is not to slight our civilian members—they are as dedicated as any other employee—but the fact is that civilian members do not have the operational experiences that are necessary to convince VAC of the real world in which we serve. We failed to maintain that connection, and VAC has not replaced their representative.

Currently there are some veterans' programs that the RCMP cannot access, and I have to ask why. I've asked about this previously in rooms similar to this one. Two of these are the veterans independence program and chronic care and the transition interviews, which is the most recent. Multiple parties, including politicians, veterans' organizations, my friends to my right, and other community groups across Canada, have supported the implementation of these programs, but cannot justify the lack of our success. Around 1988, when Veterans Affairs transitioned from the old Veterans Treatment Regulations, the RCMP got benefits, albeit minimal, within the VIP program. Then VAC rewrote the regulations in 1988. They created the Veterans Health Care Regulations, and despite being one of VAC's clients, even back in 1988 the Mounties were not included in that rewrite or those regulations. How can that happen?

We--I and many others--have been to both Houses. We've been to the Senate and the House of Commons. We have spoken to many members of each over the years and have obtained letters of overwhelming support, but still there has been no action. Previous Ministers of Public Safety and other politicians in and out of power supported the RCMP in getting this coverage. However, there has been nothing to date, and there appears to be nothing on the horizon.

The reason I say that is that I wrote the Commissioner of the RCMP about two to three weeks ago and asked him if he would give me an update from his perspective. He told me he was leaving the country and would call me when he got back. Well, he's back, but I haven't received a phone call, so I assume there's nothing on the horizon. Perhaps you can now see a bit of our poor-cousin frustration.

Our friends in the Canadian Forces are currently at war, and the cost for Canadians is high. We bleed with them, as we have recently suffered our own international casualties, but these were not our first. Our members and their families are primarily deployed at home in Canada in the various communities where we live, serve, and volunteer. Our combat zone is at home, and our tolls of injured, ill, and dying accumulate silently. Two of our most recent casualties were the result of a motor vehicle accident in the west, and a young man went missing in a river in northern Canada. We searched for his body for about three weeks and were fortunate enough to recover him and bring him home.

Programs and services that you need to know about are not limited only to those two that I'm telling you about. In your packages, I've given you some space to jot in some comments about these if you choose to do so. There are about 17. I'll go through them quickly, as I know the time is precious.

First is identity. VAC needs to know more about who we are, what we do, and the nature of our service delivery. It's a sad statement of affairs that they're not even going to replace the embedded member. He was beneficial and worked with our senior management here in Ottawa to help the two-way understanding of each other.

As well, we need acknowledgment about what we are, our service deliveries, and the nature of the duties we cover. The pressures are difficult on an undercover operator or a person working on child sexual assault cases or computer sexual assault crimes. It's not like being in a trade and carrying out some external service to equipment or whatever. I don't mean to correlate that in a cheapening way to the military, because they are as technical as we are.

There are service shortfalls from Veterans Affairs. Every time I go into a VAC office across Canada, I always go to their pamphlet rack. They have one publication there that is uniquely for the RCMP. You have it in front of you. The RCMP worked with them to create that pamphlet in 2004 or 2006. This is an exact duplicate, with the exception of the content, of the Canadian armed forces blue pamphlet. Theirs is blue and their images reflect the Canadian military.

There has been one printing of this since. Now, we have over 40,000 serving and retired members of the Mounted Police. There was one post-printing of this, and they printed, I believe, 10,000 copies. They haven't even printed enough of these pamphlets for them to go individually to each of our members.

I'm going to refer to another one, because it's one that the members receive if they're successful in a pension claim. I only have the English version; I'm sure the French version would come in the French packages. It is to explain the outcome of the person's claim. It's not educational material in the context of picking it up.

I've been in VAC offices from coast to coast. I always leave a note or a complaint that there's no material relevant to the RCMP in their news racks. We got the force to start sending them some Gazette magazines and some other RCMP material, and now there are finally some posters representing the force in their offices.

When I was stationed in P.E.I., I went to some of their hearings. There was no RCMP plaque in the hearing rooms. All the regiments' plaques were around the room, but there was no recognition for the RCMP. Now, I'm not blaming anybody for that; it's just that, are we in, or are we not? I wrote the commanding officer of L Division at the time, and that could now be covered off. I've since been relocated from P.E.I.

The materials need to be expanded. I've been to a multitude of presentations; they do a thousand overheads or whatever, but you never see the colour red. In Moncton, not long ago, I said, “You have nothing in your presentation that is relevant to the RCMP. I don't even see the colour red”. The guy said, “Well, we'll put something red in there”. I've got to tell you, being in the room as the only Mountie with a number of people from Blue Cross and others, I wasn't very impressed.

This unknown person came up to me with a BlackBerry. He leaned over and showed me the Veterans Affairs website on the BlackBerry, and it had a banner that went across the top with the Mounted Police and a horse on it. I said to him, “Thank you very much, sir, but the reason you're able to show me that is that I'm talking about this now”. When you're not even acknowledged in an audience at a conference.... I told the guy I didn't care what they put in there, as long as it was red. That's the battle we're fighting. It hasn't changed a whole lot, but it has changed a bit.

In relation to the VIP, I'm not going to talk much more about that, other than to say that I don't know if it's ever made it to a minister's letter of priority. There must be already 30 volumes of memorandums to cabinet over the years on VIP and chronic care. Somebody beat me with the outcome of those discussions because, really, you have to ask yourself.... If there are 25 or 30 memorandums to cabinet on a program that everybody else in the country has, there's something missing. Maybe this is just being lost in the central parliamentary agencies. I don't know, but we're going to find out.

Transition interviews are a core VAC program. We were never entitled to those until we found out they were a core VAC program. When we did, we launched a pilot project in F Division in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan was chosen because Veterans Affairs had resource pressures in many of the other provinces because of deployments to Afghanistan, so we chose Regina and Saskatchewan as our pilot. The pilot was carried off really well. It was reported on well, and so on. Then we said, “Where are we going from here?”, so we went to Atlantic Canada, primarily because I was on the board that was making those decisions. We went to Atlantic Canada; the program is now running there, but really with no emphasis. I just received a retirement package and I notice there's a letter in there, but the program is essentially frozen. It is shut down.

There are negotiations going on between Ottawa RCMP and Veterans Affairs in P.E.I. in relation to resources and who's going to pay for this program and so on. While that is being fought out, we've got members all across Canada from coast to coast who are leaving our organization without knowing what their entitlements are and without knowing how to transition into the private sector.

I am excluded, as a Canadian, from the Canada Health Act. I don't feel bad about that. The problem is that the employer, the commissioner, is now responsible for my health care. I'm with a very special crowd in the exclusion from the Canada Health Act: all of Canada's federal inmates and all new immigrants to Canada. That's who is there. When I don't get my benefits from the commissioner, then my health care is shut down.

Those are some of the issues we deal with when we have to negotiate with the commissioner on programs or changes.

When we look at transition interviews, now VAC is coming to the RCMP to be paid. I'm not concerned about who pays. I'm concerned about the service delivery. British Columbia and Alberta are both crying for this program, but we cannot provide it. It is not being rolled out anywhere in Canada, except for in the five provinces I've indicated to you. I could give you a number of recommendations from Veterans Affairs themselves that date back to January 20, 2003, on the requirements and needs of the transition interviews. Here we are, stopped, with only five provinces.

I mentioned the liaison positions. I'm going to give you a recommendation, hopefully before I get cut off here, and I'm not going to say anything more about them than I have already.

Another thing is that members are afraid to self-identify. That might surprise you about people who carry guns. What would we have to be afraid of? There are a number of reasons members withdraw from the force. Since the force has converted its health care program to an occupational health model from a clinically based model that allowed us to go to our doctors and be given health care, the whole timeframe and the rules have changed. Some of the things you will hear from members—and I believe Dr. Duncan may have heard some of this—include statements like the following:

“It would harm my career or future job promotion if I disclose PTSD, depression, or a number of other mental illnesses.” This is in 2010 in the Mounted Police, when most of us have university degrees.

“Members of my unit might think less of me and have less confidence in me.”

“Unit leadership might treat me differently.”

The leaders blame the member for the problem: “Now we're down one body.”

Members are seen to be weak, so there's the “suck it up” concept. I know you've heard that before.

“It would be too embarrassing for my family.” You know, one thing about my organization is that we've never given much thought to our families until the last couple of years.

I would hope this won't be reflected in the minutes. I would ask that you don't. I've been in treatment for post-traumatic stress and depression for over three years. I know what this is about, and I know when I see it, and I've talked to lots of people who suffer from it, but if you ask the RCMP to give you the numbers, they can't do it. They don't have them.

“I do not trust the RCMP. I do not trust RCMP health services. I will get better on my own.” Well, I tried that route, and I crashed on the road. I don't mean that I physically crashed; I just knew that I was in trouble on the road. I was close enough to a family doctor to pay a visit, and it has been better since.

These are only some of the reasons that you have to understand that this is not like walking into an IBM building and saying, “I'm not feeling good today”. Not only that, men and women don't go off sick. The reason they don't is that they're working in two-, three-, and four-person units. If they're gone, the unit's down another body, and there's no replacement. We're the only organization in Canada that doesn't believe its female members should reproduce, because we have no allowance in any formula to replace those people when they're off duty. Who fills the hole? It's made up by the people left behind.

So that's the fear of self-identifying.

Then there's the Privacy Act. I don't have to tell you people anything about VAC and the Privacy Act. I'll spare you that pain, and I don't mean to indicate that there have been pure violations. I won't know until my privacy application comes back.

When you look at the RCMP right now, if I were to make a claim, Veterans Affairs is sharing that success—if you want to call it that—with the health services units of the RCMP all across Canada. If I get an acknowledgement of a disability, they write a letter to the health services people. The health services people go into the record room, pull out my medical file, and confirm what my conditions are compared to the medical profile. Then they either change my medical profile or leave it alone. I'm going to talk about that in a minute.

Where's the privacy here? I realize it's about money—everything is about money—but why isn't that letter sent to the corporate side of the House for the financial accountability when it comes time to deal with the votes? Tell me why two organizations are sharing that information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Brown, if you could wind up, then maybe some of what you're saying could be put into questions and you could have some time to answer then.

[S/Sgt Murray Brown]

I thank you very much. I went farther than I thought I would be able to, so I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay.

[S/Sgt Murray Brown]

There are a couple of other things. I have nine recommendations, and you have those in front of you.

I recommend that VIP and chronic care become an immediate priority of government and that relevant legislation be created and/or amended to enable members with disabilities to receive in-home services that are deemed necessary; that direction be provided to Veterans Affairs Canada and the RCMP senior management for the immediate implementation of the transition interview program; that the committee exercise whatever power it has in having the RCMP and VAC reinstitute those two liaison positions between the two organizations; that communication and education materials properly reflect the RCMP as a true VAC client; that the RCMP put in place forthwith a comprehensive program to deal with the growth of occupational stress injuries; that the RCMP senior management be instructed to separate the necessary costs of health care from the general budget and that this budget allocation be fenced so that the money given to the force in the operational budget for health is protected.

That's so they can't come running for it, scamming off 5% here and 5% there to meet government cutbacks or whatever. That money must be protected.

As well, I believe the health services delivery resource level in both the RCMP and VAC is insufficient. I'll certainly speak for my own organization. There has been a review of existing policies within VAC that restricts retired members of the RCMP and makes it impossible for them to access a Veterans Affairs hospital bed and/or a bed in a facility of a private nature that they control. Why is that, when we served overseas? We are getting hurt on the job in the same way that everybody else is.

I'll give my last recommendation, and then I'll get out of your life: the VAC ombudsman's position needs to be reviewed. We believe that the mandate needs to be widened to give a bit more flexibility for that person to also speak on behalf of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

I thank you for your patience and your extra time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

The first question will be from Ms. Zarac, please.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Brown, when you started you said we were changing colour. I think we did more than that. We went into a different world completely, from the Legion, which seems to know the problem and has statistics, to an organization that does not know exactly where it stands. You brought us to a completely different world.

Mr. White, you mentioned you had made a gender-based analysis because there are different problems. Do you have the statistics on that?

[Brad White]

Thank you for the opportunity, and I would like to say thank you to Murray. I have a vested interest in what the RCMP says because I have two sons in the RCMP. I like to see what their progress is going to be and how they deal with these issues in terms of my military experience.

The “Report of the Canadian Forces Expert Panel on Suicide Prevention”, which came out in February 2010, is where we're getting a lot of our information and a lot of the stats on those issues. They mention that suicide in the military does have special significance. They talk about males versus females and what they found there.

This is a very initial study, and this is where we're taking our stats from.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

I'm happy that you're talking about it. You also mentioned perception, and I think that if we can identify how the different genders react to stress, we can maybe pinpoint exactly the treatments that need to be given to people.

[Brad White]

If you'll permit me, I'll let Andrea speak to that. She has actually organized a bit of a focus group.

[Andrea Siew, Service Officer, Royal Canadian Legion]

One of the areas that's recognized is the lack of research, particularly on mental health issues. There is no national research institute to prioritize and follow the research and define the programs that are needed. A key gap is gender and the impact of operational deployment on women in the Canadian Forces. There's been very little research done on that.

We have attended two recent research seminars sponsored by academic institutions, both international and national, and they've raised gender differences in some of the research. It's very limited. One of the papers, which was done by Ryerson, indicates that for women on deployed operations, there's a 2.2% increased risk of development of PTSD as opposed to men, but that's based on information from back in 2002. We've now had women deployed in Afghanistan and in other operational deployments for over 10 years, and there's no research in that area.

It's important to do this type of research to ensure that the unique needs of women are being met. Are the pre- and post-deployment screening processes adapted to meet the gender requirements? Are there adequate resources available to them when they come home?

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

If you had to make a budget, would you allocate more funds to research or to a data collection system?

[Brad White]

That's a good question. We don't do any research in Canada. We have to rely on research done offshore through other militaries and other governments. I would like to see research conducted. These are our people. We need to define what their needs are, and we haven't done that yet. We can transfer research done in other countries, but we need a database of our own people if we really want to scope our programs.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Would that be a recommendation you would add to Mr. Brown's?

[Brad White]

I think it would be, but we can't forget the treatment side of it. We have the problem here and now, so these have to be two paths that we have to go down together. They have to be parallel paths to make sure we have the research that supports the programs.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

One of the big problems seems to be the disconnect between everybody. I like your recommendation, Mr. Brown, on having the RCMP in VAC. I would add the Legion and everybody concerned with veterans. They should all be put together with the government to find out what needs to be done. I think there's a disconnect, and that's what we're hearing. When a soldier leaves the forces, we lose him and he doesn't get the care. If he comes and asks for care, he's sent to a regular doctor, a family doctor.

[Brad White]

In both organizations, one of my primary concerns is the transition from being an active member of the Canadian Forces to the other side, the dark side.

What is the dark side? For a lot of members of the Canadian Forces, it's civilian life. That's a traumatic event for people. If they're also suffering from mental health issues, that compounds the stressors that they have to go through.

We need to make sure that there's a smooth transition from active service, whether with the military or with the RCMP, to being a client of VAC. I'm not sure I like the term “client”, but that's what they call it. This is a critical period in an individual's life and in the lives of people he's close to. He's going to take that stress and those stressors and he's going to put it onto his family, so the whole group is in a critical transition period.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

You mentioned isolation, and you mentioned how the Legion helped in the Second World War. It was like self-medication.

What can we do to bring these people back to the Legion? Did you consider what the Legion can do?

[Brad White]

I'm not sure that I want to stand up here and say that you have to bring them back to the Legion. What I want to say is that you need to use the resources. Veterans Affairs needs to use the resources.

We already do. We run a program called the long-term care surveyor program. We are on contract to Veterans Affairs. We have people across the country who go into long-term care facilities and check on the individuals in the facilities. They write reports, and the reports are submitted back to Veterans Affairs. It's a very effective program. It's extremely effective. We've resolved a lot of issues.

What we need to do is build on that program, maybe, and use it as an outreach tool. The Legion, I would say--more so than any other organization of our kind across the country--has a huge infrastructure that goes east, west, north, south, and everywhere. Build on that infrastructure--we're going to suggest this to Veterans Affairs--and use us as an outreach mechanism.

Those people who are reservists and those people who are injured go back to their home communities. Allow us to use the training we have in the long-term care surveyor program. In this day of privacy--and, as Murray says, privacy is a prime consideration when you do this--our long-term care surveyors are cleared to have access to the information they need to visit the people. We've overcome that hurdle.

Use that similar type of program and transition it to an outreach program. Talk to the people in the reserves and to those who are injured who are maybe having difficulty. We're there. We can do it. It's a very easy transition to do. We're there to help.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. André.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Good afternoon, Mr. White and Mr. Brown.

People with PTSD are most definitely faced with a lack of resources and services. I feel that we first have to address the screening issue. We're talking about resources and time that the RCMP and the Canadian Forces should invest in screening people with post-traumatic stress or related problems and in actually providing services. If it turns out that those people don't have any problems, a follow-up should always be done on individuals who have experienced traumatic situations that could later lead to post-traumatic stress.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that, if the Department of Veterans Affairs recognizes that a person has PTSD, it questions the whole thing and it raises doubts because there is a cost associated with it. When these people talk to mental health workers and officials, they must fight to prove that they actually have this particular problem. So not only do they have to break a taboo, but they also have to fight against the system within which the problem is not recognized because of the future costs.

I am going to tell you about a situation I'm familiar with and draw a parallel to our discussion. When someone with a mental health problem goes to see a psychologist or a worker at a CLSC, they are seen within 48 hours, in most cases, and they at least get an answer. It goes without saying that this is not the case with Veterans Affairs Canada or with the RCMP. But the difference is that it is not up to the organizations providing the services to establish whether these people are entitled to a disability benefit.

On a number of occasions in this committee, individuals told us how mental health problems and PTSD led them towards suicide. Some people say there is no link. I personally believe there is a link. These people never got any services. There are grey areas. Could you talk about those grey areas and could you comment on what I just said?

[Brad White]

I'm sorry, I will continue in English. This way, I will be able to express myself better.

You hit a couple of real issues. In connection with self-identification, it's easy for an individual who's not in the army or not in the RCMP to walk into his local clinic or up to his local doctor and say he's having an issue, but you're dealing with a culture. You're dealing with a military culture, an RCMP culture, and you're dealing with young people who are predominantly male. I have two of them, a 24-year-old and a 25-year-old. Do you think they're going to tell me they're having a problem on the job? I can sense that they might be having a problem on the job, but do you think they're going to identify to me that they are? It's a cultural thing, a mentality.