Veterans Affairs Committee on June 12th, 2018

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

I really appreciate that. I hope Veterans Affairs—

[Phillip Ledoux]

I have one other comment. You mentioned veterans from other countries. I do extensive research on veterans and the services for the famed Gurkhas of India, who are one of the most famous military units, are worse than ours, and that's the truth.

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

I know I only have about 45 seconds.

Mr. Lackenbauer, you talked about practices around the world. Is there a country that's doing a great job at having former veterans as their caseworkers doing front-line work, or with their return-to-work policies? Is there any leadership that you can identify?

[Prof. Whitney Lackenbauer]

That's out of my area of expertise, sir. I can't provide you information on that.

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

Mr. Ledoux, in terms of the proposal that you sent in December, is there anything in it that VAC hasn't replied to you about and that you want us to know about here at the committee?

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

We're down to about 15 seconds for that answer.

[Phillip Ledoux]

What I would like to see is an official response that you people received it, because, like I said before, we sent it to eight different ministers and there was no response at all. The eight are still outstanding, which needs to be addressed today, not tomorrow.

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

Mr. Ellis, can I ask that we get that sent to the committee?

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

We've already asked for it at the last meeting. Thank you.

Ms. Lambropoulos, four minutes please.

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

Thank you very much for being here with us both of the witnesses. I'm going to first begin by asking Professor Whitney Lackenbauer something.

You mentioned that the rangers don't often identify as veterans once they retire, if they retire. You said that their service is continuous and that often, not too many of them end up in the veteran category. For them to receive services from Veterans Affairs, or to begin even contemplating looking for these services from Veterans Affairs, I guess they would need to consider themselves as veterans. What do you think we can do to help them understand that this is the category they fall under, for which they then have access to these services?

[Prof. Whitney Lackenbauer]

That's wonderful. I think, first of all, we need to open up a dialogue with the ranger community about this. I think the statistics from 2013-2016 indicated that the average annual national ranger release rate was about 3.8% per year. That means there are actually quite a sizeable number of them, some 5,000 rangers across the country who are leaving the forces. That's a significant number who are voluntarily releasing from Canadian Armed Forces service, which I think is worthy of consideration. I think to even identify what their interests might be in accessing these services is something that should begin with a conversation.

One of the necessary preconditions to better understanding the opportunities and challenges that we face is getting more robust data on the rangers. Right now the headquarters of the different ranger patrol groups are dramatically understaffed; they need more clerks and ranger instructors, who are the key means of accessing that kind of data. And until we have a sense of what sort of numbers we're looking at and a demographic profile of those individuals who have released from the rangers, I'm not sure we'll even be in a position yet to figure out what that opportunity space looks like.

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

And you also spoke a lot about the very important work they do that is sometimes undervalued.

How do you think we can spread the word to the Canadian population about the importance of what they do out there?

[Prof. Whitney Lackenbauer]

Great. I think it's a responsibility of all of us to communicate and celebrate the various forms of service that the Canadian Armed Forces provide to our country. I think a lot of the attention and public association with veterans is with individuals who served overseas during the world wars, the Korean War, and of course more recently in Afghanistan.

I think it's important to also commemorate the work of Canadian Armed Forces personnel, men and women who have served to defend our country here in Canada. I think that members of the Canadian rangers and indigenous personnel more broadly become part of that story. I think, particularly in the Canadian north and in isolated coastal communities, because of the high rates of indigenous representation in the rangers, that will inherently become a very indigenous part of our military history.

Again, we encourage recognition of this form of service on the home front, the home game, as service to the country, and that individuals who served on the home front indeed be recognized as veterans.

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

Thank you very much.

How much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

You have one minute.

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

Monsieur Ledoux, thank you for being here with us for a second time.

I know that last time you spoke about the work you do in trying to bridge the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous veterans, you felt that there was unfairness and that they aren't treated equally. Can you speak a little more to that point and mention what happened at the legion? Are there a lot of examples like this?

[Phillip Ledoux]

Yes. First of all, when we were in active service with the military, both with our first nations and non-first nations military, we were treated as equals. We called each other “brother” or “sister”, whatever the case might have been, and we acknowledged each other. Then it seemed that when we left the military, that disappeared. When we returned to our home territory, even our own people treated us differently because we had seen things, experienced things, they had not seen. It is very rare for a veteran to speak about his personal experiences while serving in the military, but we talk among ourselves because we know what we went through.

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

Thank you very much for all the work you do on the ground.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Mr. Fraser, you have four minutes.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you both for joining us, Professor Lackenbauer and Mr. Ledoux.

Mr. Ledoux, are you generally aware of the programs and services available to veterans from Veterans Affairs Canada? Do you feel that you're given enough information from Veterans Affairs Canada in a simple manner to explain to your members what services are available to them?

[Phillip Ledoux]

Yes, but you need to be a lawyer or a professor to understand what some of the paperwork is requesting. Application forms are very—

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

I understand. As a lawyer I don't even know if that would be enough to understand all of the complications around the services available, so I take your point well on that.

Do you work with the reopened veterans' office in Saskatoon to get information to your local members?

[Phillip Ledoux]

I am very good friends with one of the ladies there. She is an advocate for our first nation veterans, but we have yet to make any progress because the reopening of the office was so recent..

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

If I could turn for a moment to the monuments and the commemoration you spoke about, you talked about one community in particular that has had a number of veterans serve our country who have not been recognized. When this committee travelled, we went to Beauval, Saskatchewan. There is a monument there and a place for the community to gather on Remembrance Day. It's a symbol to honour the veterans from that area. It was very touching to see how much that meant to the people in Beauval.

Which community did you say had, I think, 80 veterans?

[Phillip Ledoux]

That was from my reserve, my home territory, my own community.