Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 20th, 2016

[D/Commr Daniel Dubeau]

I think that as we are putting out our mental health strategy, and this is all anecdotal, you're telling people that this is a condition. You're telling people it's okay—and it is okay—to come forward and get some help. You're telling people more about it, about what's available out there. You're telling them about our services.

You have people come, and more and more are applying and getting these conditions. I remember that in my first 20 years of service, I didn't even know you could apply for this—we weren't even applying for pensions—and there was a determination that we could.

I think that's why you're seeing this. As we educate, put out programs, and as people become educated with our programs, we're noticing that people are starting to realize that they need to get some help, which is a good thing, but that, by the way, they might have to go and get some help from our Veterans Affairs colleagues.

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

What level, would you say, of camaraderie is there among the retired, the ex-RCMP officers?

[D/Commr Daniel Dubeau]

I don't think we ever leave. We retire and we're still all the same. We're considered part of one family. Even when our members leave, many of our people are still.... They step up to the plate as veterans.

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

This seems to be one of the gaps on the military side. Often they disappear from the group that they were so closely aligned with, and then bringing them back again, especially with mental issues and so on....

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

You have one minute.

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

How do you educate your members on the mental health services that are available? The issues of stigma around mental health... You now have champions. That's an interesting program.

I'll ask you briefly to outline that mental health champion program for me.

[D/Commr Daniel Dubeau]

I'll let my national mental health champion speak to that, if I may.

[A/Commr Stephen White]

Thank you for the question.

As part of our strategy, our focus is going to be on: first, reducing stigma with regard to mental health and operational stress injuries in the organization; second, providing good training and awareness to our membership; and third, ensuring that they're aware of where the services are and how to access the services.

In each province across the country we have a provincial and territorial mental health champion. They really are the leaders in those provinces to ensure that they engage at all levels of employees to ensure that mental health in that location stays at the forefront, much like I do from a national perspective to engage at all levels of the organization from junior members right up to senior members of the organization to keep mental health at the forefront.

In terms of training, we have a number of training programs that we're involved in, specifically with regard to mental health. I'll list a couple of them.

We have a critical incident stress management course. We have a critical incident stress management after-care guide. Our big flagship training right now is the road to mental readiness, R2MR. That really is a very solid education awareness training course. We've made it mandatory for every employee of the RCMP. We're going through that right now. A nice feature of that is we just added it to the curriculum at our training academy in Regina. We just had the first two troops take that during their basic training in Regina. Moving forward, every police officer in the RCMP is going to have road to mental readiness training and a good foundation of mental health awareness understanding even before they hit the streets as a police officer. Those are some of the highlights. There are a lot of other activities and training that we have on the go. Those are some of the big pieces.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you very much for being here.

I'm going to continue on in the vein of mental health. It sounds like a very impressive program that you've put together, and I want to congratulate you, Officer White, and tell you how important, obviously, that is to the well-being of your members and their families.

Have you met with representatives from Veterans Affairs to discuss the transition in terms of an officer who is dealing with mental health issues being covered by VAC? Is there a co-operatively developed mental health strategy for active members and for the veterans?

[A/Commr Stephen White]

Our mental health strategy is for the RCMP. We don't have an integrated one or joint one with Veterans Affairs.

What I can say is that a lot of our members, as I mentioned earlier, who are experiencing either PTSD or other operational stress injuries are going.... We're seeing increasing numbers who are taking advantage of the very good and excellent support from the operational stress injury clinics of Veterans Affairs. That is the gateway transition between the RCMP and Veterans Affairs with regard to operational stress injuries. That is one very big transitional piece.

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

We know that PTSD can develop as much as five, 10, or 15 years after the initial trauma. How do you reach out to those retired members so that they understand what's happening to them and the benefits that are available to them through Veterans Affairs if they do require assistance?

[D/Commr Daniel Dubeau]

We have a lot of information on our out-facing website—we have a public website—but also we're working with our vets association. That's our key point of contact.

When I spoke of the advice group, it's how to make sure as we go along that all our vets are able to find this information. Since our veterans associations have numerous charters across the country, they're able to get the message out.

The last piece is something which we have been exploring for the last two years and we're getting to the point that we would like to formalize it. It is with the Legion. The Legion has a lot of service officers, I believe they call them. As they say, wherever there's a Legion, there seems to be a Mountie office, and we always seem to members of the Legion in many areas. We're going to be leveraging that to say that may be a way to get our members, the ones who aren't part of the vets association, who are going to the Legion or they're in town—in small-town Alberta where I grew up, you know who is who—that information.

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

One of the things that we've been hearing from veterans is in regard to the forms. They are confronted with very complicated forms that look back at them when they try to fill them out. Have you heard this from your members? Are they finding that process is a barrier, that it's a challenge in terms of the kind of access that they need to have?

[Pierre Lebrun, Director General, National Compensation Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

I can't say we've heard that specific criticism. However, we do have one national association, the RCMP Veterans' Association, that's very proactive and does offer fantastic services to our members. Maybe that's one reason we're not hearing that complaint. I can't say I've heard that particular complaint.

We also have a very proactive liaison officer out of Charlottetown who will take a lot of time on the phone with the membership to fill out forms and guide them, either through the VAC process or through the Veterans Review and Appeal Board process. We are working very.... I can't say I've heard any complaints in that regard.

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

In terms of your members, the families are an important part of all of this. Do you actively reach out to the families, the spouses, the children of your members or your retired members in order to facilitate the process?

[D/Commr Daniel Dubeau]

We deal mainly with the member or the veteran. Notwithstanding that, many times it is possible to be involved with the family. We're looking at R2MR and the future state of R2MR. Once we get all of our front-line members trained, the next phase is on how we engage with the families. We have to expand this as we go along. I do know that at Depot they have discussions with the families. When you first join, there is a meeting with the family that explains what their husband or wife will go through in terms of their service and gets them prepared for this.

It is something we still have to work on, though, to have better outreach to the families.

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

Is that part of the review or the work that you referenced you're undertaking at this point?

[D/Commr Daniel Dubeau]

Our mental health strategy?

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

Yes.

[D/Commr Daniel Dubeau]

The mental health strategy has been really focused on our membership to start with, our serving police officers, only because we have to get that training out as quickly as we can. That's why we made it mandatory in that first phase.

Stephen and I have had discussions, even as recently as this week, on how and when to reach out to families. I know I've had discussions about it with our veterans association to see what role they could play in helping us get this out.

[A/Commr Stephen White]

Perhaps I could add to that very quickly.

As part of our road to mental readiness training, as well as the peer-to-peer network we have across the country, we educate our members with regard to services that are available. One of them is the employee assistance program through Health Canada. We educate the members that this service is available for family members as well, and educate them on what those services are. Through that we are providing knowledge, and the availability of counselling services for family members as well through the employee assistance program.

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

That's good news, because that was one of the problems the veterans were experiencing. Their families weren't confident that they could access the services they needed in order to complement the veteran's recovery or road to wellness.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mrs. Lockhart.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming today.

I do apologize that we're a little bit later seeing you than we'd originally intended in terms of the process. However, it has given us an opportunity to talk to many different witnesses related to DND. You've seen in the questioning today that one of the focuses we've been talking to you about is mental health. Your approach to mental health is quite different. One of the differences is the concept of universality of service. Does that apply in the RCMP or is it a different concept?