Veterans Affairs Committee on Sept. 29th, 2016

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

It seems to me it was quite clear all along in our hearings, from the veterans groups we met, that there is no 24/7 line for the crisis situation happening to the individual. I am not sure whether the suicide hotline is a prevention tool. I see it more as a drastic crisis-happening tool. I'm probably not using the right word, but when someone calls a suicide hotline, it's because he is probably going to take the action of suicide.

In the case of veterans, when they call the 24/7 line of Veterans Affairs—because there is such a line, but it is not for suicide—there are no people who are professional enough to deal with those kinds of people, so they will say, “Okay, call back in 12 hours,” for this kind of thing.

I think that adding this to your motion will make it so that not only will we have prevention tools that we can decide on after the study, but they will also be part of a suicide line.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

I understand what you are saying and I don't think any of us on this side are against having witnesses to talk about the effectiveness of a suicide hotline. It's just that this is only one of the things we would like to study, and I really didn't intend to get specific. I would like to leave it broad. I still see it as part of a prevention measure, in that it is the first line of response.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

From listening to the conversation here, I think there are two things.

Part of the service delivery review, as the analyst said to me, might point toward a recommendation, or we can talk about suicide and the suicide line in the service delivery. There are two things on that, I guess: whether it would come out in that study, or whether it would be best for this. Service delivery would be—

[Jean-Rodrigue Paré, Committee Researcher]

You could make a recommendation on that one as a result of the current study, and then the next study could analyze how it could best be done, or something like that. You seem to be saying that after we've heard all the witnesses, it may be that this would be a good recommendation. If this is the case, it could be a recommendation that the committee would be studying for the current report.

I'm just throwing that out there.

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

I see that. My intent here is to make certain that when we focus on where we are going and who we are inviting for witnesses.... Mental health runs a huge gamut, and if we are all over the map with mental health, we can get all sorts of different....

The recommendation in the motion was to develop a coordinated suicide prevention program. I'm just saying that it could be a developed coordinated suicide prevention program that includes a suicide prevention hotline. I am looking at that purely from that last little bit when we are looking at the development of a coordinated suicide prevention program.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

We have everybody lined up to speak, so I'm going to have bring back the rules here and hold us to them.

We have Mr. Bratina, I believe.

Mr. Clark, have you spoken?

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Yes, I spoke already.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I don't think anybody disagrees with the point, but in my experience simpler motions are better. The motion captures the notion because there are other issues included in it, such as mefloquine and the potential ties to veterans' well-being. I got engrossed in that topic and I have a couple of people whom I could recommend: Canadian military psychiatrist Dr. Greg Passey, a remarkable individual, and Dr. Remington Nevin.

Let me mention Dr. Passey just for a moment. He has treated members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment and understood, in the Somali inquiry, that this mefloquine had been involved in some of the behaviours that subsequently happened. It's such a big issue that I don't think I would necessarily need to ask the mover of the motion to include that wording, because I don't think it would detract from our discussions that would ultimately come up with such things as a suicide hotline. I think the motion is fine as it stands, because it incorporates everything we would discuss, including a suicide hotline, without defining it in the wording.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Go ahead, Mr. Eyolfson.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I agree. There are many different things that I don't see the advantage of including this one specific thing. There are many ways; it makes sense. We might—although this is extremely unlikely—hear evidence that in fact there wouldn't be any value added to it. We need to keep our minds open on this, and I think this is a broad motion that covers everything. If a suicide hotline were beneficial—which I think it probably would be—then it would be covered. I just think it's an unnecessarily specific addition to a very broad motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Go ahead, Ms. Wagantall.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

In terms of its being complicated, there are actually two trains of thought here.

The first one is doing a study on mental health that is focused on improving transitional support, From what we've heard in committee to date, I think a lot of the mental health issues are related to that problem, but that is very different from the mental health issues related to their coming back with an injury. The second one is more related to the crisis from their experience.

So we're dealing with two different things here already. If you're going to deal with mental health issues, there are mental health issues in our armed forces that are related to moving from DND to VAC, to transitioning. That's the first part. Then you want to include developing a coordinated suicide prevention program, which is more related to dealing with a crisis that occurs because of their military experience.

It's already extremely broad. Those are almost two separate studies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

I'm going to call a vote on the amending motion. Did you want to make a closing statement?

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

Mr. Chair, I have faith that this committee will study the issues that we want to see expressed and studied, so I withdraw the amendment and we'll move forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

I think we'll get it done.

We have a motion on the floor, and Ms. Mathyssen has been waiting so patiently.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I just wondered about the timeline and what Ms. Lockhart envisioned as the number of days for the study and whether it would take up all of the spring.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

I guess the subcommittee met, and I was trying to go in camera. We have a couple of motions. We'll discuss that in camera.

The motion is on the floor.

Go ahead, Ms. Wagantall.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

We could keep it as one study, but have two parts. We could focus right in on mental health with the first part, and then focus right in on mental health with the second part. Do you see the difference between the two sentences here? There's the issue of mental health in transitioning, and then there's the suicide prevention program, which I would think is more focused on the crisis that they're dealing with.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

I understand where you see a confusion, and I guess perhaps language isn't always our friend. My thought is that as a committee we won't be developing the suicide prevention program ourselves, but making recommendations based on that transition piece, that gap that we're seeing, that we've heard about so often.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

But then you're saying that the program you're going to develop will be a response to transition issues, and I don't think.... I would hope that those transition issues could be dealt with so that those mental health concerns are dealt with by getting rid of that seam. That is a different from people dealing with mental health issues arising from a traumatic circumstance.

I would hope that a coordinated suicide prevention program isn't necessary as a result of people committing suicide because they're struggling with the transition between the two departments. That's definitely something we should be able to fix bureaucratically with the recommendations coming from the ombudsman, or whatever the government decides to do, basically.

Am I making any sense, Mr. Analyst? Do you know what I'm saying?

[Jean-Rodrigue Paré]

I'm very discreet.

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

Mr. Chair, hopefully I won't confuse this anymore.

Perhaps we can discuss the issues of how we want to approach the study when we go in camera and decide at that point how we want to break it up into sections, how we want to allot certain meetings for this, that, and the other, and maybe identify it at that point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Yes. If the motion does pass, we'll meet with the subcommittee and map that out as we did the last time for the meetings—and you're both on it.

That said, all in favour of the motion?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

I need a motion to go in camera.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I so move.

(Motion agreed to)

We'll suspend to go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]