Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about the research we do and our partnership with Veterans Affairs.
My name is Susan Truscott. I am the director general of military personnel research and analysis. I am a defence scientist with 30 years of experience conducting and managing research related to military personnel in the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces. With me today are Colonel Jean-Robert Bernier, Deputy Surgeon General, and Colonel Gerry Blais, director of casualty support management.
I'd like to tell you a little bit about my organization, the type of research we do, why we do it, and why our collaboration with Veterans Affairs Canada is beneficial both to the Department of National Defence and to Veterans Affairs, and, importantly, to service members, veterans, and their families.
DGMPRA is both a division of the Military Personnel Command under the Chief of Military Personnel and a research centre within Defence Research and Development Canada, DRDC, under the assistant deputy minister, science and technology. It is comprised of both civilian and military researchers who hold PhDs or master's degrees in a variety of disciplines but predominantly in the social sciences.
Our mission is to inform personnel policy and decision-making in the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence by conducting relevant and responsive strategic and operational personnel research and analysis; by developing and employing innovative methodologies and measures such as selection tests, survey instruments, and workforce models; by exploiting cutting-edge technologies to enhance research effectiveness; by providing expert, objective, evidence-based advice to leadership; by prioritizing and coordinating research to achieve the Canadian Forces mission; and by engaging academic, industrial, government, and allied partners in the development and application of personnel research and analysis.
The Canadian Forces military personnel management system is a complex system of interrelated and interdependent subsystems that require constant monitoring, prioritization, and transformation. Because of these interdependencies, policy decisions made in one area need to be taken with the full knowledge of the impacts, both short and long term, that may occur in a number of other areas across the system.
As a consequence, personnel research is a core military personnel management capability and is essential to the development of informed, evidence-based policy and strategic planning in support of personnel management. This is the function that DGMPRA fulfills for the Chief of Military Personnel in his role as the Canadian Forces functional authority for military personnel policy.
We conduct much of this research with our own in-house resources, but, where possible and appropriate, we employ contracts and collaborate with other organizations within and external to government in order to maximize our research capability. One of those organizations we collaborate with is Veterans Affairs. This makes perfect sense, not just in the area of research related to the transition from Canadian Forces to civilian life, but also from the perspective of the life course of veterans.
As you are already aware, DGMPRA and Veterans Affairs have collaborated on the “Life after Service” studies, which produced three reports discussing the methodology, the results of the income study, and the results of the survey on transition to civilian life. In addition, the medical researchers in Colonel Bernier's organization, the director general of health services, led the Canadian Forces cancer and mortality study in collaboration with Veterans Affairs.
DND has also conducted its own research on transition. A recent literature review on transition to civilian life focused on mental health and career challenges of individuals who have transitioned out of the military. As a result of this research, a number of important areas for further collaborative research with Veterans Affairs have been identified, and initial work involving secondary analysis of the data collected in the “Life after Service” studies has already been initiated.
The Department of National Defence is also involved in projects led by university researchers that are exploring the “Life after Service” data, examining the relationship between chronic pain and reduced well-being, and the effect of all co-existing physical and mental health conditions on individual veterans.
Finally, planning is under way to conduct a study of reservists, which will employ the same methodology as the survey on transition to civilian life of former regular force members. As was the case in the former survey, our department is participating in discussions related to research methodology, providing administrative data, and providing guidance on policies related to reservists, and we will participate in the writing and the review of the reports. It is anticipated there will be issues unique to reservists, and conducting the study separately has the benefit of enabling us to identify these issues and focus on them in the survey and analysis.
I fully expect the research collaboration between the Department of National Defence and Veterans Affairs Canada will continue and we will derive benefits from this collaboration in terms of a coordinated approach to evidence-based policies and programs for Canadian Forces members, veterans, and their families across the life course.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.