Veterans Affairs Committee on June 12th, 2018

[Phillip Ledoux, Vice-President, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan First Nation Veterans Association]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ellis. Good morning to you and your committee.

First of all, I would like to highlight a few of the comments I made last week, and then I'll continue with today's presentation.

First of all, the vision statement of our First Nations Veterans Association is to bring equality to all our SFNVA members and to close the gap in the quality of life between first nations and non-first nation veterans and families.

There have been considerable historical promises made to first nation veterans, and a lot of these have fallen through the cracks. One of the things we submitted last week that you had requested was a proposal for support back in September of 2017. Again, we haven't received any response from the crown.

Because we are veterans and have lived through armed conflict, we see the wave of mental health needs facing our communities and the supportive response required. Mental health issues, specifically PTSD, remain a growing crisis facing not only veterans but also first nations communities.

Those are some of the issues that I highlighted in our first presentation. Now, I'll present my presentation for this part of the exercise.

Thank you for inviting me to return to speak on the critical issues facing Saskatchewan first nation veterans. The issues I am speaking to have long been of great concern and are reaching a critical point in terms of their severity. These issues need immediate resolution, a redress for veterans.

When first nation veterans answered the call to serve, we fought, and in some cases perished alongside our non-indigenous brothers in arms. This is something we were prepared to do; however, we were not prepared for the treatment we received afterwards. There was a great injustice perpetrated against the families the veterans left behind. Although families were entitled to survivor and widow benefits, what actually occurred was that the Indian agents on reserve deemed the widows and families of veterans who perished as wards beholden to the benevolence of the Indian agent.

This meant that, in many cases, the benefits for widows and their families were never disbursed beyond the Indian agents themselves, and we have documented proof of this. Widows and families were left without aid and were forced to navigate the loss of their family members and left with the sole responsibility of caring for their families. This injustice has never been addressed. We have no idea how many families this has affected.

What we know is that many of the families of veterans who perished in conflict were further disrupted as part of the sixties scoop because the crown left them no means to continue caring for their families. There has never been redress for these widows or their families.

The other issue I would like to raise is the wait times in receiving services from Veterans Affairs. It is well-known that services on reserve are at best minimal, and at worst non-existent. Many veterans must wait years for their claims to be processed. When claims are processed, there is no consideration of how veterans are supposed to access services, or no services exists.

Veterans Affairs assumes that access to services on reserve is the same as off-reserve urban centres. This is absolutely not the case. Where no services exist on reserve, veterans have two choices. They either go without or they absorb the personal costs to access services off reserve. First nations' veterans need a specific claim process that considers the proximity and access to services needed. Furthermore, they need an advocate who can assist them within the claim and appeals process.

There can be no surprise when I speak to the next issue. The pervasive occurrence of veteran suicide is of national concern. For first nation veterans, the issue of mental health and suicide is of utmost urgency and has not been adequately addressed. There is no comprehensive national database that can differentiate the rates of suicide occurrence between first nation veterans and non-first nation veterans, and certainly no mechanism that can differentiate between off- and on-reserve rates of veteran suicide.

Given the lack of infrastructure and services on reserve, consideration must be immediately forthcoming to look at providing comprehensive mental health services wherever veterans reside. Suicide and mental health are not issues that affect recently released veterans, but an issue that affects all veterans throughout their lifetime, regardless of the years in which their service occurred.

Another item I would like to address to the committee is regarding veterans' monuments. Several first nation communities applied for funding to erect veteran monuments, but were never considered, or were denied. Also, our dream is to have similar facilities much like those of the legions with similar services accessible for first nation veterans and their families.

I would like to make a comment on the veterans' monuments. I come from a first nation, the Mistawasis First Nation in north-central Saskatchewan. Since the Boer War up until present, we've had approximately 80 men and women who have enlisted in the armed services, and to date there is no monument there to honour these people.

I would like to thank the standing committee for allowing me to speak about these critical issues, and I look forward to seeing positive change for not only first nations' veterans, but all veterans.

At this time I would like to invite questions from the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

With the lack of time, we'll have to do four-minute rounds.

We'll start with Ms. Wagantall.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to both of you for being here today. We're dealing with two very different subjects—

[Phillip Ledoux]

Excuse me. Could you speak a little louder, please?

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

Sure.

We have two different focuses here, Phillip. I'm hoping to give you each a little bit of time here in my four minutes.

First, Whitney, you talked about the needs recognized up north. They are fairly typical to anywhere rural, although I think they're probably accentuated even more the further you go north. That being said, what is the current practice of tracking and reporting injuries and whatnot for the rangers service?

[Prof. Whitney Lackenbauer]

I'd defer to the DND-CAF ombudsman's report on that one. They did the more intense research on it. Their finding was that there is not reliable data on it. I'm not intending to speak for the ombudsman's office by any stretch, but they identified as an absolute need the requirement to make sure there's compliance with tracking of illnesses and injuries, as per proper reservist practice. I think that goes on within the reserves more broadly, and can be a problem within the CAF, as some serving personnel are reticent to be recorded as having gotten an injury or illness for fear that it may somehow be used against them when they're going out.

Given the informal nature of clearing people for heading out on the land as rangers, I think some of those concerns on the part of rangers will also have to be considered in ensuring that rangers feel comfortable sharing that information and tracking it.

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

Thank you.

Phillip, can you hear me now?

[Phillip Ledoux]

I'm getting up in age. My hearing has become—

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

I understand. My husband and I are into lip-reading now—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

—in more ways than one.

On that kind of silly note, I do want to talk to you about the concerns around veterans suicide. This committee has heard over and over again about how this is a growing concern for our veterans, certainly with first nations indigenous veterans as well as generally. I know personally of the loss of two more last week.

For yourself, why do you think it is that we haven't done a good job of tracking something like this?

[Phillip Ledoux]

I have talked to quite a few veterans, first nation and non-first nation, and we believe the same thing: we have committees in Ottawa trying to address our concerns relating to veterans and nobody understands a veteran better than a veteran. We feel that this program dealing with mental health issues, PTSD, should be comprised of military people who have experienced it first-hand.

We have talked to people who say, “We know. We understand.” No, you don't. You don't understand what we went through. You would have to have lived it.

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

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mr. Eyolfson, you have four minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

Thank you both for coming.

Mr. Ledoux, you gave accounts of families—this isn't the first time I've heard it, but I'm still shocked to hear it—who were considered, as you say, wards of the Indian agent, and the monies withheld. It is shameful. As a Canadian, I feel ashamed to hear that this happened.

I'm wondering if you have any idea of how long ago this last happened. Has it been happening up until recent times or is it more remote? How long ago did this last happen?

[Phillip Ledoux]

Not very long ago—quite recently.

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

I was afraid that would be the answer.

[Phillip Ledoux]

I also have one comment I would like to make regarding the legions. This is supposed to be an organization for the betterment of services for veterans and their families. We have experienced personally that there is a difference in the service provided.

In some cases, there is outright refusal to serve first nation veterans. I talked to one veteran in particular, who wore his uniform, who had his medals on—he served in Korea—and he entered a legion, and he was turned away. Why? Is this what we fought for? Is this why we put on the uniform?

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

Again, I was not aware of that. That is shameful. You're right; that is not what you fought for, and I'm sorry.

We obviously have a very long way to go, and that is one of the reasons we're doing this study. We want to find out what these issues are and what we can do to fix them. That can't make things better from the past, but I'm hoping that with this, we can improve things for the future.

Just to go on, because I want to get some testimony from both witnesses, Mr. Lackenbauer, can you speak to the relationship with indigenous people in the military comparatively to other jurisdictions around the world? As you may know, one of our previous studies was a comparative study.

Can you say how we rank, or how things go with how other countries treat their indigenous veterans?

[Prof. Whitney Lackenbauer]

Certainly.

There's been some fantastic work done in other countries, like Australia, New Zealand, United States, other British settler societies, as Dr. Sheffield referred to them a few weeks ago to you. Again, there is a lot of commonality across the board.

It depends on what era we're looking at, as well. Certainly with a lot of the treatment from the World Wars, Korean War era, there are a lot of commonalities across the board. Dr. Sheffield is working on a book with Noah Riseman of Australia that I think highlights a lot of those issues, and certainly Dr. Riseman has done a lot of work on what's going on in Australia and New Zealand.

In terms of looking at some practices that are specific to indigenous veterans, I think there's some very interesting literature that's been produced in the United States looking at Vietnam War veterans, so native Americans who served in the Vietnam War, and some of the practices of devising culturally appropriate mechanisms to help those individuals transition back to civilian life in a culturally appropriate way. That might be helpful in informing some of the background material for this.

It's hard to draw a general estimate about how Canada ranks compared to others. There are a lot of commonalities in challenges, and certainly the difficulties experienced by indigenous veterans across the board, as Mr. Ledoux has articulated for us here.

However, some of the efforts over the last decade, decade and a half, in Canada to acknowledge these problems and try to seek some sort of reconciliation on them, I think have been positively received, not only in Canada, but in other countries as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Mr. Johns, four minutes.

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

Thanks.

First, Mr. Lackenbauer, I hope it's okay on behalf of the committee to pass on our congratulations and thanks to those people in Whitehorse tomorrow. Also, I hope you get the answers to the questions that you put forward to Veterans Affairs.

I'll start with Mr. Ledoux. Thank you for your service, sir.

You talked about nobody understanding a veteran more than a veteran. We've heard in the United States that they shoot for a goal of 30% of their front-line caseworkers being former veterans.

Would it help to have designated aboriginal veterans and aboriginal liaison officers working for Veterans Affairs to serve aboriginal veterans?

[Phillip Ledoux]

Most likely.

That is very commendable, but we have yet to see it.

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

Right, I figured that.

Recently we heard from rural communities. It was through the ministerial advisory council on mental health, which hasn't met for quite some time, but they did recommend that in-patient facilities should be built.

Do you agree that it would help veterans who are suffering from PTSD to have an in-patient care facility? We can't have resources all throughout the country, but maybe something that is built in-house with some sort of culturally sensitive caseworkers working there as well.

[Phillip Ledoux]

We've had this exercise about two years ago here in Saskatchewan. There was a former sanatorium that was out of use and we were looking at the possibility of purchasing that building. When the owners found out they were going to deal with first nations, the price of the building skyrocketed way beyond our means, and that's the way it existed. This facility would have been ideal for our disabled veterans, instead of putting them in other facilities. They would be among their own people and could practice their own culture, and generally we could look after ourselves in our way because we do have cultural differences.