Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 7th, 2011

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

Understandable, but the record of that person is very clear when you're an inmate, whether provincially or federally, and I think it would be very helpful to know how many prisoners are in our correctional systems who maybe at one time served our country. If it's an inordinate number, maybe there's a problem there that we can nip in the bud, as you had mentioned this one particular gentlemen, in that case. I just make that recommendation.

But I do have the one thing for you. I know I shouldn't ask about Bill C-55, so I won't. But on the aspect of military personnel who leave the service and then join the public service, as you know, right now the RCMP won a court case that allowed them to take their vacation entitlements over. So if you have 16 years in with the military and you leave because of a medical problem and they give you a public service job in another area, you start at the very bottom when it comes to vacation entitlements. And a lot of service personnel really get, if I may say, pissed off at that.

The RCMP now have that, because they had to go to court to get that. Have you had that request to look into it from any veteran? Because an awful lot of them require that additional time off, because if they are suffering from PTSD, they'll need that additional time off in their new employment just to get everything back in order. An awful lot of them go back to the bottom of the vacation time and are having great difficulties in dealing with that.

[Guy Parent]

To my knowledge, we haven't received any complaints in that area, but certainly I see it as a portable entitlement. It's something that you earn. I went through that situation in my previous position at the office, where in fact I left the service with six weeks entitlement of leave and then ended up with three in the public service. So there certainly is some evidence of unfairness there.

But I would think it's more of the responsibility of the DND ombudsman, since it's the portability of an entitlement, but I think in working with the public service and the ombudsman.

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

Very quickly, before he cuts me off, sir, do you have any psychiatrists or anybody with mental health training who work for the ombudsman's office?

[Guy Parent]

Not at this point in time.

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

Are you working towards maybe getting one one day?

[Guy Parent]

What we have is the capability, for instance, to contract out to people to help us in investigations where we don't have the skills and knowledge. So we could have a mental health specialist hired by the office under contract to sustain an investigation in process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Kerr.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's good to see both of you again. Welcome. It's good to have you here.

I'll start by saying that the chair is going to remind me that I have to stick with the stress and mental health issues--that's what the study is about--because there are a lot of questions that I know we'd like to be asking.

I particularly want to point out that we are certainly pleased to have you in the job. I think we remind ourselves that you're there looking for things that can be improved and looking for people who need help. That's exactly why there's such an office and such a position. I would just remind us of that as we go through this difficult issue of stress. We have a department that has been struggling over the last several months, as we all know, to try to come to grips with the changes. I did want to touch on that, because you did a couple of times.

But for one of my first questions, I agree that in dealing with these stressful situations the time is sometimes way too long and that sometimes the ability to deal with an emergency, if you like, has been a difficult one to overcome. But I want to ask you first about.... Because we're all finding out that this whole area of mental health and stress is a complicated one for the private sector, for most jurisdictions in the world, and so on, how important is it in moving forward that the DND-Veterans Affairs relationship gets stronger in terms of the transition, but also in terms of the early identification and the sort of continued watch? How critical do you think that is to the process?

[Guy Parent]

I don't think it's important: I think it's essential. I think it's critical. There needs to be more work between the two departments so that in fact issues of transition and tracking, for instance, are handled right from the start to finish. There have been a lot of stopgap measures and bridging measures, but nothing, really, to take somebody who maintains an identity from the time he leaves the forces until he gets into Veterans Affairs Canada. In fact, the transition centre, for the TPS user, is an ideal place to actually give somebody a veteran's identity.

In fact, in the Canadian Forces, we have the service card that identifies us as having been members of the service and for how many years, but it's really a useless document, whereas in fact if DND and Veterans Affairs actually worked together, they could make that a very good opportunity. It could be a very good opportunity for them to track every veteran as they come to the transition centre, to give them an identification card, and to say, “You are now a veteran of Canada and now you can be identified for all of the other programs”. The tracking would be immediate. There would be no transition.

Again, all of these things should be looked at between DND and Veterans Affairs Canada to facilitate what is really a cradle-to-grave type of support.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

I appreciate that. I would suggest only that some of those things have started, though, and that the cooperation is a lot better than it was a few years ago.

[Guy Parent]

Yes, definitely.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

There was a different mindset, as you know. When you left the military, it was a direct cut-off, as opposed to a kind of service for individuals after the fact.

So in that transition, one of the things we've learned--because we've talked about everything from homelessness as it has to do with mental health and so on--is about the peer process that has been brought in, the peer recognition and peer contact. Do you get a sense that it's working better? We've often heard that it's sometimes difficult for staff or professionals to reach out and make contact with veterans who don't want to be reached, but there has been a lot of work recently, I think, on the peer contact, with those who have been there and done it, if you like. Do you see evidence of that?

[Guy Parent]

Are you referring to the OSISS peer support network?

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Through that process, yes.

[Guy Parent]

Yes, it's a tremendous program, and Canada is in fact recognized by many other countries as one of the pioneers in this type of approach. We know of many situations where these peer coordinators have intervened. Because they have gone through this situation, there's a contact, a relationship, that's already established there. They are capable of convincing these people to self-identify and enter the programs, which they otherwise wouldn't do. I know that even in the early days they were saying that they saved many lives by preventing suicides.

So yes, I would support.... In fact that kind of philosophy is also in the buddy system in Afghanistan, where again in fact it's a peer watching over a peer sort of thing. So it's definitely a good way.

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

It's too short for you to get an answer, so--

[Greg Kerr, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Yes, I knew that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

--you'll have another chance.

Ms. Sgro.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much. I apologize for getting here late.

I went to the usual place, but we had moved because you were coming in today, so my apologies to you for being late.

Welcome. I'm pleased to see that you're spending a bit of time with us today on this important topic. I'm going to try to stay away from the other issues that I'd like to ask you about as the ombudsman and try to stick with our issue about the mental health of our veterans.

Can you give me an idea of the amount of cases that you have coming to you with regard to veterans who are frustrated with trying to access a system and get help? How many of them have you seen? You've only been there for a short period of time. What kind of caseload do you have in relation to this?

[Guy Parent]

We have very few that are specific complaints against the OSI treatment or access to treatment or that sort of thing. But we have a lot of other complaints from people who might be suffering from non-visible injuries or post-traumatic stress disorder who have complaints against the system and processes. That's why I mentioned in my presentation that such things as bureaucracy and red tape render the process twice as difficult for somebody in a situation of mental stress as for anybody else.

So we have a lot of complaints about bureaucracy—the waiting to get an answer from Veterans Affairs Canada on a decision for disability pension and that sort of thing. What I'm saying is that we don't have a category that would give us an idea of how many people suffering from OSI or mental stress are actually contacting the office. The two that I mentioned are two of maybe ten since we opened the office that were about particular situations in which we dealt with somebody who had a difficulty related to a mental stress injury.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

One thing we're hearing through this study is that someone can be out of the service for 20 years and suddenly start experiencing a variety of symptoms. I would think it would be difficult for them to open up to anybody else. So how accessible are you to individuals coming who want to see the ombudsman?

[Guy Parent]

Do you mean to see me personally, or to have their case looked at by...?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I mean to see you personally, because I assume most of them would want to do that.

[Guy Parent]

We have a process, and it's very important that the process be followed, because it's a development. It's for us a way and a means to identify systemic issues. If people come directly to me, or if they come to us and say “You should investigate the systemic issues”, we have no data to actually scope the investigation and to look at that sort of thing. So everything comes in at the front end as a personal complaint, and then it's handled through; then we have some means of tracking the issue to see whether it is in fact systemic or not.

On your point about people waiting for many years, we also see that on the physical injury side. In fact, veterans and military members are proud; they don't like to say that they're suffering from this and that, and they suffer in silence for years and years. Then they realize 40 years down the road that maybe they should...it's something they've been suffering with and they've never told anybody. These people are in the same situation: they have no peers, no more connection with DND and VAC. So it's not an unusual thing in the veterans community.