Evidence of meeting #26 for Veterans Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rcmp.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
Are there times when RCMP members are released for medical reasons, though?
D/Commr Daniel Dubeau
Yes, we do have a medical discharge process. Most of it's consensual, but we do have one that's not consensual. It's an administrative discharge process because of medical reasons.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
Do you find those transitions to be more difficult for members?
D/Commr Daniel Dubeau
To be honest, on the consensual ones, no, because usually the member has come to an agreement that they can no longer do this work, that it's not healthy to do this work.
On the non-consensual ones, obviously that's when you are discharging or terminating an employee. That gets a little more problematic. We do have a whole appeals process around that to make sure that people's rights are respected. There are all kinds of processes behind that. I can't explain the whole process. It has just changed and it's under a different authority. It ensures all the way through that physicians are involved and caregivers are involved so that we understand and we have all the best information with us.
To get there, we have to exhaust everything in terms of our duty to accommodate. We have a full and very robust process. We're still working on it. Trust me, it's hard to do. There are many steps in that process before you get to a discharge. You have to try everything you can do to accommodate that person before you get to discharge.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
At that point, if they're discharged for medical reasons, do they still need to re-qualify for Veterans Affairs' services? That's one of the things we see with the military.
D/Commr Daniel Dubeau
If discharged, yes, we would have a medical pension, and Pierre would be on the pensions. We do have medical pensions, but yes, they still have to apply to VAC for a different type of pension. That's a different type of pension and different benefits, so you do have to still apply to VAC, especially when you're working with our members, especially when it's consensual. You're advising them. You're working through the process with them. We try to make it easy—it's hard enough to take off the uniform—to make sure that we can transition them into a civilian life in the most painless, if I may use that word, way possible.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
I want to go back to mental health. We talked about your members who are suffering with mental illness and the success they've had with the OSI clinics. One of the things we've heard is that it's hard to access those. Did you find that to be the case with your members as well?
D/Commr Daniel Dubeau
We've not heard this come out of our members. We have noticed that trend with our members who are accessing it. Partly our issue is that those OSI clinics are located in central areas. Our members are not located in central areas, so that's something that is causing issues for us. If members are not in, say, Ottawa, they cannot access it, for example, if they are sitting up in Iqaluit.
One of the things we talked about in our study, which we've just put out the request for information on, is how we can intervene when somebody is sitting in Iqaluit or across the country or anywhere. How can we get them that service? There are different ways of doing it. I know our colleagues at the University of Regina have come up with very innovative ways. How can we use those, and how can they be effective in our world? That's going to be something that we're going to be focused on. Hopefully coming out of that study there will be some strategies that we can put concrete actions to, that allow people to have those services while they're still in a remote location or not near a big centre.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
I think our committee would be very interested if there were something you could submit to us at a later date on that strategy. It's something we might be able to learn from for other scenarios.
In intensive mental health cases, cases where perhaps people need to be in-patients, are you able to access the same...? I'm just thinking about court-ordered mental health issues that sometimes happen. With your members, that would be difficult. Do you have specific areas that they go to? How do you handle that?
D/Commr Daniel Dubeau
We can always go with court orders too. We hope we never have to go there, but to get a member help, we can do something.
D/Commr Daniel Dubeau
As you heard me say, under our policy with our health services, you can actually ask for an assessment. Any managers in the organization who manage a member can ask for a mandated psychological assessment if they feel there's a need for it. We could do that, and then based on what the service provider provides, they would either put limitations up.... We have to remove the intervention options and accommodate or ensure the members are getting the help. We can order certain things in our organization under the act, order somebody to get an assessment or to get the help. Of course if they don't do it, then that's an issue, but we do have that right.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
What I'm trying to get at is bricks and mortar. Is there somewhere different that you send them?
D/Commr Daniel Dubeau
Oh, I'm sorry. I missed it completely.
We would just use the local.... We're not like DND. Our health services do not have treating facilities. We don't have any of that. We use what's out there in public health. We would access the hospitals. We access Homewood, I believe, in Ontario. We use that a lot. We will send them to those facilities and we will pay for it.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
Very good.
One thing that we didn't talk about was suicide. Is that an issue?
D/Commr Daniel Dubeau
It is an issue, though not on the scale of...I've heard from the paramedics talking about their rates. We track our suicides. Great-West Life is our insurance provider. It does track cause of death, and it's only as good as what somebody puts as cause of death. We've had from, I think, 2004 to 2016 about 35 suicides, of which 20 were serving members and 15 were retired. This year alone, unfortunately we lost two members and we've had a lot of attempted suicides. That's something that's coming to our attention as we go along. I know Steve put out a message around suicide. We've put it on our web page, talking a lot about suicide, and now the discussion is whether we need some suicide prevention training. How do we get this out? With the road to mental readiness and everything else, we might have to go to that place, and what does that mean for us, because that is something that is concerning.
We're also putting what we call a protocol in place nationally, not only with suicides but attempted suicides, so that nationally we can get that information so we can give our program support. In the past we haven't been doing that.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing today and for all of your good work. I really appreciate your help on this.
I want to pick up on something that my colleague Ms. Lockhart was asking at the beginning of her questions with regard to RCMP members being released. You said that there are medical releases that are both consensual and sometimes, unfortunately, non-consensual. With regard to those releases, are the members, before they are actually released, made aware of, and is there a process in place to make them aware of, all benefits and services available to them? If so, can you explain how that works?
D/Commr Daniel Dubeau
As I said, during the whole accommodation process with our disability management advisers, that's where that discussion would happen. There's a whole discussion around options to accommodate or not. A lot of times, with the education and the level of understanding now, members ask a lot of questions. That's why we're trying to put more into our disability management program and our peer to peer. We're trying different areas where somebody could provide advice to a person to tell them what's available.
I know Veterans Affairs has been very open to providing information. A liaison officer is always available there too to have a discussion. The transition interview is something that we never had before. Veterans Affairs does that transition interview with us now. That would be something we could tell members, that they can have a transition interview and understand what's available.
Liberal
Colin Fraser Liberal West Nova, NS
Do you see some of those people who are transitioning having financial difficulty once they're released, and if so, are there financial service advisers made available to them as part of this transition process?
D/Commr Daniel Dubeau
I believe there are financial advisers under VAC.
Pierre, I just want to confirm that.
Director General, National Compensation Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
VAC will offer a wide range of services; however, I think the demographic profile of the medically releasing RCMP member is very different from the demographic profile of the releasing Canadian Forces member. Most of our medically releasing members have 25 or more years of service, so they will have a very good service-related pension that will provide them with a solid income, plus they will then be able to apply to VAC for supplementary income. The number of young people releasing for medical reasons in the RCMP is very low.
