Evidence of meeting #80 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 going.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
Thank you.
We're going to move to three-minute rounds and try to get everybody in. We're going to run a little bit over time here, so bear with me.
Mr. Samson, you have three minutes. If you have questions, you can ask them, and they can write the answer back to us, too, if you have a lot.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your service, and I mean everyone, because when someone serves, the family serves, and that's evident again today. I thank you sincerely. I feel so much hurt.
The objective here is to try to pinpoint areas we can improve on and really zero in on, so I have three very quick questions, and you can answer, I guess.
The first one would be—and again we have no time—but what could we have done for your brother? What could we have done? What do you feel is the key thing we could have done better?
Advocate, Desmond Family Tragedy Rally For Change, As an Individual
Support and understand.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Support at what stage? I'm just trying to get at where you think the system went wrong.
Advocate, Desmond Family Tragedy Rally For Change, As an Individual
When you start seeing a person fall short, you should step in and help them. You don't wait until they hit rock bottom and then decide to help them.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
You're saying before the release, during the release, and after.
Advocate, Desmond Family Tragedy Rally For Change, As an Individual
It's before the release. As I said, that internal support should be there prior to these men and women being released. While they're still an active service member and you see they're not doing normal active duty they would on an everyday basis—
Advocate, Desmond Family Tragedy Rally For Change, As an Individual
—get involved then. Get to know them then. Figure out why they're changing: what's their story and what's going on? Then put your implements in there to help them instead of transferring them to JPSU just to see if they're going to come back to get thrown back on the lines to do your guys' job. No.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Mr. Bedard, you talked about the in-patient facility. Can you expand on that quickly?
Representative, Equitas Society
Very quickly, this would be an opportunity to catch someone right after they come back from a tour. If someone has seen blood and guts and horrible things, we know there are going to be issues, and it should be looked at immediately. Especially if it's a young person who is 18, 19, or 20 years old, who has never been anywhere in the world, and who doesn't know a lot, we need to have a look at them and pull them out of the system.
Representative, Equitas Society
There's absolutely nothing.
Liberal
Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS
Okay, thank you. We'll build on that with some answers.
Ms. Elms, you talked about family. How could we help families help? You said that no one would listen to you because you couldn't get involved. What could we do better for families to get involved?
As an Individual
I tried and I'm pretty resourceful and I know the system and I couldn't get involved. I've written down two things: meaningful post-deployment screening, including the family. Don't make him volunteer to bring me in. bring me in. Again, to Aaron and my point, create an acceptable atmosphere for a soldier to disclose. It can't be a civilian.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Thank you so much for being here.
Sherri, you brought up mefloquine. Under great duress, mefloquine testimony was given at this committee during our mental health study. It took that study and a lot of us pushing very hard to get to where the surgeon general has finally declared it a drug of last resort. Health Canada updated the label to include suicidal ideation and these types of things. However, no information has gone out to veterans to say that if they had been on this drug, here are some circumstances they might be facing. I heard from Aaron and you and Cassandra.
Cassandra, was your brother on mefloquine?
Advocate, Desmond Family Tragedy Rally For Change, As an Individual
Yes.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Aaron, you spoke about mefloquine, concussions, and your PTSD all impacting where you are today. What's your view on what should be done with regard to that file? Anecdotal evidence from veterans is not scientific, and therefore it does not get the weight. You talk about being listened to, but as with your advisory committee, your recommendations are not being followed. Could I get some feedback on that?
Representative, Equitas Society
Other countries have completely removed mefloquine. At the end of the day, the bottom line with government is that things cost money, and injured troops who can't work anymore are going to be on the government dime forever, which costs you money. If you want to save money, stop using mefloquine. Then you won't have to pay people for life for being disabled.