Evidence of meeting #47 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 information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Of the 239 veterans who completed suicide, as the words have to be said, how many of them would have taken the medication mefloquine? Can we find this type of information through ATIP or through a question during question period?
Chief of Psychiatry, Health Professionals Division, Department of Veterans Affairs
It's a good question. Again, it would depend where they had deployed and whether.... I mean, there should be records. I assume that those records would be within the Canadian military.
Chief of Psychiatry, Health Professionals Division, Department of Veterans Affairs
It would have been while they were serving that they took it.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Perfect. Thank you for that insight into National Defence.
A year ago, when I was on this committee as the Veterans Affairs critic, on May 9, 2016, I filed an Order Paper question. For the region of Quebec City, I asked what percentage of persons had financial prestations for each physical and mental illness—for example, knees, hearing, and so on.
Interestingly, for one year, 2015-16, in the Quebec region, 8% of the claims for money concerned post-traumatic syndromes, 2% deep depression, 1% anxiety, 1% lack of sleep, and 1% alcohol and drug abuse. Overall, almost 13% of the claims for money were put forward by people suffering from mental health issues that we could probably sometimes connect to suicide.
Of the 15 members, or sorry, I think it's 14, who committed suicide in 2015, how many of them were in the process of claiming?
Chief of Psychiatry, Health Professionals Division, Department of Veterans Affairs
You're talking about—
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
We're talking about financial benefits here.
I forgot the word in English, but how many of those 14 veterans were on prestations financières or asking for one, or filling out some papers?
Senior Epidemiologist, Directorate of Force Health Protection, Canadian Forces Health Services Group, Department of National Defence
Just so that we're clear, the annual suicide report is not regarding veterans but still-serving individuals.
Chief of Psychiatry, Health Professionals Division, Department of Veterans Affairs
I am unclear what you're talking about, because we don't actually have numbers.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
“Financial benefits”, that's the word. So those 14 persons were serving.
Senior Epidemiologist, Directorate of Force Health Protection, Canadian Forces Health Services Group, Department of National Defence
They were still serving, the ones in the annual report.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
So the question still stands: of those 14 soldiers who were serving, how many of them, by any chance, filed claims for any financial benefits?
Chief of Psychiatry, Health Professionals Division, Department of Veterans Affairs
Do you mean claims once they were released?
Senior Epidemiologist, Directorate of Force Health Protection, Canadian Forces Health Services Group, Department of National Defence
Sorry, we don't have access to that information.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Do you have a system to flag people who are potentially going to commit suicide? I know it's very difficult, but is there any system such as that, perhaps?
Chief of Psychiatry, Health Professionals Division, Department of Veterans Affairs
Yes. At Veterans Affairs Canada, in the case management file, we have put in place a flag for that.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
Thank you.
Perhaps I can come back to the question in regard to the higher suicide rate among those who are in the army as compared to navy and air force, and any correlation or thoughts you might have.
Senior Epidemiologist, Directorate of Force Health Protection, Canadian Forces Health Services Group, Department of National Defence
Do you want to speak to that?
Chief of Psychiatry, Health Professionals Division, Department of Veterans Affairs
Again, I think anything I would say would really be speculation. What you said might be reasonable. Is it related to people who've had more traumatic experiences overseas during their deployments? It could be. The bottom line is that we don't really know, but certainly that increase in the army, or certain parts of the army, has coincided right with our time in Afghanistan. I think it's pretty reasonable to say there's probably a connection there.
Senior Epidemiologist, Directorate of Force Health Protection, Canadian Forces Health Services Group, Department of National Defence
The reason we haven't parsed it in any more detail is that statistically we don't have sufficient power. We can only really look at one variable at a time, such as deployment, yes or no; or army or non-army, and those sorts of things. If we start looking at what's called a bivariate analysis, looking at two variables at a time, we find ourselves not being able to say anything because there's no statistical power to back it up.
Chief of Psychiatry, Health Professionals Division, Department of Veterans Affairs
The numbers are so small, that's why.
Senior Epidemiologist, Directorate of Force Health Protection, Canadian Forces Health Services Group, Department of National Defence
Again, the CF CAMS is, I think, one of the pillars of our research going forward. One of the things that we may be able to do is to look at the colour of the uniform and whether it makes a difference, in concert with other risk factors that we know are frequently related to suicide.
