Evidence of meeting #110 for Veterans Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sean.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Terry Dowdall Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
Did you have meetings with the minister for Veterans Affairs as well to highlight that it should be considered wartime service?
Retired Captain, Air Force Intelligence Officer, As an Individual
Yes. There was former minister Eggleton and former minister Duhamel.
Conservative
Retired Captain, Air Force Intelligence Officer, As an Individual
Recently? No, they don't want to talk to us.
Conservative
Conservative
Terry Dowdall Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
It would certainly help, I would think, if you're in that position and if you're the governing party in that position, to—
Conservative
Terry Dowdall Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
—argue for the topic of wartime service to the Minister of National Defence.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you, Mr. Dowdall.
I'd like to go to Mr. Brian May for five minutes, please.
October 24th, 2024 / 12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Bryan May Liberal Cambridge, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As everybody has said, thank you to the witnesses for being here, for your service and for your testimony here today.
Seeing that we are nearing the end of the meeting, sometimes one of the last questioners tries to summarize and give you an opportunity to bring recommendations.
Some of the notes I've jotted down reminded me of some of the great work that is being done by some of the non-profits and other organizations. You mentioned, sir, that when you can connect directly with Veterans Affairs, there is some great work being done and they do need more resources to deal with some of the complex issues. I would agree, as that has been my experience as well in working with veterans and different organizations.
One of them, if this committee will indulge me yet again, which I've mentioned here before, is the military veterans wellness program that was started by Toronto Police Service constables Aaron Dale and Jeremy Burns. They identified a very specific gap in being able to connect veterans with services. One of the challenges Veterans Affairs Canada has is they don't have people on the ground directly in touch, in frontline scenarios, with veterans in need, specifically those who are suffering from homelessness and, potentially, drug addiction and mental health issues. There is that detachment and gap there. These two gentlemen identified this and created this program, and it took off.
I'm very proud that the Region of Waterloo expanded the program to constables David Cassidy and Brian Serapiglia. Since they've taken on the program, they have directly connected over 80 veterans in the Waterloo region who were in need of services with Veterans Affairs Canada, and those folks are being served now.
I'm wondering if there are other examples you can bring forth as recommendations for how we here can facilitate. There is a role to play for those frontline services, and there is a role to play for non-profit organizations and other organizations like the Legion and No Soldier Left Behind.
I'm wondering, sir, if you can use the rest of my time to provide us with some very concrete recommendations that we could put forth in this report.
Retired Captain, Air Force Intelligence Officer, As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. May.
It's always a fine line for veterans to recognize that, look, the public needs to be involved. At the same time, we don't want to see an abrogation of the government's responsibility to directly care for us. Yes, I think the outreach program that civilians and police officers can do.... Anything is good that they can...because they become part of the solution, right?
The education gets out there on the streets, and they become more approachable. Until Veterans Affairs builds up a better reputation within the veteran community and until Veterans Affairs gets more resources, we're going to need people like that to get veterans into the programs, so there's a recommendation. Let's hire a lot more staff. Let's increase the budget substantially for employees.
I think Veterans Affairs also has to look at what Louise has been talking about. It's just one step after what Louise says, which is that we really need, first of all, a true research department.
Veterans Affairs does do some research. A lot of it is paper research. A lot of it is done in conjunction with Statistics Canada, and they produced the last survey, which is a very valuable tool, but the information is being ignored.
The focus has always been on getting those veterans employed and getting them off the payroll. Let's get them out there and get them off case management because we have quotas to fill, right? Those are the perverse incentives that the employees are under. Instead, you know, we're not looking at the holistic part of the veteran, right? How do we make them feel like they belong to the country? How do we get communities to do outreach?
Another thing is how we care for the complex disabilities that many veterans are suffering from. The solution we've been recommending is called “shattering the stigma”. In fact, I put it in a report to the committee on April 14, 2021. You guys all have a copy of it. It has multi-part recommendations to improve all aspects of Veterans Affairs. That includes, for instance, a collaborative care model, which is an interdisciplinary team, a real one. Veterans Affairs says that they have those. It's an administrative interdisciplinary team that they have, but we need a true team of practitioners who know the client, who know that if the client is suffering from symptom X and that if a specialist can't deal with that, they have another specialist in line. That model's been working in the United States Veterans Affairs for a number of years now. It's very successful.
That brings us back to Louise's point. If Canada's not going to be doing the active scientific research.... I think this was 10 years ago, but the U.S. Veterans Affairs research department had a annual budget of $270 million U.S. We're not even spending 1% of that, to my knowledge, in Canada, so if we're not going to do our own research, then let's complete the next part of the puzzle, the other recommendation. Let's accept all presumptive conditions that the U.S. has recognized for all special duty areas. That's an easy one. Let's incorporate the research from Australia and the U.S. and have informed disability assessment decisions based on that research.
Let's have an independent team of specialists who tell Veterans Affairs about this scientific information and how to incorporate it into a disability assessment. Let's change the width. Let's hire more assessors. You guys have been railing against the backlog for years. That's an easy one, another recommendation.
If you go back to the report that I provided, you'll see that there are 53 recommendations in there. I think you'll find some very valuable ones that will address what we're talking about now.
What I would want to say is that all the thank yous are so appreciated by us here, and the words you have all said to us are very meaningful. I think the fear of every veteran is that it ends at thank you. There has to be some substantive compensation of some sort behind that, a substantive obligation to care for us. As I've said in private to some of you, some of the large focus is on just getting more money for this program that veterans have, and one reason is that it does replace a hole that's not been given by or returned by our country.
As for the reciprocity of, “We really care for you; we're going to show it to you; we're going to get you re-established; we're going to have people there for you 24 hours a day when you're in crisis”, I don't mean a 1-800 number. I'm talking about a true practitioner, a clinical care manager who's there and on call. Let's say the case manager has 30 people but can also reach out to the specialist right away to help that person, right? That's a true collaborative care model. That's what we're missing in terms of one-on-one care. The budget is the big thing we're missing overall.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Emmanuel Dubourg
Thank you to the witnesses.
On behalf of members of the committee, interpreters, clerks, analysts, I'd like to thank you.
As individuals, we had Sean Bruyea, retired captain and air force intelligence officer; and Louise Richard, retired naval lieutenant and nurse.
Is it the pleasure of the committee to adjourn? I see that it is.
The meeting is adjourned.