Veterans Affairs Committee on Sept. 29th, 2016

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you. That's excellent.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Rioux.

[Jean Rioux, Liberal, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

My thanks to the witnesses for joining us.

I have two questions for the people from the Maison La Vigile. I will ask them together so that the person answering can put the focus where they see fit.

The number of Veterans Affairs Canada's clients increased by 19% between 2013 and 2015. In the first part of 2016, that figure went to 29%. In Quebec, are the services available to veterans sufficient to meet the needs?

You mentioned that one of the main problems for veterans is alcohol and drug use. Do veterans also have difficulty in getting into the labour market after their military careers? How do they adapt to their new lives? Is it a widespread problem that veterans, after their careers in the military, have difficulty finding jobs and getting into the labour market? How are they adapting to their new lives?

[Nancy Dussault]

Veterans tell us that they have difficulty getting into the labour market because they have had no closure on their military careers. It is very difficult for them to accept that they no longer have a military career. Only about 30% of the veterans coming to the Maison La Vigile have jobs.

Can you remind me of your other question?

[Jean Rioux, Liberal, Saint-Jean, QC]

You have seen an increase in the number of veterans, your clients. As you perceive the market, are the needs being met? Are there sufficient resources and services available in Quebec to meet the needs of veterans?

[Nancy Dussault]

The service that we provide is summed up in the six programs we have mentioned. The grey area is when Veterans Affairs Canada makes a request for a person who takes substances 20 times a day and poses a serious risk in terms of withdrawal. We have criteria that can exclude cases like that.

Ideally, for a person who takes substances more than 20 times, the withdrawal process should be done in hospital, but our health care system does not do prevention. It focuses mainly on healing. So people like that are not automatically hospitalized for withdrawal. The treatment period for them is longer. We cannot have them at the Maison La Vigile because their consumption is too great and there is a risk of major episodes like convulsions, delirium and even death.

At that stage, our suggestion to Veterans Affairs Canada—this is not ideal, but it is still a solution—is that the person should progressively reduce consumption for a few weeks until they reach 19 or fewer per day, after which they can be admitted to the Maison La Vigile, with a detox protocol and with specific medication to deal with the symptoms.

So that is one criterion under which a person cannot be admitted to the Maison La Vigile. Another is when there is a risk of suicide, homicide, or excessive violence, as was the case recently when a very psychologically unstable person with aggressive tendencies communicated with our organization in order to be admitted. It was impossible for us to do so.

So there is a grey area in which the Maison La Vigile cannot accept a veteran. A hospital may evaluate him but will not automatically admit him. So he leaves hospital after a few hours without really feeling better. Sometimes, people like that need closer supervision, but they end up at home very quickly, without having received the psychological assistance they need.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Ms. Wagantall, you have five minutes.

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

I want to come back to the short discussion we had about dealing with things in a more preventive way instead of having to deal with them after the veterans have been released and having to find them and all this type of thing.

We're responsible for studying service delivery, and a big part of that would be finding ways to need less of it on the more difficult end of things. In the Canadian Armed Forces we have VAC and this seam that we're trying to close. You talked about basically teaching them to listen and speak again, I'm assuming, because you've gone in.... There's a responsibility in the armed forces. You respond. You're part of a team. It's a different dynamic.

I'm so pleased that there's a possibility for this treatment much sooner in this whole process. Would you see it as important for us as a committee to recommend that these types of services be available? The responsibility is more on the armed forces side of it, before they're released, so that they have that understanding of their new value as they're going into a totally different lifestyle.

[Doug Allen]

Absolutely.

When people are being medically released, especially for mental health conditions, it is because they're dealing with trauma. They're already dealing with something.

They were in a profession where they were above reproach. When you are in the military, you are trained that you are better than.... You are the ones who go into the fire when everybody else is afraid. You're trained that way, and that's what you believe. Then in a split second, you're told you're disabled, so then you have to deal with the fact that you're disabled and that you are unemployed. Not only are you dealing with the trauma of being disabled, but you're also dealing with the trauma of what to do with your life. The whole entire culture is telling you to leave, and you only have this much time on the clock until it happens. You're dealing with two traumas. If you were able to deal with one trauma first and you were shown how to work with that, then when you were released, at least you'd have the skill sets and the mindset to be able to handle that transition a lot better.

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

I appreciate that you mentioned the navy as well, because I did spend one night on the Fredericton learning about what they do and what they do on our behalf, and the potential. It's not like the movies. I didn't know how a ship is destroyed by a submarine. They were explaining all of this to me, and I just asked, “How do you deal with that? You're out here in the middle....” It was interesting, because there was a sudden quietness, and one of them just said, “We try not to think of that, ma'am.”

That's trauma to me already. Mentally, you're dealing with the knowledge that there's always that possibility. We need to make their transition easier from being taught to try not to think about that. That transition is really important, I think.

Thank you; that's huge.

There's one more thing. You mentioned about needing places to set up. Of course, Saskatchewan's dear to my heart. I've met veterans. I know they're veterans, but they're very quiet. They don't have that camaraderie that you're talking about in our province, because they're spread out all over the place. We're fine with travelling. We travel for everything, and we don't get mail delivered to our door. However, a place called the Thorpe Recovery Centre approached me. It's a phenomenal place. They're right on the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. They called and said they had empty beds. They had had two veterans come to them because the Legion had paid for them to go there. They asked, “Is there not a way that our services could be used more?” I would encourage you to check them out. They're not quite as into Saskatchewan as I would like, but if we have opportunities to share those kinds of things with you, that's really positive.

[Oliver Thorne]

We'll absolutely look them up. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

We'll have Ms. Mathyssen for three minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to get back to Monsieur Simard. You were going to answer the question in regard to families. I noticed in your recommendations that you say that Maison La Vigile recommends that both residential and out-patient services for veterans be extended to their immediate family members. I wondered if you could explain that recommendation, and perhaps you have other recommendations.

Then, if there's time, Mr. Chair, I'd like to ask a little about funding, particularly to the folks from Veterans Transition Network, but first, I'd like to hear from Monsieur Simard.

[Jacques Denis Simard]

Thank you for your question.

I said that, because veterans' families have no access to the services provided at the Maison La Vigile because of funding. When case managers call us, it is for a veteran, a former member of the military with veteran's status. However, families coping with stress, coping with marriage difficulties, or other difficulties being experienced by the spouse, have no access to the Maison as residents. There is nothing specific we can do for them.

I think there are external services, but internally, in our residential situation, there are none. We haven't received any requests about it.

[Nancy Dussault]

You are aware that a number of veterans receive services at the Maison La Vigile, but they also receive psychiatric services at the OSI clinic. So all the veterans do not come to the Maison La Vigile. Sometimes, family members or spouses can also develop dependency issues or depression, and the family atmosphere begins to take a heavy toll. It could be a great opportunity for a wife, if she also had in-patient access for withdrawal, or for psychological assistance for depression.

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

To the Veterans Transition Network, you talked about the money that you received from VAC and the support you get from True Patriot Love and other charitable NGOs. Do you ever find that your resources cannot possibly meet the needs? Are you ever in the terrible situation of having to say to veterans, “Sorry, we can't help you now?”

[Oliver Thorne]

At the moment we have wait-lists in every province that we're delivering in, essentially. I wouldn't at all classify it as a crisis financially, but if somebody puts a hand up and says, “I want to take your program”, we want to be able to provide it as soon as possible. We know in particular that a lot of people who are requesting our programs have not, for whatever reason, engaged with some of the services that are available. Some of those people are fairly far down the road, as we say, with negative coping strategies. We know they're at risk, so we want to provide that service as soon as we possibly can.

We plan our years very carefully, based on our budgets. We receive financial oversight from our board of directors to make sure that we're never overstretching ourselves so that the organization is at risk, but the veterans are at risk, and they are who we're trying to help, so any more money that we can bring in will go into program delivery and will be used by veterans. We have wait-lists in all those provinces where we're delivering.

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

I wondered if the need outstrips the availability of resources, because that would be of profound concern in regard to our veterans.

Either group could comment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

It will have to be short.

[Oliver Thorne]

Yes, absolutely.

I think we could certainly utilize more money. The need is there, and we can't provide service to all of those who have asked for our program. The risk isn't to the organization financially, but to the veterans who need our services.

[Jacques Denis Simard]

We support what has just been said.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Great. Thank you.

This ends the round of questioning. What we can do is let each group wrap up. We'll give you a couple of minutes each for a summary, if you wish. From there, we will break for a few minutes and come back with a motion Ms. Lockhart has, and then after that we'll have to go in camera to discuss committee business.

Starting with La Vigile, you have two minutes to wrap up.

[Jacques Denis Simard]

I would like to conclude our appearance and wrap up the questions we have been asked with this comment.

Mr. Rioux briefly touched on the subject, but I would like to finish it. Those experiencing episodes of suicidal distress go to hospitals. Here's how it works in Quebec. They are seen by a doctor and, less than 12 hours later, they are sent home. They have no safety net. That is when the idea of suicide can occur again. They may then commit or attempt suicide. That is a grey area that really upsets me.

I would like people like that to have access to emergency beds. The Government of Quebec's crisis centre cannot respond to their needs because there is a problem with the culture. Police, former military, veterans and members of the military will not turn to a resource that is not familiar with their culture.

That, in a nutshell, is our problem. I hope that solutions can be found to the problems that this grey area causes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Next is the Veterans Transition Network.

[Oliver Thorne]

I'd like to close by saying thank you so much for being invited here today. We're a small organization and we're a growing organization, but we're aware that our scope of operations is dwarfed by an organization such as VAC, with their resources and reach.

If I can provide any lessons learned from what we've done, it would be to use their peers to reach out to those veterans who are isolated and those veterans who are not engaging, because it's a contact point they trust. I would just echo that. Also, it would be to create as low an access barrier as possible for those who are in crisis.

I'll hand it over to you.

[Doug Allen]

I'll say thank you very much for allowing us to come here to speak as well.

One of the things with Veterans Affairs and with our program is that we've been working to get the members into our program, and the case managers become enablers. They become enablers in a most powerful way. When they see their members come back, the members want to talk to their case managers. The members want to come back and engage with VAC because VAC has helped them get to the place where they are after the program, which to me brings them back and invests them back into the community, back into the resources, and back into the system, if you will. The trust is reinstated when they do that. I've seen that with the case managers in working with them.

I just thought I'd put that out there as well. Thank you very much.