Evidence of meeting #34 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 thing.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Alaina Lockhart Liberal Fundy Royal, NB
Thank you, John.
The reason I come back to purpose is that, as much as your experience is different from a lot of civilian experiences, the one thing I know there is experience out there on is helping people transition...identity. I think about a miner, for instance, who's worked for 25 years and who is no longer is a miner. But he's a miner, you know? That experience is out there.
Is that something we need to be building into our transition services?
As an Individual
Absolutely.
This is one of the things where the JPSU can play a big part. When you're in the transition outstream, you are leaving the Canadian Armed Forces. You are going to be a civilian. That's where you should be able to try out different jobs, professions, what it's like to be in civilian communities, and working within a framework other than the military framework. It's letting go of the military, and the military should be letting go of you. However, it doesn't work that way.
As it is right now, you could be standing at attention by a desk the day before you get out of the military. The transition part is totally broken, and it has been since this thing stood up.
That's why we'd really like to see Veterans Affairs Canada take a lead role in helping those transitioning out of the military society, so that they have a great foundation. Then, when they take that first step out the door of the military, it's as someone who has an awareness of what's waiting for them outside.
November 29th, 2016 / 4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Thank you.
Can I ask how often you actually meet with comrades? You made the comment about your doing this to help your guys, but do you ever sit down with them? What are those occasions like?
As an Individual
That's a really interesting question. I actually have a good-news story in that regard. I was just at the senior NCO's mess dinner for my regiment a couple of weeks ago. Before that it was Remembrance Day, before that a golf tournament, and before that another golf tournament.
That's just because I happen to be in an urban area, the Vancouver area. The command team at the unit I was previously serving in have always done a good job at this. That highlights part of the problem. The medical care or the peer support that I can access in Vancouver is not what you're going to find in Shilo. There are good people in Shilo, but it's Shilo. That's one of the problems that we have across the forces.
I can't tell you that the release process is bad, because I was actually handled quite well in a lot of parts of it, and atrociously in the others. However, in terms of staying connected, yes, I do. I stay connected all the time. Being online certainly helps with that, but it could also make you think you've seen people more than you have. You need to get face to face, shake hands, pull a pint, and do those kinds of things.
As an Individual
One of the interesting things is the proliferation of motorcycle groups. I can name you half a dozen right now that are rolling self-help groups. They're strictly veterans. Among us, there is the word “brother”. When we say “brother”, it means anytime of the day, anytime of the night, you call and I'm there. That's just the way it is. There's a humility that goes with that. There's an understanding as well.
Do we stay in touch? Yes. One of the reasons I do my fishing event is to create that network of individuals, who, on a bad day, can pick up the phone and call somebody who's local to them that they may not have been aware is living in their area.
It falls to us, as veterans, to continue the connection. That's our job. That's where I found my purpose. The problem is that the medication I'm on takes away all purpose. I sleep to all hours of the morning. It sucks. Again, we fight through it day by day.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Jeanette, can I ask you about Kelley? It says John, but you call him Kelley.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Does Kelley see his old comrades on any regular kind of a basis?
As an Individual
No.
He has just recently started reaching out on Facebook. I look at this as very positive and very therapeutic for him as well. He enjoys it. He enjoys sharing it with me. This is the beginning of it.
So thank goodness for....
As an Individual
Most of my contacts are through the Internet. What I've done in the past is reach out to people who are in the JPSU and I know they're having a hard time. I use my experience to assist them, whether it be getting an extension or something like that, but as far as social, no.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Do you see value in growing this kind of connection for the veterans, because we had the Legion experience. I'm sure that's a whole other—
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
But you could see how it worked post-Second World War, maybe post-Korea.
As an Individual
First off, the Legion needs to die.
Let me put that out there, and I'll explain why. Those are guys who grew up in a time when it was safe to slap your wife, spank the kids, and kick the dog. Today, you cannot be seen in public, drunk. We've had a societal change.
The Legion has abdicated its responsibility as a government-mandated organization to support the veterans. This is why there are 63 advocate groups that sit in front of committees like this, trying to advise the minister on how to proceed. Pensions is a classic example. Their original mandate stated, “to secure adequate pensions, allowances, grants and war gratuities for ex-service personnel, their dependents, and the widows”.
That's right out of the government statement. They're not doing that. The fact that we've gone from a pension in the first charter to a buy-off in the second charter makes no sense at all. I believe that we have stepped up to the plate in our own way. We've taken on this notion of motorcycle groups, or fishing groups, or art groups, or whatever. We stay in connection as best we can, but the problem with PTSD is that it isolates us. We become hermits and it's up to us to continue to reach out to each other.
Conservative
John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all of you, as my colleagues have, for your service, particularly you, Jeannette, for being there for your husband as much as you have. I'm sure there are countless stories like yours that exist among the military wives. Being an emergency service worker, I know just how much of a role our spouses play in our careers over the years, of the support that they give us, so I want to thank you for that as well.
You'll all be glad to know that one of the consistent themes we've been hearing is the loss of identity when you leave the military. The other thing we've talked about quite a bit with some of the witnesses is the issue of employment opportunities, or lack thereof.
Brian, you spoke about how one trains when you're in a military combat situation. One of the things that we've also heard about is not just the lack of retraining, but also the fact that there's a large percentage of military members who don't leave the military with a high school degree. How do we deal with that?
On the issue of education, qualification, and employment, the other thing that we've heard as well is that in Veterans Affairs there has been an increase in the level of degrees, the education requirement to work there. I'm a big believer in peer support. I'm a big believer that those who have experienced being in the military and transitioning should be able to help those who do so in the future.
Here's my question, and I'll start with you, Brian. How do we resolve this issue of re-integrating people into the workforce, whether it's through VAC or whether it's through the civil service, as you spoke about? What's the most optimal way to do that?
As an Individual
I think you're quite right on that one. It almost seems, when you look at some of the positions within Veterans Affairs, that they were written to rule out non-commissioned members of the forces. I tell you, I'll take what I can get out of a master warrant officer over someone with a degree, any day.
As an Individual
Yes.
I don't mean that to knock post-secondary education. I've done post-secondary and I know its value. However, what do we have to teach you to make you understand how to deal with these people? There's no program out there for it. In fact, the reason we're all speaking today is that you're trying to pull that information out of us; you're trying to understand that.
Barry doesn't have to learn that. He should be your case manager, your next hire, right down there. No questions asked, that's the guy, and better than me because he has done some of these things. The government should be tripping over itself to hire Barry Westholm. Instead they'd rather hire someone with a sociology degree who's going to come in and then get burnt out because they don't know how to talk to 25 vets. Come on, the answer is so painfully clear that Veterans Affairs needs to have a hiring quota of veterans.
The federal civil service has no problem saying it needs to have this many indigenous employees and this many females. By far, that department should have a minimum number of veterans in it.
The next thing to go along with that is that you need to steal good ideas and the military has a very good idea about quality control. It's a game of telephone. The commander comes to visit the troops and it is to shake hands, but it's also to see how things are actually going and if the message he entered at the top is the one coming out at the bottom. That needs to happen in the department, particularly on the employment file. What is really happening right now, sir, on the employment file is that we're punting to civilian organizations. True Patriot Love is great, but it should not be a federal government policy to refer you to True Patriot Love for retraining. That should be a complement, an add-on to the programming that's already there.
Those would be the two things I would look at right away.
Conservative
John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON
Mr. Westholm, now that Mr. McKenna has written you a letter of reference, do you share his view on that?
As an Individual
Once again, on most everything that was said, I go right back to the JPSU and what it could be doing. If you're injured, say you lose your sight, what the military wants to do now is wait until your last six months or so before they start retraining you. Why? If you're leaving and you have three years, that's where it should start. There should be a consolidated effort between the Canadian Forces and Veterans Affairs, with Veterans Affairs leading, to see what that person wants to do, trial a few things to see how it's working, and then point that person in the right direction.
It could be, for example, that if a person wants to be a carpenter in Moose Jaw, it isn't going to work, so we look at something else and we find something. If he wants to be a carpenter in Windsor, if there's a big demand in Windsor for this sort of thing and we think he can do it, that's going to be his final place of posting. We're going to look at the different areas and venues in Windsor where we can do this and we're going to get back to him. You work with this person from the day he enters that stream to transition out, with his family as a group, to the final end product of a person in civilian life doing something for which he is well trained, with all those military attributes in his back pocket to help him. It's very simple.
Conservative
John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON
That's very good advice.
Mr. Grant, I want to touch on the issue of stigma within the military.
We have actually heard that the stigma of mental illness and suicide, the understanding of it, is improving within the military. What you said earlier sort of counters that. Can you touch on that a bit?
As an Individual
You're still dealing with dinosaurs. There are still people in the organization who do not believe that PTSD is a viable injury, despite all the medical evidence to the contrary.
The root issue is one of education. Again, I come back to the SHARP program where the military was not asked but forced to sit down and endure lecture after lecture on what constitutes good behaviour. The same thing needs to happen within the structure of the military for PTSD and mental injuries.
Education is the key here. That is why I plug it into the post-deployment thing, because while it's true that there were many babies born nine months after the deployment, I can tell you that there were 37 sets of divorce papers sitting on the clerk's desk. There were many separations, and I can't tell you how many boyfriend-girlfriend splits that occurred after guys came home. First, it's the reintegration back into the family, second, into the society, and then accepting the fact that when we take on a job that puts the mission first, to admit weakness is a bad thing. We need to change that type of culture.
Let's be clear; it's not easy to be the man who we all imagine ourselves to be, the guy in the black balaclava, the perfect pilot, the perfect sailor. The road is too long and the hills are too heavy and high. When we end up taking a knee because of the strain that we're put under because we're understaffed, overworked, and trying to do too much with too little, even though we accomplish it.... I can tell you that Brian doesn't get to do the job that he would like to do for his troops because he has too many reports and returns to do.
All we're asking is that at some point we acknowledge that it's a tough row to hoe and that what we want is a little help along the way.
