Thank you for the question.
De-training means taking the time, whether in cooperation with the Canadian Armed Forces or with Veterans Affairs Canada, to go through a training phase where you learn to calmly let go of the military identity.
As I said previously, this involves reconnecting with our own values and letting go of the ones instilled in us throughout our careers. We need to take time to sit down with professionals, psychotherapists, social workers. We need to reconnect with who we are as individuals. We also need to establish our own needs. Personally, just last September, I couldn't have said what my own needs really were because I had always thought in terms of who was to my left and to my right. It's what we do as soldiers; we keep an eye on each other and work as a team.
The de-training of soldiers should include the psychosocial aspect. It would allow them to dig in order to find their own identities. Nothing is available for that currently. I think it would be important, as Ms. Lowther was saying, that there be a kind of exit boot camp or something like that where people could take time together to move onto something different.