Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Good afternoon. For those who may not know me, I'm Senator Rebecca Patterson. Before taking this role, I served as a member of the Canadian Armed Forces for 34 years. I was deployed in various theatres of operation, including the Persian Gulf, Somalia and Afghanistan, providing operational-level medical planning and support to Canadian Armed Forces personnel deployed across the world.
I'm here as an individual and a veteran.
On the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in January 1991, armed conflict broke out in the Persian Gulf. Canada committed one Canadian field hospital to support the British Army's 33rd Field Hospital in support of an anticipated ground war. Less than 24 hours after hostilities broke out, I became a member of 1 Canadian Field Hospital as a critical care nurse. I, along with about 350 other medical personnel of all occupations, signallers, logisticians and a platoon of Royal Canadian Regiment infantry soldiers, was brought to CFB Petawawa in Ontario to conduct pre-deployment training and prepare equipment.
The full complement of the field hospital arrived in Saudi Arabia by mid-February 1991. Due to the rapid evolution of the ground war, along with safety concerns about transporting personnel in a war zone, only a complement to the field hospital, along with our British counterparts, was deployed to the forward location, approximately 40 kilometres from the Saudi-Kuwait-Iraqi border.
The duties of forward-deployed field hospital personnel included surgical and medical treatment of allied soldiers and wounded Iraqi soldiers. Eventually, our RCR platoon was tasked with helping to manage the influx of Iraqi detainees. They were also responsible for escorting wounded Iraqis through the treatment process. We returned home in late March 1991. You can accurately say that 1 Canadian Field Hospital was physically closest to the ground campaign.
Since the adoption of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, Canada has formally declared war only once, back in 1939, when King—on the advice of his Canadian ministers—brought Canada into the Second World War. Therefore, Canadians went to war and de facto became war veterans. Canada has not formally declared war on another nation since the Charter of the United Nations was signed in 1945. Despite this, Canadian military forces have engaged in conflict areas around the world as part of police actions, peacekeeping, peacemaking or any other type of intervention on the direction of Canada.
As Michel Rossignol aptly noted in a 1992 paper prepared for us here in Parliament, the Canadian Forces Act of 1950 allowed the armed forces to be placed on active service by the Governor in Council, advised by the Minister of National Defence, not only when Canada's security was threatened but also when—I'm going to underline this—collective action was taken under the UN charter, NATO or any other collective defence agency. In fact, placing military on active service is done for bureaucratic reasons and for access to benefits. As noted by the Minister of National Defence in 1951, it relates to the application of the insurance principle. That has been very well covered by my predecessors.
From the Cold War to the modern day, placing military forces on active service has been required to ensure they are ready to engage at a moment's notice anywhere conflicts arise around the world. While the “when” to place troops on active service effectively changed with the introduction of that act, it unintentionally created a loophole for future veterans to be ineligible for the same benefits as those who served in active service during the Second World War and eventually Korea.
The next bureaucratic choice was the requirement to designate a theatre of operations as an SDA, as well as consult with the Minister of Veterans Affairs on benefits, and so the Canadians who served in these theatres of operation are not considered war veterans.
We must ask ourselves whether the current definitions and criteria for veterans' benefits and commemorative recognition truly recognize the realities of modern conflict. Canadians have served, been injured and have died on behalf of our country since the Boer War. I ask you whether one death or injury is worth more or less than another, based on time. As yet—you've heard many other fabulous testimonies—we currently have a system with stark differences between how veterans are treated and how they are commemorated, depending on the nature of the conflict they served in and where it took place.
I have a number of recommendations that I will touch on very quickly, then I will conclude.
The first recommendation is to consider a definition of war as a subcategory consideration under “special duty area” within applicable acts and regulations. You've heard about the Pension Act and disequilibrium.
VAC should conduct a study, including the use of a veterans round table, to modernize and harmonize these two acts.
The inequities, as we know, go beyond just the veterans themselves. We heard this committee come forward in 2023 with a push to repeal the “gold digger” clause about marriage over 60. This must continue, because modern veterans live beyond the age of 60 years, and they're independent adults.
Finally, our families also serve. I recommend that we consider them an extension of service and call for the implementation of the 2021 Office of the Veterans Ombudsman's recommendation that mental health treatment benefits be available to family members, in their own right, for conditions related to their allied military service.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your questions.