Veterans Affairs Committee on March 1st, 2018

[Faith McIntyre]

Yes, certainly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Mr. Eyolfson.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of you for coming.

My first question is about your work, Dr. Skomorovsky. You mentioned the difficulty that people have in finding doctors once they have transitioned. I'm a physician myself. I see not just military members but lots of people who come into our department because they can't find a family doctor. It's particularly problematic for veterans, who never had to look for a doctor and now have to, out in the communities.

When they do find a doctor, do they report any problems in terms of their doctor being able to access either their medical records or Veterans Affairs records, and then getting the continuity of care once they find that doctor?

[Dr. Alla Skomorovsky]

That's a good question. We don't know, because we only speak to these people once and we don't follow up with them. They may find a doctor and they may have no problems afterwards, but at the point when we do have interviews, they mention that they have those problems. So it's actually a very good question. If we had a longitudinal analysis, we would be able to get this information and follow up.

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

Do you know of any initiatives in the Department of National Defence, if a member is being released, in particular medically released, where they would try to make direct contact from the medical departments to any practitioners where that person will be living? Is there any initiative to try to make a direct connection?

[Dr. Alla Skomorovsky]

I'm not personally familiar with such an initiative.

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

Okay. Thank you.

In terms of the issues you mentioned, you said that the study is still in progress and there are several common themes emerging. You talked about the negative impact of illness and injury. That touches on a theme I've asked a lot of witnesses about. Let's say a member's injury was not absolutely devastating but it still meant they could not be in the army. Did they express the fact that if they were able to serve in another capacity, under the limited physical capacity they have, they'd still want to serve and still be in the army?

[Dr. Alla Skomorovsky]

Some of them did.

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

Okay, because I'm speaking to the concept of universality of service. We have heard lots of testimony of people who were basically minimizing or concealing symptoms in the early stages, because they were afraid that if they spoke up they'd no longer meet universality of service, and they'd be out of the military. They'd conceal this until they had a devastating injury that would have been minor had it been dealt with earlier.

Thank you for that.

Colonel Maurais, this is a very difficult question and I'm going to have to put a long preamble on it so that you understand what I'm getting at with this. The issue I'm getting at is not in regard to the practice within the chaplaincy, but in regard to perhaps faith groups in the community. I'm talking about the issue of suicide in the military. We know it happens and we know that in military and in veterans we do everything we can to prevent suicide, yet it still happens. It happens in the community.

I was at Yardah for 20 years, and dealt with a lot of suicide among patients and actually among a couple of co-workers. One of the things that was the trauma for families afterwards.... And, again, this is part of my preamble. I have no reason to believe this would be something in the chaplaincy, but in the community there are still today faith groups that have a tremendous stigma against suicide. I've had family members tell me that they were afraid the word would get out because there are churches today that will not bury family members who have committed suicide. It still happens today.

Has your department had any role in perhaps liaising with faith groups in the community to help remove this stigma that tends to re-traumatize families when they have to deal with this?

[Col Sylvain Maurais]

Not to my knowledge on your specific question, sir. However, you raise something that is extremely important. The chaplaincy is a key service that helps support the Canadian Armed Forces strategy on suicide prevention.

All our chaplains are trained and educated in counselling, and also we have spearheaded a great prevention program called Sentinels, which the military chaplains are providing. It's half a day of active listening to volunteers in order to increase the network of vigilance and try to get the people better equipped to be able to recognize signs of distress.

It's very interesting that chaplains bring this, because at the end of my statement I described someone who is spiritually healthy, but if you reverse it you have people who lose the sense of meaning and purpose in their life, who are hopeless, who have lost all faith in humanity and in themselves, who are isolating themselves, and who don't honour their own beliefs. This is the description of what moral and spiritual injury is about.

The chaplains we deal with are selected because if they raised any stigma they wouldn't be able to serve with us. We are also connecting with spiritual and religious leaders on the civilian side to say that we care for all in a non-judgmental way. The word is getting around.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Johns, you have six minutes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here and for your important testimony and the work you are doing.

I'm going to start with Dr. Skomorovsky. You mentioned that you're studying what causes stress in military families. What role does unemployment or underemployment of spouses play? I think you can identify it as one of the high stressors, especially with the movement of the forces. Could you speak to that?

[Dr. Alla Skomorovsky]

Yes, actually one of our team's key initiatives involves conducting every three years a large survey of quality of life among spouses of regular force members. This survey goes to a random sample of spouses of regular force personnel, and we actually just administered one of those surveys to spouses. We are collecting the data. We're almost done the data collection, and we are asking spouses about their employment rate, their health and well-being, and the impact of military life stressors on their well-being.

As we know from our previous administration that happened three years ago, actually under-employment is part of the problem related to relocation and is an issue that spouses are mentioning as one of their key problems related to military life.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you. We know how important the family unit and it's great to hear that from you as well today.

We heard on Tuesday from spouses, as you're aware, and Ms. McIntyre, you spoke about the testimony that we heard there. We also heard that they're having a difficult time getting access to services, or hearing about services that might be available. They're not aware of them.

What is being done to make sure that the spouses and families are getting the information that they need to support them?

Colonel Maurais, is the chaplaincy reaching out to the spouses and the families? I'll it to the panel just to open it up a bit, if you want to speak to that.

[Col Sylvain Maurais]

We're getting better, I think, in trying to make accessible all the services that are there, but this is a capability that we're trying to further develop, because we know that there's a need. That's all I can say.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Cormier, maybe you can add to that. Is there an outreach plan that is going to be expedited, because we're hearing the results are important, right?

[Robert Cormier]

Absolutely, and so, yes, at Veterans Affairs we do have an outreach strategy that we continue to try to improve, for the reason you state, that there are still individuals who are not getting the information when they need to.

We certainly are participating in a number of forums where we can speak about benefits to veterans and to their families to ensure they know what those benefits are and how to access those benefits.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

There was $42.8 million announced in the budget for service delivery. There are a couple of things. First, we know there are 29,000 vets—according to a report in November that came through the media—waiting for disability claims to be processed. That was an increase of 50% over eight months prior.

Can you identify where that $42.8 million is going? Will it be going to some of this outreach, and also to the backlog? Is that the right amount to get that backlog from 29,000 to zero, because I think we all agree that it needs to be at zero?

[Robert Cormier]

Yes. Certainly the resources that you're speaking of, we're still waiting for those details, but absolutely, the lion's share of those resources will be for the front lines where adjudication occurs, as well as in the area offices where we have that front-line connection with veterans, to ensure that the workloads are manageable so that they can access services quickly and that we're able to provide them with the services they need when they need them.

There's also an approach that we've called guided support. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, but it's an approach that we are working at developing. Essentially it's to provide a personalized service to veterans and families to help them navigate through the system, through the complex system of VAC. We know that not all veterans and families require this support but a large number do. So for those who do, we were certainly—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I appreciate that. What amount will it take for us to get that 29,000 to zero? Is there a number? Has the department done an analysis? Where did it come up with $42.8 million? Do you know how it identified this amount?

[Robert Cormier]

Unfortunately, I can't give you the detail of that, but certainly we continue to try to improve and offer the best service we can.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

It would be great to get the amount we need to get to zero, so we know what the target is. As politicians, we're hearing numbers from the government side, but I think all Canadians agree that no one who served our country should be waiting, living with a disability claim. I think that's important information, and we would all appreciate finding out what that number is, what it's going to take, because we've got to get to zero. We heard from the DND ombudsman, Mr. Walbourne, and Mr. Parent from VAC. They've studied this thing to death. We've talked about transition over and over again.

Mr. Parent talked about a one-form method, going to one form to at least reduce the amount of bureaucracy and speed things up. Do you agree with that? Is that something you would support?

[Robert Cormier]

Anything that will simplify things for veterans and make our services more accessible, easily accessible, absolutely. I think that's an ongoing objective of ours. Certainly we remain open. The other point I think on those claims that are waiting for adjudication is that there is a triage that occurs of those. Those with more serious conditions, mental health conditions are prioritized. Also, a large portion of those receive benefits while they wait for a decision.

Just to be clear, that there are number of veterans that do have claims in and are waiting for those claims to be adjudicated upon but they also receive services at the same time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Ms. Lambropoulos.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you for being here with us today and for sharing your experiences in the department. Colonel Maurais, thank you for the work that you do on the ground with the soldiers.

I have a couple of questions. First off, I'd like to ask, as Ms. McIntyre had informed us, seamless transition happens mostly when the overall well-being of the veteran is positive, financial, spiritual, physical, mental and socially. I'd like to know what the government can do to improve the well-being of veterans before they're released in order to help them through their transition process.

Either Mr. Maurais or Ms. McIntyre, if you can answer that question.