Veterans Affairs Committee on Sept. 29th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you to both organizations on behalf of the committee for all of the great things that you do for the men and women who have served.

I would also like to note that if there's anything you want to add to the discussion or if you want to expand on any of the questions that were asked of you today, you could send the information to the clerk, he will get it to all the committee members.

Now I would like a recess motion from Ms. Lockhart for three minutes. I'm sure some of the group would like to say goodbye to you, and then, as I said, we'll come back with Ms. Lockhart's motion and go in camera for a discussion of business.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

We have a motion that was presented about a week ago. I believe everybody has a copy of the motion, and I will turn the floor over to Ms. Lockhart with her motion.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you.

Based on a lot of the witnesses we've heard and conversations we've had about priorities, I'd like to propose a motion, and the analyst just pointed out a word that's missing.

I move:

That the committee undertake a study on mental health focused on improving the transitional support (closing the seam) between the Canadian Forces and Veterans Affairs, and including recommendations which can ultimately be used in the development of a coordinated Suicide Prevention Program.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

The motion is on the floor.

For discussion, we have Mr. Kitchen, and then we'll go with Ms. Mathyssen.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I'd like to see about making an amendment to that and add, following “suicide prevention program”, the words “that includes a suicide prevention hotline”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

In the process, it could be a motion or a friendly amendment, and I guess that's up to you. We could put it as a motion and vote on it as procedure.

Did you want to put it as an amendment now, and then we'll discuss it and then vote on the amendment? I guess that procedure would be proper. That would be a motion.

You'd have to read it. We could discuss it first.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I'm just wondering about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

As a process, we could go around in discussion and then make any amendments if anybody wants them. Then we could vote on the amendment or we could put the motion on the floor, talk about the amendment, vote on the amendment, and then vote on the motion at the end. I think that's the process.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I may have to talk about the amendment, if you want to do that first.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

I don't know, Chair, how formal we have to be.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

We're still an open session, so it's probably formal.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Do we need a seconder for the motion, then?

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

We don't need a seconder.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

The motion is on the floor, and then the amendment is being sought.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

The motion is on the floor. Mr. Kitchen's is an amending motion. We'd talk about the amending motion first. Would that be your motion, Mr. Kitchen—to add “that includes a suicide prevention hotline” as your amendment?

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

That would be the amending motion.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

The only reason I asked is because it seems like a specific thing to include in there. We haven't heard any evidence as to why that might be a good thing. There might be lots of ideas that we will hear about, and that may be one of them. It sounds like a good idea on the face of it, but why that specifically? Do you not think that could be dealt with by hearing evidence and then making a recommendation based on what's already there with “suicide prevention program”, for example?

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I agree with you. That was part of, when I saw the motion. This is okay, but we have all these other aspects we can look at, such as homelessness, etc.

If we put something in the motion to say we're looking at this specifically and then when we deal with suicide prevention, there are all sorts of angles to it. We can look at different things that we've heard today about alcoholism and drug abuse, etc. Then there are the steps that would lead to that and PTSD. I'd like to have at least one specific part of it saying that this is the intent, so that at the end we can say there is a suicide hotline. I think we've all discussed that and I think we all are fairly well in agreement that this is something we need to consider. I'd like to make certain that we have some specifics on it.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

If I may, Chair, my only concern would be that if we're adding one specific thing like that, then I don't want anyone to think that there's an exclusion of other specific things we may be considering.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

They've done it in a number of committees. They've taken a thing and they've broken it down into sections and said that they want to look at this. The reason I'm saying that is so that we at least have one.

We've had a huge number of meetings. We've gone here, we've gone here, and we've gone here. I'll use an example of heritage: the heritage committee now has a section of four meetings strictly on women and sport.

I'm looking at that and saying this all falls under suicide prevention. I say we could break it down and say that we can look at a suicide hotline as one part, homelessness as another part, and then drug addiction, alcoholism, and PTSD—I'm just throwing those out off the top of my head as four spots—when we sit down to do the study. We've now said we're going to allocate four meetings to this and four meeting to that. I'm just throwing out numbers arbitrarily, but it's to say that we have an answer and we can answer those questions specifically.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mrs. Lockhart, go ahead.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Kitchen, I certainly appreciate where you are coming from. I know you want to have direct action come from the recommendations and I agree that we should have specific outcomes. I think the motion covers that, though, including recommendations that can ultimately be used in the development of a coordinated suicide prevention program, and a hotline would possibly be part of that prevention program.

I want to speak to the fact that the service delivery study we are doing now is very broad, but it is very broad by design. If you think back to the conversation when we were deciding where to go first, you'll see that we decided to keep it very broad instead of picking a priority without hearing from anyone.

Now that we've heard a vast number of witnesses, to me there is a recurring theme and a recurring sense of urgency around mental health, which is why I am putting this motion forward.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I understand that, and I don't think anyone here is saying that we are against the issue of mental health. I think it is a great study that we need to do. My thinking is that if we have some specifics, we can at least come out with some specific answers or specific recommendations on those things.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Ms. Mathyssen, I think you were not looking to speak to the main motion, so we'll go to Mr. Clarke, then Mr. Bratina, and then Mr. Eyolfson.