Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 1st, 2018

[Barry Westholm]

That's the best one. When I was in the JPSU it was heartbreaking to see someone with talent leaving. They would have 20 or 30 years' experience, all the qualifications, millions of dollars, priceless experience, and a bad knee, and they had everything else, all the boxes checked, but that universality of service. Again, because the Canadian Forces have to stay in their box, they said no, that person has got to go, when the unit needed them desperately.

That's one of my first suggestions, because it doesn't impact the Canadian Armed Forces' operational ability at all. It stays at 100%.

Something was mentioned too about somebody who's not medically injured and wants a release. As I mentioned in my notes, sometimes you get tired. It's a tough job, and you need a place to go. Going to a school or as a barrack warden, jobs like that, are not the place to go. You go to a unit that gets you better. You go to the JPSU. You get fixed up and then you go back to work, and if you're releasing after 30 years and you're healthy, you go to the JPSU and you find out what civilian life is all about, and then you get released into something that's not totally foreign. It's familiar now, and it's an incremental release.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

That's a really great idea for getting them ready for the civilian life also. It's an interesting point, and our colleagues from the Royal Canadian Legion mentioned collectivism versus individualism. As you mentioned, when you're in the military, everything is done for you. Trust me, with my sons, I give them a directive and they execute. It works quite well when I tell them to clean their rooms when they're home.

That said, what are your thoughts on when someone is releasing, whether medically or not? We notice that they are trained and given the onboarding, but there's no offboarding. We're not training them now for civilian life. They're not going to be told about their doctors' appointments, or here's your this and your that, what to wear and what to eat, and so on. Hence, we see some difficulties in transitioning.

What are your thoughts on training for offboarding for Canadian Armed Forces' members when it's time to leave the forces, and how would that help in transitioning?

[Ray McInnis]

That would be extremely helpful and, hopefully, it would be part of the transition centre if we see it come to fruition. However, I just want to touch on one point of Barry's when he talked about losing a lot of great class B reservists who were working in the JPSUs and the IPSCs. Luckily I benefit from that by hiring them as service officers for me.

At the same time we've got to be careful when they're saying they're going to have 1,200 or 1,400 people. When you post people in who don't work in the compassionate business, they're not automatically going to be compassionate; you need people who want to be there. The idea is to take or employ people who have universality of service and still want to work and are okay going through the process of helping other people, because you've got to understand and have that compassion to work in this business or you're going to be eaten. You can't take someone and post them in, and tell them there's their job, and they're to go ahead and do it.

Yes, you're professional but you've got to understand what people are going through.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Ms. Wagantall.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

I would just like to put on the record that our time is so tight and we have so many good witnesses, and I greatly appreciate the parliamentary secretary. However, I find it hard that we share our time when she has access to research and to find answers to these questions, which many of us on the committee do not,

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Those rules are allowed, so—

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

I know they're allowed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Yes, thank you.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

I'm challenging that. I have nothing against the member.

Since we're referring to them so much, I also would like to request that we put on the official record the studies submitted by Mr. Westholm, the independent critique, “Canadian Air Force/ VAC Joint Suicide Prevention Strategy”, and also, “A Thoughtful Second Look”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Yes.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Okay, great.

We've done multiple reports, 14 or 15 of them over 10 years, with a lot of feedback from veterans over and over again on the same issues. I'm hoping that this study will do something a little different and hone in on the actual bureaucracy and the dynamics going on there.

Barry, I saw in your reports and heard a lot about the issues around data, that you cannot judge whether something is working effectively if you don't have data. It seems to me that if you don't have it, you don't have to deal with it. That is a bit of the perspective I have even with mefloquine and all the issues around that. Can you speak to that for me at all?

[Barry Westholm]

There's also bad data. That's the worst thing that could happen, if you go off in a direction based on bad data.

However, certainly by this stage of the game, the Canadian Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Canada, if they've been doing what they agreed to do, which is post-release oversight, should be able to tell you guys what the main obstacles to transition are. You should be able to ask and they could print it off for you and say, “We've had this in this province, that province, and that province.” That's what you should have. If you don't have it, that speaks to a greater issue, a greater problem. Now there's no data. Why isn't there any data? They said they'd be doing this back in 2009.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Okay. Since coming into this role, I hear often in regard to the suicide issue actual personal names cited by individuals who knew and no longer have their people here, yet we can't seem to find out what that number is. Why?

[Barry Westholm]

Once again, I looked at the report and the document that I submitted where they stopped producing data in 2008. Obviously, they clearly have the data from 2008; why they didn't release it I don't know. That was not a very good time to stop collecting data. I don't think we have a really good number on the idea of suicides yet, unless they want to go back and say, “Well, from 1974 to 2008...”. What happened from 2008 to 2018? That's huge.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Also, as I travelled across the country I heard over and over again the issue that when they walked in that door to enlist, they were promised that if there was an issue with them, with an injury of any kind, they and their family would be taken care of.

You talked a lot about that sense of trust, which breaks down so many things. Is there anything else you'd like to add in regard to that?

[Barry Westholm]

Trust is nothing to be trifled with for the military person. They trust somebody that they don't even know, a private, with their lives. With people I've never met before, when I'm in Cambodia, if they're Canadian soldiers, I know I'm in good hands. That's trust. They also trust the government the same way.

We do everything for you. We go to war for you. We do everything, so when the government says something, it's natural when a soldier hears it that there's not going to be a second doubt.

The same thing goes with VAC. The same thing goes with the promises made by the military, including transition. When those promises are broken and the trust issue goes, it has a huge psychological impact. It has on me, where it just pounds a person into the pavement.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Mr. Eyolfson.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was actually going to give my time to Mr. Levitt to ask questions.

[Michael Levitt, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I also want to begin by recognizing Ms. Greene and her family and letting her know how incredibly sorry I am for the loss of her sister. I know we all greatly appreciate your being here today, which must be a very difficult thing for you to do, but it's really important to have you in the room, so thank you.

To the members of the Royal Canadian Legion, I'm lucky in my own riding of York Centre in Toronto to do a lot of work with the Wilson Branch 527. I'm a frequent guest over there and we participate in a lot of programs. We actually undertook a town hall on veteran mental health last year at the Legion. We had a very good session with a lot of discussion, and I continue to reach out to them frequently.

I want to ask in particular about the role the Legion plays in being able to guide and support veterans and Legion members to find the types of support that might be available to them. In the Toronto area, it tends to be more retired veterans, but I have to tell you, when we did the town hall we had a lot of younger veterans and younger servicemen and servicewomen come out. Could you speak about the role that the Legion plays. If you think there's a greater role, what piece is missing? What more can be done?

[Brad White]

The biggest role that we have is our primary aim, which is to look after veterans and their families. Our primary aim is really handled through what Ray does in our national service bureau.

We have volunteer service officers in every branch across the country. That's 1,400 voluntary service officers who people can go to in order to get assistance. They can get assistance directly on the spot through the poppy fund if they need financial support. If they need other support, such as going into Veterans Affairs Canada for benefits, we can start the application process right at the branch level, and then we can move it up to a provincial level where we have trained professional service officers who are qualified to represent those individuals and who fill out all the forms properly to make sure that the cases are put forward to Veterans Affairs. They also do quite a lot of representation.

Again, at the national level, Ray has a staff, thanks to the people who came out of the JPSU. We got three or four of them who came onto our staff to assist veterans. That's exactly what we do. We put their forms and applications together, and we assist them in going forward to the government and Veterans Affairs to get the benefits they need. If they don't get those benefits, we also support them in their reassessments and in all the other issues that they go through. We support them all the way up and through until they go to civilian court.

[Michael Levitt, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Obviously, that is a very essential service. Is there more that can be done? Again, I know from spending time with the families in the local legion that the needs are many, especially where retirees are concerned.

You're talking about staffing and programming. Is there more that can be done?

I'm looking maybe to you, Mr. McInnis.

[Ray McInnis]

Outreach. I think every one of us should be a walking billboard to say that if you're a veteran or the family member of a veteran and you need assistance, ask for help. You can go to the Royal Canadian Legion. You can go to VAC themselves. You can go to the Bureau of Pension Advocates. There are many other advocates around that you can go to for assistance to come forward. We have so many people in this country who don't realize that they can claim for benefits because they don't believe they're veterans.

When I'm out or our “Leave the Streets Behind” program is out, we don't ask if you're a veteran. We ask if you've ever worn a uniform. Most people will tell you if they've worn a uniform as a reservist, but they will never say that they're a veteran.

In the last four years, I've been trying to do outreach to every reserve unit in this country to get them to come forward and submit claims. For everybody who is involved with a veteran, it's about outreach to make sure that they're educated to come forward and ask for help. That's the biggest communication and education tool I could ever get out there: outreach.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

[Michael Levitt, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you.