Good day.
As you know, veterans are facing a whole new problem. In fact, today, our armed forces not only protect, they are also involved in wars, in particular, in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan has been very hard on our soldiers. I know it because this situation has had an impact on certain members of my own family. One sees a physical wound, but it is hard to have a sense of the distress caused by post-traumatic stress. A soldier that has been two or three times in Afghanistan can have had enough and decide to give it all up. Usually, a military career lasts 10, 15 or 20 years, but a soldier can decide to put a stop to it because of the very difficult situations he has had to face. Very often, soldiers feel they don’t have the right to demonstrate any kind of weakness, particularly on a psychological level. The army frowns upon any kind of psychological problem.
Do you have a service that allows you to determine if a soldier has a problem, particularly some form of distress related to post-traumatic stress? What kinds of services are available? Sometimes, soldiers in distress make bad choices when it comes to benefits. They don’t know if they should choose a lump sum or a series of payments.
Provincial psychiatric hospitals aren’t able to identify the problem. You are getting rid of military hospitals, but military psychologists are the ones who really have a handle on this problem.
Given all of these facts, how do you think you will be able to really help veterans, how will you ensure that they are able to overcome the problem and adapt to civilian life that is so different from military life?