Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2017

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

Thank you.

In terms of our study we talk about veterans, but that important component, the veteran's family, is always very much within our discussion. Do you support veterans' families? Are there supports for spouses who are perhaps struggling with finding work or looking after the needs of the veteran?

[John W. Boerstler]

Absolutely, and we firmly believe, as you do, that you have to support the family unit, especially in that sometimes difficult transition from military to civilian life when they're coming from different places all over the country, or even the world, to a large community like Houston that doesn't have a military base. We don't have a support system, so to speak.

Probably one-third of our organizations have a category of service that serves either spouses or children, or other family members. They're supporting those veterans in their transition.

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

Thank you.

You mentioned service dogs. There is some discussion here about the value of service dogs. Could you comment on what you're discovering with regard to the importance these animals could possibly have?

[John W. Boerstler]

I don't know if there is much empirical evidence that shows the effectiveness of some of these animals, especially with equine therapy. I haven't seen that, but I haven't done a ton of research on it. As I said, I'm more on the employment side of the equation; I'm not a mental health expert by any means.

I do think that it's a part of the positive transition experience for a lot of veterans who are suffering from combat and operational stress. Who hasn't ever seen a puppy make someone feel better? It is a positive thing in the transition.

More importantly, we need to be addressing other major issues when veterans are transitioning, such as unemployment, substance abuse, family challenges, and so on. If we can't prevent those things, then we'll never be able to prevent more chronic mental health issues.

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

Thank you.

You mentioned the need for work and the difficulty when someone faces unemployment. Could you talk about the challenges for veterans in getting civilian trade certifications? They come out of the service with a set of skills. Is there a problem translating those skills? How do you support that transition to work?

[John W. Boerstler]

Unfortunately, we do have a skills gap. In many different cases, the military doesn't provide credentials according to civilian standards. The only real cases that exist are for lawyers and medical doctors, which we all know are jobs that probably account for less than 2% of the total active force. For engineering, construction, military occupational specialties, avionics technicians, and things like that, we're working diligently with the Department of Defense to identify those crosswalks.

Until that time, however, it's really incumbent upon the communities that receive veterans to direct them to the community and technical colleges that are able to help them upskill and test out, if they do have those skills and experience. If someone coming from the marine corps is a welder, then they can test out. They can show their competency on a job site or at a technical school so that they can accelerate that transition, as opposed to going through repetitive training, which obviously costs taxpayers more money and leaves service members frustrated because they've already been through that.

We do our best to direct them to those opportunities, and then make sure that they translate the skills and experience that they gained in the military to the civilian world. This means cleaning up all the jargon, all the military acronyms, and really coaching them on how to prepare themselves for a civilian interview.

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

I'll come back, thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Mr. Bratina.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Boerstler, thanks so much for this. I'm very excited to hear your testimony today.

I was the mayor of a city in Canada—Hamilton—and one of the things that I brought into my mayoralty was a senior adviser on military heritage and protocol, who was the former commanding officer of a local regiment. I wanted to reacquaint Hamiltonians with their military heritage.

Early in your remarks, you mentioned the relationship with municipal programs. Could you expand a little bit on that? What was the point, and how did that come about?

[John W. Boerstler]

Absolutely, sir.

Thank you for doing that. That is one of the best ways that our community identified early on in 2008. It was shortly after the scandals at Walter Reed, which were very apparent in the media, that former mayor White and county judge Ed Emmett got together and created the returning veterans initiative. That really answered a lot of questions, such as what we are doing for our veterans and how many veterans are in our community. Then we found out that we're the second largest. We needed to do something to be a lot more proactive in that transition from military to civilian life if we were going to invest in these civic assets.

I think that using local municipal elected officials probably creates the biggest mouthpiece possible when you're forming a backbone collaborative organization, because those individuals are able to bring so many stakeholders together and to give your organization a sense of credibility immediately, for both private and public funders.

For example, Mayor Sylvester Turner, who has been all over the media about the Hurricane Harvey relief, was here at our grand opening for the transition centre. He did a great job of articulating the need for investing in our veterans at the front end of their transition to Houston.

Originally, after transitioning from Congress, I worked on the mayor's staff for a number of years to establish the returning veterans initiative. Even though we ceilinged out very quickly in terms of what we could deliver in terms of programs and services, that beacon, that awareness that the mayor's office brought, that credibility, was very impactful.

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

That's exactly right. I didn't make this up. All politics is local. It's wrong for people to assume that there is an office in the nation's capital that will look after a situation in some far-off part of the country. There has to be a local presence.

Then, as you say, you hit a ceiling. There is only so much you can do, so then you get into the system of programs that you talked about.

What would you say about that system as it stands right now? Are there any big gaps still to be worked on, or is it all moving in the right direction?

[John W. Boerstler]

That's an interesting question. Initially, a lot of what the media and the VA and Congress reported was that veterans are broken and need mental health services when they return. All of our data shows that this is not the case. We need to prevent mental health issues—with employment, connection to social activities, family services, and volunteering in our communities, giving us a mission and a purpose when we have that loss of identity when we take off the uniform. That's the most critical piece of the transition—making sure that we have a mission and a reason to get up in the morning, to serve our community and interact with our brothers and sisters whom we served with.

Mental health is extremely far down in terms of the categories of service and the needs we are seeing on a real-time basis. I think the gap is that we don't have enough organizations to serve in the career transition and to really deal with the great need of one out of three veterans coming through each month, or 200 or 300 veterans. We don't have enough organizations to adequately accelerate their transition into employment. That's what we have been seeking. We've actually reached out to several national partnerships, like Hire Heroes USA, the Call of Duty Endowment, and several others, to really bring them into the system so that they can be a referral point for our system as well.

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

What point may there be with regard to the reluctance of employers to hire ex-military? Are there any myths out there about how those military veterans might behave in a private corporate setting?

[John W. Boerstler]

Absolutely. We have to work every day to destigmatize post-traumatic stress and what the media and, unfortunately, our own Department of Veterans Affairs have misreported for the last several years. Veterans are not dangerous employees. They won't bring this to the workplace. In fact, 98% of us are ready to go to work the day we step off the base into the community that we return to. It's really more about accelerating that process so that we can get to work.

When I educate employers every day, I talk about the misnomer that is “post-traumatic stress”, about demystifying it and talking about the data. They say that 22 American veterans commit suicide every day. Let's drill down on that data. We don't have to go into the specifics when we talk to the employers, because they usually get it right away, but 20 out of those 22 veterans are white males over the age of 60. This is exactly consistent with the civilian population in the United States, which shows, obviously, that there is no correlation to military service. It just shows that white males over the age of 60 tend to commit suicide, unfortunately, at a higher rate than do other populations.

It's really about breaking down those numbers and demystifying it as well as we can, and showing that they are civic assets, not detriments to the community.

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

Sir, you've made a great contribution to our committee. I thank you for this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Mr. Samson, go ahead.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, John, for your presentation. It's extremely interesting and, of course, it allows us to reflect on what we are doing here in Canada.

I'd like to focus a little on the awareness program you talked about, your new program, the Combined Arms system. Can you tell me a bit more about how that strategy is moving forward?

[John W. Boerstler]

Yes, sir.

We actually partnered with our regional chamber of commerce and our economic development corporation to use the same branding they deploy to companies and to workers all over the United States and the world to engage them and attract them to come to Houston. At the end of the day, when they transition out of military service, veterans are what our Department of Labor refers to as displaced workers. We are coming from places like San Diego, Japan, Germany, or Norfolk, Virginia, and we are coming to places like Houston, which don't have a military installation or a flagpole to return to, so to speak.

We are really trying to make sure we are selling our community—the economic and housing opportunities, the great schools, and all the fun stuff to do. The average age is 31. Who doesn't want to return to Houston—apart from all the flooding, mind you, when a hurricane comes through, but that's something that I think we handled very well, considering the situation.

It's really about partnering. Don't reinvent the wheel. I am big on that, and they say it a lot in the Marine Corps. If you engage those activities that are.... Our regional chambers of commerce and economic development corporations are the best in the business at getting people to come to Houston, companies and workers. We can just put a military twist on it and use that same branding.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

That's interesting.

You talk also about data collection and tracking. I know you said you were mostly not in the medical end of it, but in Canada at least, there is difficulty tracking the medical piece and where veterans are on that spectrum.

Can you share some information and shed light in that area?

[John W. Boerstler]

Absolutely.

There's a lot of data that we can't access when we refer to the Veterans Health Administration that is operated by the VA—all the VA health systems. What we can see, though, is what is reported on the back end of that to Congress, showing how effective our local hospital is or our outpatient clinics are and how typically healthy our veterans are.

One indicator, one measure of success that we can show, is how many veterans are actually referred to the Veterans Health Administration year over year with the advent of the Combined Arms system. Now we're showing an uptick of younger veterans accessing these health services at the VA. Whereas before it was typically elder veterans who had income and housing barriers, now it's a whole different population of veterans, because they're coming through our system for careers but they're also getting sent to the VA to enrol in the health care administration.

That's good for business, so to speak.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Without criticizing others, where would you place Houston in benefits and services to veterans compared with other cities in the States, and why?

[John W. Boerstler]

Well, we're always the best. Isn't that right?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Why? Just focus on two or three things that make you believe that you're digging deeper and supporting them, and indicate how you're doing it.

[John W. Boerstler]

We've made many mistakes in the last 10 years. The only reason we're here now and that we have created this system is that we continue to make mistakes and continue to improve the process. It's not perfect, because we have such a limited government. We have so many NGOs filling the gaps, so to speak, in transition and veterans affairs.

We have a long way to go to become a resilient city in this endeavour, but we're on the right track to getting there. I would place us in the top three, for sure. I don't know how we would evaluate that, but hopefully we'll have a tool soon that can really.... We hold our organizations accountable and we vet them with KPMG. Perhaps we can develop a tool that identifies resilience in a city in terms of military transition and veterans affairs.