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
Good morning, everybody. I call the meeting to order. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are proceeding with our study of the barriers to transition, and measurable outcomes of successful transition.
We'll start this morning with our first panel and five minutes of testimony from each, and then we'll move into questions.
First we have Ms. Desmond.
Welcome.
Cassandra Desmond Advocate, Desmond Family Tragedy Rally For Change, As an Individual
Thank you, everyone, for having me here.
“I offered you peace. I showed you mercy.” Exhibit A is my family tragedy; exhibit B is my life now.
When VAC fails a veteran, it fails the family, community, province, and nation, both emotionally and financially.
My family tragedy was preventable. Our government has been studying veteran suicides since the 1990s and still has done little to address the situation.
Our government agreed to watch over our medically released and injured veterans as far back as 2009 to 2013. Canada's role in the Afghanistan war went on for 10 years. Those roles ended in 2011, and over that time there have been, and still are, many reports of problems with the unit responsible for transitioning soldiers referred there, the JPSU.
Before my brother fell between the cracks of VAC, he fell into the systematic problem with the JPSU—so deep that his very own sergeant worried about transferring him. Sergeant Butler stated that he was worried that the transfer to JPSU “would make Lionel feel more isolated. The staff are not equipped to deal with mental illnesses. They're not trained.... [JPSU is] a holding unit to get rid of soldiers that are not medically fit...to put [ones who are] medically fit...in their place.”
JPSU New Brunswick had two section commanders looking after 60 to 100, administered at Gagetown, New Brunswick. Neither was trained to deal with mental illnesses, yet DND claims that all other parts of the country but Gagetown, New Brunswick, were understaffed. I'm sure my friend Barry Westholm can be a witness to this.
Stoicism, the endurance of pain or hardship without a display of feelings and without complaint, is what you teach these men and women. But when they no longer show or carry this trait, do complain, and show feeling, they're simply and honestly told that veterans are “asking for more than we are able to give”. Well, excuse me.
These great men and women gave their lives, and all they were asking for is what they were promised and deserved. Yet, we can give generously outside our nation to help others—why not, first, our very own? As Nelson Mandela said, “I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom”.
Employ them in different ways. PTSD and other medical injuries should not affect their jobs or career in the military. Why should anyone have to hide their feelings due to the fact of being judged on capability or performance?
Get to know what they're going through before medically releasing them. They should have that internal support while still an active service member, instead of being released only to find and figure it out on their own.
Military should come up with some type of workforce in its system for these medically released soldiers so that they can still have a career and job, and not be left alone, abandoned, with nothing to depend on but civilian disability. It's not fair, it adds to their stress, and it should not be a barrier for them to serve their country.
These men and women deserve that chance. After all the time and money we invest in them, they deserve that chance of coming back, because the support is there while still an active member, and there still is hope and belief in them, and not to worry that all is soon to be lost because they no longer can do what they love. The reason they chose to protect their country is that they love service and love their country.
Our government created a place of no responsibility. You cannot underestimate our generosity and patience. You cannot deny our hurt, pain, mistrust, and thoughts of guilt by allowing these people to think they're doing something good, only to fail them and turn your back on them when they're hurt.
Instead of helping them, you hurt them more. Enough time has gone by, and I see no changes at all besides a joint suicide prevention plan. VAC and DND are so dysfunctional—broken promises, lies, actions speaking louder than all words in hopes that we stay quiet or dim our lights.
Well, as I turn up the lights in here brighter today, as Lisa Nichols said, I'm telling you to grab your shades, because we are only going to get brighter.
It's time for awareness, understanding, and support. You need to address these issues so that new ones are not created and all is not lost. There is still so much work to be done. You have more motivation now than you ever had before, and more reason to continue your effort and to take responsibility.
You're only at the beginning now of what's been a really long journey for years. Now is the time for you to get it right and keep it right. My whole world was in that house that night.
Everyone in here has a story, something you did not pick for yourself. But always remember that “the battle is not yours; it's the Lord's”.
Sherri Elms As an Individual
Thank you for allowing me to speak here today.
Just by way of a brief introduction, my name is Sherri Elms. I am a pharmacist by profession, but because of the events of the last few years I've taken leave from my practice, and have gone back to school to pursue a Ph.D. at Queen's. I'm just completing my first year of study. I have two children: a son, who's 25, studying nursing at Trent, and a daughter of 23, who's finishing a B.A. in philosophy at Queen's University.
In addition to this, I'm also a client of Veterans Affairs Canada. I don't have this status because I served as a member of the Canadian Armed Forces but because my husband did. Today you are hearing about the transition from military to civilian life. My husband did not survive that transition. On November 3, 2014, while still a serving infantry officer, my husband committed suicide. He was at that time a captain with almost 35 years of service as both an NCM and an officer.
We were married seven years when he went on his first tour to Somalia. I remember how excited he was to go. I remember how excited they all were to go. They wanted to help rebuild a broken country. He came home a changed man, disillusioned and bitter, with persistent memory problems, frequent night sweats, and insomnia. In fact, in their determination, Veterans Affairs found that his original injury was sustained in Somalia and compounded by his other tours.
He was deployed three more times in his career, to Bosnia, Haiti and Afghanistan. In addition, he spent many more months away from home, here and there—somewhere in Africa, somewhere in Europe, somewhere in Norway, somewhere in northern Canada. This is the life of an infantry soldier. He never stopped wanting to do his job. He never ever stopped volunteering to go. I knew not to ask him to stay home. It was him. It was who he was. I cannot emphasize enough how good he was at what he did. Despite the price my family has paid, I remain proud of his accomplishments as a soldier.
I'm not sure if the military shares this pride. I could feel it after he died. Once the shock of it all settled, I could sense the uneasiness that the military felt at his suicide. Despite the presence of three generals at his funeral, one of whom would become the current CDS, there was perceptible shame.
The committee is interested in what contributes to making Canadian Forces members comfortable or uncomfortable disclosing their medical condition, and then you want to talk about interactions with VAC. I'll focus my opening comments on these.
My life in the years before my husband died was not easy. He was angry. He had a hair -trigger temper, and I could not predict when he would explode. He was never once physical with his anger, but his words cut to the bone, and they were directed at all three of us. He spoke to me of suicide often. I told him once that I was going to call the medical officer. He said, “Sherri, you can't use the 's' word, because if you use the 's' word I won't be deployable, and if that happens, I may as well be dead”. I remember a Valentine's Day card in which he referred to our life as a “roller coaster” and that although there were times that he would like to just step in front of a bus, he thought he'd just stick with the ride.
I encouraged him to seek help, and he did off and on. He was seeing a psychiatrist at one point in the years before he died, but he didn't like her. They didn't click. After he died, I recovered his chart from his belongings, and I read her notes. She wanted to see me, but he didn't tell me that, and he didn't bring me in. He just stopped going to her, and she closed the file, and nobody followed up.
In the six months before he died, our lives were a living hell. He drank more and more, and that, historically, was not him. He was my designated driver; I was the drinker. He was miserable. In the summer of 2014 our marriage fell apart. It was a traumatic split, and I was off work for six weeks. Things were awful in August of that summer, and my friends worried for my safety. I was sure he would not hurt me, but I was worried for his safety. I told his boss this personally. I told his physician this personally. No one believed me. I know that the padre spoke to him, but he denied suicidal ideation. He was good at that. He was a soldier. I felt dismissed, that people thought me to be a bitter ex-wife. I wanted to scream. I'm a health care professional. I am well respected. I worked in a family health team. I worked with physicians, and social workers and psychiatrists. We dealt with these things all the time. I knew what I was seeing, but nobody would listen. Summer turned to fall, and he continued to lose weight and to drink. He looked awful. He was in fact yellow. He spent the weekend before he died with us at home. He was crumbling before my eyes. I tried twice to take him to emergency that weekend, but he wouldn't go. He threatened that if I forced him to go or called 911, he would lie and be out in 24 hours and then just not tell me where he was.
That Monday morning he left before we woke. I woke up to a text. I called him. He took one last call from me. He told me where he was, at Kingston Mills, and when I said I was sending help, he hung up. That was it. He was dead within 10 minutes.
Appropriate treatment was not given. He certainly was not comfortable seeking it or really admitting that he needed it or knowing that he needed it. He was a trained soldier. He was trained never to stop. He could do nothing but that. He cringed at the suggestion that there was anything wrong with him. It was obviously me causing all the problems in our life.
I know that physicians and others can't read minds, but to believe him blindly despite the weight loss, the behaviour changes, and despite multiple warnings from me.... There must be some way to give some consideration to what families see and what they know to be true. Now I'm a widow and now I interact with Veterans Affairs.
I must say briefly that I have met some very helpful people. I met a very helpful lady from Newfoundland, who was living in Kirkland Lake, and she helped direct me through the system. I must say that the bureaucracy is soul-crushing and the paperwork is onerous.
I've tried to do as much of my children's work as possible, partially because the application for student benefits must be done in its totality every year. You just can't send proof of enrolment. They have to be totally redone, and it takes hours. It would be nice if this could be streamlined.
The last thing I will mention here—it may seem small—is something I think could be easily changed. When my children receive mail regarding their education benefit, the subject line always reads: “Subject: Regarding Deceased, Elms, Bradley Alfred”. That's how they start every single letter. That small clerical change would move some of the trauma associated with receiving that paperwork.
That's all I have for now.
I'd be happy to expand on any of this or answer any questions you may have. Don't be shy.
Mark Campbell Representative, Equitas Society
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for having us.
I am a veteran as well, having spent 32 years as an infantry officer with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. I'm one of the six plaintiffs in the Equitas class action lawsuit that continues against the Government of Canada based on what we perceive to be unfair levels of financial compensation for those under the Pension Act versus under the current new Veterans Charter. As well, I have served the last two years on the minister's policy advisory group here in Ottawa.
A fundamental enabler for what we're talking about here, which is transition, is long-term financial security. This government has taken steps to provide that through the so-called pension for life. Unfortunately, from our perspective, the pension for life falls far short. The pension for life does nothing to improve the financial situation for 88% of moderately to lightly disabled veterans, those who are expected to move on and transition to a full second career with gainful employment. Those who are not severely disabled will continue to receive approximately 40% less under the pension for life than they would have under the Pension Act.
The pension for life does not achieve parity with the former Pension Act for 12% of the most seriously disabled veterans. Here is why. Under the Pension Act, disabled veterans have dual income streams. They have two income streams. They have their tax-free medical disability pension, and they have their entire taxable military service pension they paid into for the duration of the time they served in the military. There are two distinct and separate income streams with no clawbacks or crossover.
Under the pension for life, the income replacement benefit provides a single income stream. The military pension, however, is the first thing that's clawed back by the Manulife Insurance Company, or Veterans Affairs Canada, as income. We will never achieve parity until that dual income stream is restored for those who are going to fall under the pension for life. This requires that the regulated income replacement benefit not be made subject to the clawback of the military service pension and CPP disability, and it needs to be a protected, legislated, indexed benefit not subject to amendment by bureaucratic regulation. That is the income replacement benefit.
For 80% of the moderately or slightly disabled, parity with the Pension Act can only occur if the monthly pain and suffering award is substantially increased.
Furthermore, the pension for life fails to combine the best parts of the former Pension Act and the new Veterans Charter, as was specifically recommended by the minister's policy advisory group. The attendance allowance and the exceptional incapacity allowance were not ported over from the Pension Act as specifically recommended by the minster's policy advisory group.
Furthermore, family benefits, which existed under the Pension Act, were not restored under the pension for life, although a caregiver recognition benefit, which comes into effect this April, does provide $1,000 per month tax-free to a spouse or family member who has become a primary caregiver. Now in most cases, those people had given up full-time careers to become those primary caregivers, so you can imagine that $1,000 per month, even tax free, doesn't come close to replacing my spouse's former $60,000-a-year income. There is no income replacement benefit for family primary caregivers.
The last thing I'll address before turning it over to my compatriot here is the education benefit. One thing you need to understand when we talk about this wonderful education benefit, which provides $40,000 at the six-year service threshold and $80,000 at the 12-year service threshold, is that most will not qualify. What we mean by this is, the fact of the matter is, the vast majority of the injured and disabled are privates and corporals, junior ranks who we send through the door first and place into the position of greatest danger, with less than six years of service required to meet that initial qualification threshold for the education benefit.
Furthermore, it is unclear how any of our reserve force with two years of equivalent service full-time are going to qualify for the same education benefit. As far as we're concerned, the education bit is a red herring; it's smoke and mirrors. It's the same with the priority hiring for the federal public service. The vast majority of your applicants are going to be corporals and privates. With less than six years of service, no bilingualism, and no university education, how do you qualify for a public service job? You can't.
I'll now turn it over to Aaron Bedard, who will speak to mental health and suicide.
Aaron Bedard Representative, Equitas Society
Thank you.
I'm also one of the plaintiffs in the Equitas lawsuit and have been at it for six years.
I've done something different from other advocates. I've tried to do as much outreach as possible to every single advocate in Canada. Anyone who has ever done a story, I reach out to, and that's afforded me a position where the media now approaches me when they want to do a story or when the ombudsman's office wants to do something. The researchers from VAC reach out to me. I've become the central network hub for advocacy in Canada today.
Leading up to the last election, I worked with Harjit Sajjan and Andrew Leslie to have included in the mandate a promise for an in-patient facility, a physical place for veterans to be treated. This hits home for me. It's the most important point I can make for this study you're doing on barriers to transition.
With the experiences of the two witnesses who just spoken, it's so vital to be able to give an individual a plan upfront the second they start to show signs of PTSD, or even the opportunity to start getting help in a plan before they have to say, “I have PTSD”, and step out. It's something that can help them manage through it and learn how to function with it.
Personally I've had groups that we started in B.C., and they're still ongoing and are actually spreading to other places in B.C. Some of the people who are still serving in the RCMP, federal corrections, and former service members are still working but have all the symptoms and stuff that I have. I am able to teach them all of the tools that I have for being able to function, despite my severe PTSD, a traumatic brain injury, and all the symptoms of mefloquine toxicity poisoning—the big three. Most people who have all three end up killing themselves. But if you work really hard, you figure it out. It's like doing a scavenger hunt, trying to figure it out right now, how to become functional, because there is no plan out there.
The people who run the mental health system in this country, these doctors, they all write books. But these books are really like stereotypical instructions and are not tailored to help the people they're supposed to help. On the programming that we do get sent into, the smaller ones like the veterans transition program and COPE, is fantastic except you have to wait up to a year or two years to get into them, which is bad. They don't come close to fulfilling the need, but they are great programs. They're also designed for only 10 days because they were established at a time when there were budgetary constraints so they had to be designed in a small way, at the discretion and the time of the doctors who could take part to facilitate them.
Being a part of this lawsuit, I also got to the point in 2013 of having a bit of a breakdown, and I had to go away for a while. When you have to go away for a while and get away from your wife before you ruin everything, you get sent to addiction centres, the Parkwoods. These are the gold standard, go-to places where you end up going. RCMP members go there as well, with gang members, drug dealers, addicts, hookers, CEO-type people, high-functioning people who abuse themselves and their families.
I was in there with the co-founder of the Red Scorpion gang. I'm sitting there with Ron Francis, an RCMP member who ended up leaving there after three or four days because he couldn't handle it. He ended up killing himself six months later. You might remember that he was the fellow who got in trouble for smoking pot in the red serge in 2013.
This fellow from the Red Scorpions was bragging about not being caught in the big Surrey Six murder many years back because he was already in jail on a gun charge.
Am I drifting? Okay.
Anyway, the “reboot program” that I got established with Harjit Sajjan and Andrew Leslie created a framework for troops to get into upfront so they could get out of the unit, get away from their family because they were masking all of their symptoms, and to get a plan and a program, going forward, so that from then on, no matter which doctor they saw, they would have a plan in hand.
You won the election and I pushed right away as part of our advance meetings with the senior ADMs. I pushed for the six advisory groups, specifically, in my own interest, for a mental health advisory group to help put together the framework for this program. Unfortunately, they wouldn't accept any of the doctors I pushed for, but the existing mental health system here in Ottawa brought in their people. The people associated with the Parkwoods program, the addiction centres, took real offence to our challenging that there needed to be a program like this.
Right now as it stands, we see money going toward research.
Am I running out of time?
Representative, Equitas Society
We have research money. As you know, CIMVHR is out there, the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research. Thousands of studies and reports have been done on PTSD. They've sliced the apple a million different ways. Enough is enough. We need programming. We need to put all of it together, to use the best practices and create a program, which would help minimize the trouble you're having through the gap with the JPSU and dealing with VAC.
Liberal
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Ms. Desmond, Ms. Elms, Mr. Bedard, and Mr. Campbell, thank you for your testimony here today. The system has failed all of you. The one comment sticking in my brain right now is yours, Ms. Elms, when you said the bureaucracy is “soul crushing”.
I happen to know it has been soul crushing since 2008 when I was sitting on this committee as a newly minted member of Parliament, yet we have the bureaucracy and the minister coming back to us to tell us all is well, or that we have to change the culture. That's been the case since 2008. It was happening long before 2008, I believe.
Thank you for what you have said here today. You have covered a lot of what I wanted to question. However, I want to remind this committee what our current Prime Minister said publicly during the election, when he wanted to become Prime Minister and stood with the Equitas group and said that we would never fight veterans in court. Is that an accurate quote, Mr. Campbell?
Conservative
Representative, Equitas Society
I don't believe the Prime Minister has an accurate quote. If he were to quote himself or to say something accurate, he would say we are going to continue to fight our veterans in court because that's precisely what the Liberal Party of Canada has chosen to do.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Okay. He promised lifetime pensions, yet you have said today they fall far short of the expectation when he made that promise. You have partially articulated that. Others in this country have done the analysis and have been quoted. These are other advocates within the veterans community that we quoted to the minister at the last meeting. The minister said they are wrong. So he is saying to you that you are wrong.
What is your reaction to that?
Representative, Equitas Society
My reaction to that is that he's either not listening to me, not understanding me, or he's being disingenuous. It's one of the three, and it can't be all three.
At the end of the day, the pension for life does not meet the long-term financial security needs of Canada's disabled veterans. It doesn't meet it for the 12% of the seriously disabled, and it very much does not meet it for the approximately 88% who are not seriously disabled.
There is no parity with the Pension Act. Nobody wants to go back to the old Pension Act. We want a fair shake. We want what the Government of Canada took away from us in the middle of the Afghanistan war in April 2006. The Prime Minister made his election promise to reinstate the lifelong pension. “Reinstate” means bringing back something that was taken away. That's all we're asking. Give us what you took away. We're not asking for largesse. We're not asking to be made rich overnight. We're asking what was promised to us, and for what was taken away without consultation.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
As I understand the other part of the Equitas lawsuit that is being determined at the Supreme Court level now—whether or not it will be heard by the Supreme Court—is a recognition of this country and every Canadian's solemn relationship with veterans. That, I believe, is at the heart of the lawsuit, and yet when we put forward a motion on the floor of the House of Commons through MP Brassard's private member's bill to ask this government to recognize those principles by putting them in legislation, every sitting member of this government voted against it.
What is your reaction to that?
Representative, Equitas Society
My reaction to the veterans who are now politicians who voted against that is disgust, quite frankly. They have betrayed their compatriots in uniform and those who have left the service as well who have difficulties, in my view.
The issue really for Equitas is—
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Okay, can I carry on?
I'll go to Mr. Bedard.
The Prime Minister also said during the election campaign that “a Liberal government will budget $20 million to create two new centres of excellence in veterans’ care, including one with a specialization in mental health, PTSD, and related issues for both veterans and first responders”.
The money promised was put toward research, as I understand it, not to establish those centres. Is that true?
Representative, Equitas Society
Yes, the dollar figure was costed right in front of me, and it was for building physical places to treat veterans for PTSD, and it was only when the platform announcement was done that suddenly there was this addition of research. So it comes as no surprise now that they have weaselled out of the programming to get back to research, which seems to be all they want to do.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
The National Association of Federal Retirees developed a veterans outreach initiative in 2017 to determine what has, and has not been, working for veterans. I'm going to quote something under the heading of “respect” in this report: “There were two areas where veterans noted a feeling of lack of respect when dealing with VAC: feeling they have to fight for benefits, and some interactions with VAC staff. Many felt that processes were intentionally difficult to discourage applications or to deny benefits.”
I'm going to ask this of Ms. Desmond.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
I apologize, but the answer will have to be very short. We're out of time.
Advocate, Desmond Family Tragedy Rally For Change, As an Individual
Okay. Can you recite that please, quickly?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
Actually we're a minute over now. Sorry, Mr. McColeman.
Maybe later in the testimony you can react to that.
Mr. Bratina.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Thanks, everyone, for being here. It's tough for us to listen to, but it's important that we do.
I'll ask Ms. Elms and Ms. Desmond something first of all.
I don't think you're here to hear politicians argue with each other about who has done better. I think you are here to hope that this committee will bring forward recommendations that will correct the problems you have experienced. Is that fair to say? Aren't you really tired of hearing politicians argue about things?