Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2010

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

Of course.

[Brad White]

Today we're dealing with PTSD in a way we've never dealt with it before. It's being accepted. The leadership is starting to deal with PTSD, and they've never dealt with it before. We're at the really beginning stages of making an impact.

I'll go to one of the other comments that you made. Are the resources there? Are the systems there? No, they're not. We're good at dealing with physical injury, because we know how to do it--we can see it, we can touch it, we can fix it--but when you're dealing with a psychological injury, you don't see it, you can't feel it, and how do you touch it? You have to rely on the individual to self-identify, and if he or she won't self-identify, then you have a real problem of getting through to the individual.

I always relate to a story of the young guy from the Eastern Townships who went through an IED. I'm not sure if he was a reservist or in the regular forces, but he went back home on convalescence. If I recall correctly, the individual on the battlefield basically tried to take his life at that point, and his comrades stopped him. He went back home. How many attempts did he make until, finally, he was successful? There should have been a lot of red flags up there, shouldn't there, to deal with that individual? We didn't deal with it. He went home. Was he isolated? Yes. We missed one. We really did.

There are a whole bunch of issues there, but it's cultural. It's a new thing. Do we have the resources right now? No, we don't have the resources to treat everything. This is the start of trying to get those resources, because you need to have things identified and you need to understand what the requirements are. That's why we need more research to identify those requirements. Then maybe we can start moving on into good programs.

I'm talking too long.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Brown, do you have something to say?

[S/Sgt Murray Brown]

I have only a couple of quick comments. Primarily I want to refer you to something that each of you was provided with in the House. If you're doing a review on post-traumatic stress, this book should be on your file somewhere.

This publication is true. It's not driven by management. What you see in here are some members who have laid out their personal lives for the reader, with the goal of trying to help our people.

Brad's touched on an interesting point, the point about the cultural makeup. I come from an organization that is traditionally very quiet, very within itself, and hard to get close to, and the cruelty is as real today. I don't mean that in a bad way, but it's a job that has a lot of sadness attached to it, even though you feel good about the quality of your work.

When I first knew I was in trouble and was in treatment, the first person I chose to speak to was my brother, in a vehicle. We were coming back from another part of the province. I realized very early in that discussion that this was not the place I was going to disclose. He's a retired member of the Mounted Police.

I can give you thousands of those examples. We don't understand. There's no education. There's no research. There's no proactivity. We're talking about something here that we're now in the infancy of, although we've been aware of it for years. We've called it burnout and all those other terms, but we are starting this as a forest fire. We're cutting a track and working back.

In a way we're at a disadvantage compared to the military, because the military have their own infrastructure within medicine. We used to have that, and the doctors knew what the members were exposed to, but now that we've transitioned from a clinical model to an occupational model, the last thing a member of the Mounted Police is going to do today is go to an RCMP doctor. It ain't going to happen. If you do, they'll go to your personnel file and start to make notes that are going to be reflected in profiles, which are limitations and restrictions that will prohibit your lateral and vertical movement. You can kiss the Mounted Police goodbye when it comes to disclosure. However, that doesn't mean they should neglect what's going on or not deal with it at the front end.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Mr. Stoffer is next. You have five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all three of you for being with us today.

One thing that Murray didn't tell us is that he'll be retiring at the end of this year. Murray, on behalf of all of us, thank you for your great service to everyone you've helped throughout the country and also for my education with the RCMP. That was really informative. When this magazine first came up, you showed us the story of Paul Smith. It was really disturbing.

You're right, Brad. We missed more than one. We've missed a few out there.

I remember very well the Legion I used to go to, which was Branch 5 in Richmond, B.C. Every Friday and Saturday they had the meat draws. The World War I and the World War II guys would let it out right there, and they'd be good for a week until they came back and got their fill of camaraderie once again. The Legion played an incredible role in mitigating an awful lot of pain and suffering. Even though you may not have done it on an organizational basis, you gave them comfort by having facilities across the country where they could go and feel safe.

My colleague Ms. Duncan does this once in a while, so I'd like to try it as well. If you could do three things right now that would improve the lives of the people you represent, what would they be?

Murray, you mentioned transition care. I find it rather disturbing that it's not already there. I'm sure it's something this committee will seriously look at in that regard, but if each of you could have three things right now that this committee could recommend in our report, what would they be?

[S/Sgt Murray Brown]

I could probably make it longer, but I'll go with interest. I don't mean to be cruel, but sometimes those in power don't want to know, so the second is knowledge. The third is process.

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

Okay, thank you.

[Andrea Siew]

I would say access to timely, high-quality care for both reservists and regular force members, regardless of where they live in Canada. It needs to be not just reactive but proactive care, care that reaches out to wherever they're located. It has to be standardized across the country.

[Brad White]

I think you very much want to have buy-in and longevity. Now we're getting veterans from World War II who are starting to say they realize they've got a problem. A program is not short-term; it has to go over the lifespans of the people we're dealing with. You can't give people resources just on an annual basis and tell them to spend their resources on an annual basis. You can't tell them they're done in five years.

We're going to be dealing with this now. How many people have we deployed through Afghanistan in the last 10 years? We're going to be dealing with these issues over their lifespans. I'm talking now from a CF point of view, but I know that from an RCMP point of view those stresses are happening every day, every minute, in Canadian communities everywhere in Canada. They have to deal with these issues. Murray's had 37 years. Think about those 37 years and think about how we're going to deal with those individuals for the rest of their lives. You can't have a short-term program.

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

In conclusion, I want to thank you for the fact that you've shared this with your other veterans organizations across the country. Brad, we've said this privately before, but the cooperation and the integration of discussion with other veterans groups--and maybe the RCMP as well--to better enhance the dialogue would only improve the situation for everyone. Thanks to the Legion for doing that.

[Brad White]

I appreciate that. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Go ahead, Mr. Kerr.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Thank you for being here. It's good to see you.

I'm going to concentrate more on Murray's stuff because I'd like to go in a couple of directions. I want to thank Brad and Andrea. I want to point out that dialogue is great and I think what we're saying as we face these problems is that we know progress is being made. We've heard that from so many sources. We have a long trip to go, but it's true in many cases.

One is that the awareness is out there now. There are more conversations and discussions about stigma. All those types of things are far more public than they were five or 10 years ago. I get the sense that the cooperation you're talking about is critical. I think we have to go down that path. I think we're recognizing some movement. I think you agree in general that at least that we're collectively making some progress.

[Brad White]

I think we are. I think we're starting on that road. I think it's a very valuable road. We as an organization are certainly trying to reach out to all the veterans' communities and greet different groups--Murray's group, and Tim Hoban, and the RCMP Veterans Association. We hold an annual meeting with everybody to bring them in. There we talk about these issues and about where we want to be.

Also, there's consultation. We call it the consultation group. Consultation with government and with Veterans Affairs and this committee--with all of you--is essential so that we can explain to you where we are and you can drill us on where you think we should be, or however that's supposed to work. This is essential consultation that we have to continue. We can't cut this off. We have to be in there.

Veterans Affairs is reorganizing their consultative process at this stage in the game, and they're going to have a larger organization or group to do the consultation through. It's not just the new Veterans Charter advisory group; they're going to take the GAC and the new Veterans Charter advisory group and mishmash all this together. We're waiting to see how all of this is going to turn out.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Great. We'll have lots more to talk about on that, I'm sure.

The reason I wanted to give Murray the bulk of the time is that a lot of what you're raising--and we have talked about this--is the culture. A lot of your problems are within the organization itself. I understand you have these things with Veterans Affairs, as we've talked about. I'd like you to talk more about that, because I think it's an education for most of us here to realize that it will be a whole new culture for the RCMP itself to bridge that gap or to jump over that gap and engage.

The services are there, but it was never set up to be exactly as the military connection would be with Veterans Affairs. That's what you've been talking about now for some time.

Could you explain what it is that the RCMP has to do to help get across that chasm?

[S/Sgt Murray Brown]

I appreciate that. I think, really, that one can't happen without the assistance of the other. I'll tie that directly to VIP and chronic care. If those two are not chugging in the same direction, we're going to be stalled for many more years. You know my view on that.

In my organization we may portray an image that it's very regimental and so on, but at my level it isn't. There are many at the top who feel that it still is, but we're slowly slagging away at that.

In my organization we are severely understaffed in health care. In the health services delivery areas, we have not had a chief psychologist in the Mounted Police on a permanent basis for probably three or four years. The job is still vacant. In fact, they're using the salary dollars to pay for two projects going on within the unit. Here we are, keeping the chief psychologist position vacant while we're funding two sidebar exercises.

I'm telling you that there are a lot of members out there who need to be identified. I come from an organization of approximately 20,000 to 22,000 police officers, and we have just 14 staff psychologists. The position of the chief staff psychologist, who should be getting everybody on program--on base, on whatever--is not even filled.

The force jumped as a result of the Brown task force and the change management team, as they normally do. They react to some of these things, because there's always short-term interest, so they bring something forth.

One of the products they jumped up with was a mental health program, which is referred to as...it will come to me. Anyway, we have a staff sergeant in B.C. who is a psychologist as well. He's coordinating a program on decompression. The idea of these decompressions is to get out ahead of the disability or the illness or the injury and try to train people in how to handle it. They're doing classes of, let's say, 21 to 24 people. They did three in B.C. They were going to do two in Newfoundland for the Atlantic region in the month of December, and they have one scheduled each month from now to March.

Now, I've already told you that we have 22,000 members. We're going to have a lot of casualties before they roll around and have any noticeable effect with that program.

I want you to know that it's my information that the other 14 staff psychologists are rarely consulted on this. This was something senior management ran with because it came out of the change management group, and they thought it was a good idea. That's how that baby is coming down the pipes.

There are a number of risks with this program. I'm not one to speak about that. I'm not a psychologist.

When I was preparing for this and the force was here and spoke, there were three terms I found interesting. One was the RCMP's traumatic and resilience program for post-traumatic stress. One was the mental health wellness program, because they all transition into each other. Then there was the workplace wellness program. Now we have a new baby on the network, which is called.... Well, it's another wellness program. I'll just leave it at that.

Over the period since somebody's been trying to be accountable for this, they've rolled out a new health care model we're telling the world about. The commissioner has signed a two-page principles of wellness document. I challenge you to tell me what it means. There are some nice phrases there, but what we need is some results. We need some outcomes. We need some people helped. We have to re-establish trust internally in the force.

There are a lot of frustrations that are unfairly put on Veterans Affairs. Some of those are because the force has not maintained our medical files in a very good way. People like me thought our employer was keeping our medical records, not unlike in the military. When the time came that I needed them, there was nothing there except a record that they paid a bill one day at Walmart for medications or whatever. Now we have to catch up and put together materials to support our duty-related injuries. That's not often easy.

Remember that we had no involvement with Veterans Affairs until after October 2001 or 2002. After that, a serving member of the forces and the Mounted Police could collect a disability pension for pain and suffering while serving. Prior to that time, even though we had been with them since 1948, we weren't really taught about them, or we didn't know what they did, because they had nothing to do with us until we went to pension. That changed a bit in 2002, but there has never been a good education component, and the transition interview is critical to filling that gap.

The other thing is the continual taking back of money through the vacancies that are run in the health services program. That has to stop. Do you know how they allocate the health care money for the Mounted Police? They give it to them based on how much they spent the year before. That tells you how we funded health care for the Mounted Police during the last number of years. I'd like to see that money protected. It needs to be there for health care. God, we can't even collect data. Do you know that the only way my force can tell you any reasonable numbers on post-traumatic stress or a couple of other disabilities, including depressive disorders, anxiety and depression, and anxiety disorders? Those are the top four in our organization, and they result in....

I just read a psychologist's comment to me the other day. It said 60% to 75% of our sick members are suffering from occupational stress injuries. VAC will support that, in a way, because if you look at the VAC numbers for our 8,000 claims, the largest percentage of those are for post-traumatic stress.

I call the Mounties and ask what we have for numbers. The only way they can verify any numbers is to call Veterans Affairs and ask them what they are making payments on, and that's no good, because the only numbers Veterans Affairs has are those that are successful. It's not about who is in the system, who is getting in the system, who has failed, or who is appealing the system. We can collect statistics on how long somebody has been going through the same stop sign, yet we can't give anything back. That goes for suicide as well.

I implore you to look at that. I'm going to suggest that our suicide numbers are down, but I can sit here and give you four or five. Most of our people kill themselves with their own tools. Paul Smith is but one of the most recent casualities. Paul's casualty was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His wife is now in possession of a pension because Paul was killed as a result of his duty-related injury. Now, you unwrap that one.

This is the way it goes all the time.

There are a number of inherent issues with Veterans Affairs. One is that we don't get the feeling that they know us. The position on the liaison is critical. In all fairness, the guy wasn't treated very well in Ottawa. They might as well have stuck him a building and let him roam around until he did his week and then went back home, but our guy embedded in Charlottetown was treated like a king. He went to all the meetings. He was part of the process.

There needs to be a maturity in this area within the upper crust of my organization. I'm not speaking out of school here. I've told them all pretty much the same thing during the year. This is not the first time I have spoken to and or about my employer in relation to this issue. What's going on here needs to be fixed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

We went a little over time there, but I wanted you to get it out, so that's good.

Ms. Duncan is next.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for coming and thank you for your service to our country. Mr. Brown, congratulations on your soon-to-be retirement.

[S/Sgt Murray Brown]

Thank you.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I want to pick up on what you said that this can't be short term. I recently met with some veterans and some psychiatrists, who told me that one gentleman had his first mental health crisis at the age of 87. There are many veterans, whether from RCMP or from the forces, who take their OSIs to the grave. Psychiatrists reported that they treated two veterans who had lived in a basement in the dark for 17 years. They really brought it home that they never met someone who didn't want to be a contributing member of society.

You mentioned proactive care. That is extremely important for prevention, and I would you like to give the committee the most specific recommendations you can. How do you do proactive care?

[Andrea Siew]

The first part starts in the education process prior to deployment, and it has to be accepted in the military culture. It cannot be career-ending. In that way people will come forward and get treatment, because it's that early intervention that's absolutely key to preventing their living a life of isolation. It translates into the family: you live in complete silence at work, you don't report it, and when you go home, your family bears the brunt of the aggressiveness and the isolation you feel.

There needs to be that early intervention and that education. There are programs in place. There has been lots of progress with the Canadian Forces--

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Do we track that with research to see whether it's working or not?

[Andrea Siew]

Well, that's my point. What monitoring do we do to ensure that the successes are there? What are the challenges, and what needs to be changed? The Canadian Forces launched the Be the Difference campaign in 2009, and there has been no performance measurement done on that particular campaign. They've introduced education programs at all the leadership schools and at recruit training. How is that being monitored? There is no data collection on operational stress injury.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

When you compare what's on our VAC website versus what's in the United States, many more things are being done in the United States, ranging from people who have won service medals and have had the courage to come forward, screaming that we're not doing.... Would Canadians benefit from any of this?