Veterans Affairs Committee on April 3rd, 2012

[A/Commr Daniel Dubeau]

We're not like the military. We do not have a mandatory final medical before you leave the force. However, most of our members do get their final medicals. Our members have become more educated about what's available out there, and our SRR colleagues, as well as our association, do a very good job of getting the message out, so most of our members do avail themselves of that situation.

However, there's no mandatory final medical. They are provided with all the details. They're told to talk to our financial planners. They have meetings with our staffing people, our HR people if they have to, to have exit interviews, so that does happen through that process. We do offer it to them, but most of the time it's through our retirement courses.

We have retirement courses that go through what you should do in preparation for retirement and we tell people to do it early in their service, so as they're getting closer to the end they are prepared with RRSPs and have done what they have to do to make sure they're taken care of.

As for final medicals, we do not have mandatory ones, but I know the majority of our members do avail themselves of them and do ask to go on final medicals and do go and get them. Just like other Canadians, they go through their doctor and get their medicals there. It's not done through a force doctor.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

When you're speaking about the service, it's—

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Mr. Chisu, Staff Sergeant Townsend wants to respond, if that's okay with you.

[S/Sgt Abraham Townsend]

Yes, sir.

This is where we might focus on the transition interviews that are provided by Veterans Affairs to CF members. The project was piloted in two of our divisions; it creates the awareness of Veterans Affairs and eases their transition out of service to the RCMP and to the country and into civilian life. That piece is missing for our members right now. It happens by chance, not by design.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

In the forces we also have counselling to pursue a future career. For example, if you are retiring from the RCMP and you would like to have civil employment, you have counselling available in National Defence for that in your final interview.

[A/Commr Daniel Dubeau]

Most members of the RCMP spend their whole career with us. We have a really good retention rate. When they retire they're usually hitting 35 years of pensionable service, and many of them aren't looking for another career.

It's similar to the military. Our members stay with us and retire at the end. Other than Bill, who seems to want to work for an extra 10 years, most veterans finish 35 years and go and do something totally different.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Another part of the interview when they are released is also the access to services for the families. Do you have similar counselling around services that the family can access from the veterans' services?

[A/Commr Daniel Dubeau]

As I said, the families are definitely included in the retirement courses for our people who are retiring. We have our own employee assistance program out there to help with the families. However, we don't have that transition service with the families to present to them what's going to happen. We do not have that, no.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

I have a small question. When you have an RCMP officer in overseas deployment—and I have met several in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was a completely different situation from Afghanistan—what are the services or what is the process for counselling an officer who is going into a very hostile environment?

[Supt Lynn Lemieux]

There's a whole other sector that deals with international peacekeeping missions. We go for shorter missions that are basically from six to nine months long. There's psychological and physical testing prior to departure, and again when they return, for fitness for duty and to make sure that everything is fine for missions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

Now we're over to Mr. Lobb for five minutes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you to everybody for taking the time to come here today. We're hoping that at the end of this study we'll have something to present to the department that provides meaningful input or suggestions.

Of the ideas that have been discussed today, how many can be dealt with through just an increased focus on working with Veterans Affairs to try to overcome some of the small differences? I'll use Mr. Casault's example of emailing them and then getting a very vanilla answer instead of a more specific answer. I suppose I'm asking what the RCMP can do with Veterans Affairs to smooth out those little differences—not to have a big eruption or anything, but to get it dealt with in a timely manner. What kind of dialogue is there today for that?

[A/Commr Daniel Dubeau]

I'll start.

In reference to government, we have a very good working relationship with Veterans Affairs. I want to make that clear. They're very accommodating. I know that you've heard testimony today, but we do talk to Veterans Affairs, and they are very accommodating. They're very open to our suggestions.

At this point, Lynn will advise you of where she sits in the picture and how she deals with Veterans Affairs, because really, it's her role to do that.

[Supt Lynn Lemieux]

I'm actually the RCMP representative on the VAC-DND steering committee. We meet regularly. I took note of Staff Sergeant Casault's recommendation to have information and pamphlets and so on and so forth provided to our health offices and maybe down in the regions and divisions. That's an excellent idea. I'm in a very good position to reach out to my stakeholders, my colleagues from DND and VAC, to do that, and I will ensure that it's done. It's a very good idea.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Of course, Mr. Casault's sitting here at the table, and you're here with him. How does somebody sitting in, say, northern Saskatchewan, who comes up with an idea in the middle of a night shift, relay that good idea up the food chain so that it gets to you and can be dealt with? How does that work?

[A/Commr Daniel Dubeau]

Our members in northern Saskatchewan tend to send emails too, just like everybody else. We're very open to email.

As we go through our whole review of the health services, we'll be communicating that we're reviewing our health services and are asking for suggestions. I know that our SRR colleagues get emails from our membership all the time. Our vets' associations get emails, and we share with each other. We do meet. We met on this matter, actually, just before we came to the committee, so we do talk a lot about what's going on.

The intent would be that anybody in any region who wants to get hold of someone can go through our staffing offices. They can go through our SRRs, and they can bring it up and say that they have a great idea we might not have thought of.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Did you want to comment, Staff Sergeant?

[S/Sgt Michael Casault]

Yes.

We did the awareness and education component; I think we have to work on the stigma as well. If a member has a broken arm, nobody ever questions whether the person has a broken arm, but if someone has a broken brain or an injured back, they always question it, right?

We have to educate the members about that with whatever type of education. I know there is some talk on mental health awareness within the organization with respect to dealing with the clients we deal with, but we should also look at dealing one on one.

I'll use this scenario. There was a fellow involved in a shooting who wrote me a lengthy email. It was six months later that our health services office sent him an email saying that if he was suffering from any of these symptoms, he should get hold of us.

First, it shouldn't be that long. It should be sooner than that. Second, the member's not going to self-identify. We should be able to train the spouse of the member or a co-worker and tell them that if they see these types of things, they might want to watch the flag go up and contact health services or contact somebody—the member's employee assistance program, the chaplaincy program that exists within the RCMP, or the different health services clinics out there in the regions and the divisions.

You have to educate them, and it has to be for the right reasons. If you have the stigma attached to it, members are just going to fake it, say that they're fine, and then go home and self-medicate.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I think the RCMP would agree that it's really their job to get that out there and that maybe it's Veterans Affairs' job, when the time is right, to be a partner in that.

In your presentation you talked about the OSI program. Veterans Affairs has 10 OSI clinics from coast to coast, which is a lot, but they are geographically located in certain areas. With the number of different outposts that the RCMP have, it's exponentially more than what we would have for military bases. I'm sure somebody has thought about this around the table at some point in time. You've addressed it as an issue in your presentation. How would that be addressed? The vastness of all the outposts for—

[S/Sgt Michael Casault]

Well, I think that it comes with the training. Part of the OSI process is that you have to be a person recovering from trauma before you can be a member of the group. You've gone to one of these clinics....

I'm dealing with a fellow out of Ontario here. He's gone to a military OSI and he is now on the mend. He could be a resource to somebody else who may need somebody to talk to. I've had guns pointed at me, I've pointed guns at people, but I don't know what it's like to pull the trigger. There are some people out there who have pulled the trigger and would be able to communicate within our organization.

I don't know if that.... I get on a rant sometimes.

[Supt Lynn Lemieux]

Last year the RCMP undertook a study and held focus groups with employees. As a result of the study, learning products were created. The goal was to create awareness and education for seeing the signs and reacting to them.

To voice a bit of our commissioner's stance on things, supervisors have a duty to be responsible for their employees as well. This study helped identify the signs and how to deal with those folks who need prompt attention and service. We've incorporated these products from the day we have cadets in training all the way to supervisory and managerial courses.

It's important to know that the RCMP also has access to those OSI clinics, which provide an excellent tool. We're leveraging what's out there, but we also have 15 psychologists on staff. When a supervisor sees a danger sign, it's important to refer that person immediately to the divisional psychologist for follow-up. There is a responsibility there.

We care, but we can only do so much. We need to educate more and we need to communicate more, but the resources are there and we have to use them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Please make it a brief comment, if you could, Mr. Gidley.

[William Gidley]

On getting the word up the food chain, to use those words, a president of our association in Ontario in one of our smaller divisions had cancer of the bladder. He felt that it might have been from the forensic identification duties he was on, particularly involving fingerprint powders. We went to VAC with a submission.

It took 23 months to make a decision on it. They hired a company called Cantox to look into it, and sure enough, their decision was that this material did cause the cancer. That resulted in several of our executive people across the country receiving a pension from VAC, because they also had bladder cancer. Most of them had the bag outside their body and that sort of thing.

However, it brings up the question of the others, the 16,500 who maybe aren't in the loop and don't know about this sort of thing. I was very pleased that he received good reimbursement for something he suffered during his service, but it only goes so far. It's getting it out to the others. It's education and touching base with people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you Mr. Gidley. We're well beyond the time on that one.

That ends round one, as it were. We're going to shorten round two because of time constraints.

As Mr. Stoffer reminded me, it was brought up by the RCMP a long time ago that we consider this the veterans meeting room, although sometimes we do get bumped. We see the various crests representing the various armed forces, and the RCMP's was missing. We're very pleased to say that the RCMP is now officially on the wall as part of the crests. You should be pleased that your input was served. It's a little late, but we got there after a while, so thank you for that.

We're going to go a shortened round now.

We'll go over to Mr. Stoffer and Monsieur Ravignat.

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

I just want to give a quick comment and then go over to my colleague.

Sir, I went to a retirement of an RCMP officer a while back in Lower Sackville, and he told me something rather profound. It's exactly what Staff Sergeant Casault said as well.

He served 31 years in the RCMP. He said the proudest day in his life was when he put on the red serge at the depot; the happiest day of his life was when he took it off.

I thought that was rather profound because of the concerns that you, sir, mentioned. He didn't have people he could speak to, he had two divorces, and he had a rough time in that thing. He was really suffering from a lot of concerns.

I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone in that regard. There are an awful lot of people out there. I asked him if he was part of your organization, and he said no. Hopefully he will be soon.

Thank you.