Evidence of meeting #92 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 help.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
You also mentioned that veterans in general don't feel comfortable opening up to the rest of the population when they haven't necessarily experienced the same things. They haven't killed anybody and haven't done the things they've had to do while on duty.
What do you think the Government of Canada can do to improve this veteran-to-veteran approach?
Chair and Vice-President, Métis Nation of Ontario
Mr. Johns talked about getting more veterans involved as caseworkers who are out in the field, getting them out to identify.... Veterans aren't going to sit in a circle room and express their feelings. There isn't one program that is going to suit all veterans, and that's why there are so many of those groups out there. Definitely the peer-to-peer, veteran-to-veteran approach would get the best results. How to go about that is outside my purview.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you.
Ms. Gage, you are the first female indigenous veteran we have seen. I could be wrong, but I think so. You're the first one who has really expressed yourself—
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
We've heard from a lot of the males, and they said that when they were actual soldiers, they felt very included. They felt like things were going well for them while they were in the army. You speak of a very different experience, and I'm wondering if that's because you are a woman and because the culture of the armed forces needs to change in order to make women feel like they belong. As a woman who is indigenous as well, you have a completely different experience, and with that upbringing, it could have been an even bigger culture shock for you.
What do you think we can do to improve the situation for women in general and to make it more culturally appropriate? I know we have improved in that sense, and now elders are sometimes brought in to help train people working in the armed forces. What else do you think we could do?
Chair, Unified Veterans of Manitoba
There are a million things. The first thing I'd like to put on the table is to caution every single, solitary one of you from the top of Veterans Affairs down to be careful of who you choose as an elder. Make sure they are truly recognized by their people as elders, not by just anybody. That is very important, because there are a lot of instant elders—“Just add money, and I'll be there.” That's just a warning.
When I was in the service, it was a little bit different from today because we were two separate services. There was the regular army and there was the Women's Army Corps. That doesn't exist any more. It's all one. As for the camaraderie, when you are a soldier in uniform, you are pretty much accepted until certain little aspects in life cause women to stand out a little bit more. If you have an officer who wants something typed up properly, they're not going over to Doug and ask him to type it. They're going to come over to Randi and ask her. Of course, I'm a secretary, and he may be a business education person. What can I say?
Make sure there is a clear understanding that when you're a soldier, you're a soldier. One of the issues about being a soldier is just that—you are a soldier. You're a comrade. You're the same. When you deploy someone, this is the time that the real differences happen, because a simple little thing.... You just have to look at the deployment. Make sure there are things there for the deployed woman soldier, like privacy to pee: a bucket and a blanket.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
Thank you. I'm sharing my time with secretary Romanado, so I'll let you start.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Oh, thank you. Meegwetch, meegwetch. It's a real pleasure to meet you both.
I wanted to talk a little bit about the family unit. Both of you have served in the United States Army and the Canadian Armed Forces.
Have you served as well?
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Meegwetch. I'm sorry that we didn't have a chance to hear from you.
I want to thank you all for your service to your various countries, and of course as Canadians serving in the United States, to both countries.
I wanted to talk a little bit about how we could support the families of indigenous veterans. I think that's really important, because I'm a family member. I have two sons serving in the Canadian Armed Forces, so that's a component that I want to hear about from you, because we've heard that we need to involve the families, especially when one transitions from a very collectivist group to a very individualistic setting. As you said, once you leave, you're on your own.
What could we be doing to help, and what specific needs do indigenous families have to help support their veterans?
Women’s Representative, Métis Nation of Ontario
Thank you for having me here today. It took a while for me to be recognized as a veteran as I sit in this room with you. I've come across that since I got out of the military after 10 years' service. I was a peacekeeper. I still face that today. I was introduced as a Métis veteran, and I was told, “Oh, they're nothing.”
In this day and age, that needs to stop. I'm a proud mother. My son is 26 years old, and he happened to be born on United Nations peacekeeping day. My husband was a peacekeeper at the same time when we were on our tours. I was at the Israeli-Syrian border, the Golan Heights, while the Gulf War happened, so that took on a whole different meaning. I have stories I could tell, but I'm going to keep this short.
I'm a mother. My 10-year military career was fantastic. I chose to be a mother and I chose to get out at that time, not knowing what was going to hit me after the fact. One day you're at work, you've got your boots on, you're at the mess, you're having a beer, you're one of the guys, you're sharing stories, and it's fun. The next day, I'm home with a young baby, in my slippers, no family, nobody to talk to. I didn't know what to do with myself, because I was used to going to work. I didn't know how to be a mom to my first child, and there was no support for me to reach out to. I wasn't military. I was now civilian and I didn't know what to do with myself.
On the Métis side of it, as a Métis veteran, I only found out that I was Métis about 20 years ago. I'm the youngest of nine, and we lived in northern Ontario, but it was hidden from us. We did things that were Métis. Now I realize it. I could snare a rabbit and carry a pellet gun after school to go check my snares. I went moose-calling with my brothers. I still harvest today. I go up to the North Bay area—I'm not giving away the area—and I do harvest, and we are successful every year. I camp and I enjoy our traditional life, but I never grew up with our traditional life, so now that my son is 26, I try to teach him our traditional ways, and I also try to teach them to my nieces and my nephews.
Throughout our own community, not being full first nation myself, I do not go to a sweat lodge. I do not seek out elders to help me in any of my process. I don't have PTSD that I'm aware of, but I try to reach out to our Métis veterans, whether by a phone call or by organizing events in my local area to get the veterans out. I've been on Remembrance Day parades wearing my sash, my beret, and my medals, and it's like, “Are you a veteran? Are you a Métis veteran? Oh, why are you wearing your scarf around your waist?”
I think all we're looking for is to be recognized. Some of the symbols are so easy to recognize, like a blue beret amongst everybody on Remembrance Day. Everybody's proud of their berets.
We have veterans who just won't wear their medals because they can't. Because of their PTSD, from wherever they served, they don't want to be recognized as veterans. When we go into the communities or go into civilian facilities, as I'll call them, and try to explain that to people, they just don't get it.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for being here, and thank you for your service.
I could go on for hours, but we're short on time.
Ms. Gage, as part of answering this question, could you maybe give us a little bit of your background as well, and very quickly too? Throughout our travels the last couple of weeks, we came across a lot of veterans who served in the United States. From what you've told us so far, I understand that you were born in Michigan, and I see that connection, but there were a lot more here in Canada who went down to the States, and I'm just wondering if the Métis would have had the same kind of thought process in doing that?
Chair and Vice-President, Métis Nation of Ontario
In the traditional Métis territories, you have territory number three way up north, and then it comes down to around Winnipeg and the Red River. It definitely does go down into the U.S., so I'm sure that did happen, but I don't know any of the specifics off the top of my head. I know for sure it did happen, but to what degree I can't tell you.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I know some said, “We wanted to join the Marines, and that's the one reason.” It was equipment issues or whatever. Would you concur with that?
Chair, Unified Veterans of Manitoba
Am I allowed to say the things you're asking me to say without—
Chair, Unified Veterans of Manitoba
Nobody's calling security, right?
Well, to join the U.S. Army, you become a soldier. You become a soldier who picks up a gun and shoots people. You go out there and you kick butt. Remember, the door swung both ways at that time. We had the guys in the States running like crazy to get up here, and the guys up here running like crazy to get down there.
This was very much a country of peacekeepers. This was very much a country of “Yes, dears”. Down there it's “Get the hell out of my way. I'm going through.” I think for a lot of them who came down to fight—the ones I knew, because there were quite a few where I was working—that was their whole thing. They came down and they wanted to get into the fight.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you.
We've done previous studies on transition. One of the things we've talked about through that transition is that we spend hundreds of millions of dollars to train soldiers. They serve their time. When they're done, as you said, it's “Don't let the door hit you on the way out.”
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Right. We don't take any time to deprogram or to make them civilians again.
We have talked a bit about that with our forces in general, but would you say there's a difference? If someone was to do a program to make soldiers civilians again, would there be a difference in their approach with Métis, with indigenous veterans, or should it be the same type of program?
Chair, Unified Veterans of Manitoba
Being a civilian, that's a loaded one. Making a civilian...?
Chair and Vice-President, Métis Nation of Ontario
I think you're asking a bit of a loaded question. I will go right back to the World War II veterans when they left the service. They should not have been treated any differently than any other veteran was treated. You're asking the same thing, and I would say no.
The military family resource centres are starting a great program of that transition, and nobody should be excluded from that.
