Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 24th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you. I'm sorry, but that was six minutes.

Now let's go to Sean Casey. You have five minutes, please.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I, of course, need to address your comments with respect to the people I'm honoured to represent. I don't want to, in any way, shape or form appear to be disrespectful of you or what you said. It appears that you've already taken it as such, but please don't. I don't intend that.

I am here in Ottawa as the voice of the people who elected me to speak for them, many of whom, with respect, you maligned here today. I'll start with this: Do I understand you correctly that the only national headquarters of a federal government department located outside the national capital region should be moved back to Ottawa because people who are outside the national capital region have the wrong priorities, no sense of urgency and are lazy and insensitive?

[Sean Bruyea]

I don't think you should refer to your constituents that way, because we certainly didn't.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

That's what I heard.

[Sean Bruyea]

The fact that you feel maligned means you've lost perspective on what it means to serve and what sacrifices are being made on your behalf. In fact, we sat here and complimented the employees. When they're one-on-one with us, they're great. They're overwhelmed with work. The files that Louise was talking about are overwhelming for them. The policies and procedures are overwhelming for them, and I would say that you represent the governing party, which has every possibility of authorizing more resources to help further staff Veterans Affairs and find a replacement for those jobs that could be lost.

There's no maligning on this end, but we are maligning the system, and the system may consist of people, and if people want to take offence at that, that's their choice.

We need to address this problem, because 25 years ago we made the same requests that are being made at this committee, and nothing's happened. Why hasn't anything happened? It's because the system's still the same. We can't keep defending our little tribal areas. We have to look at the big picture and start making sacrifices for veterans, because we made them for you.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Ms. Richard, do you have anything to add?

[Lt (N) Louise Richard]

I said what I mean, and I mean what I said. I'm a veteran. I witnessed it. I've spoken to them. I met numerous times with Verna Bruce and Suzanne Tining, ministers and deputy ministers. I've been at this a long time.

It's very convenient that Charlottetown is.... I'm not saying they have to come to Ottawa. They could be in Sudbury. They could be somewhere else, but not hidden and tucked away on a little island so conveniently far away that it's too far for a veteran to know they're being served properly.

The other thing I wanted to mention before the break, sir, was about when I was there in 2006 and the ombudsman's office was being created under Pat Stogran. I stayed an extra day in Charlottetown to meet with our science department under Dr. Pedlar. I was shocked, because there is no science department.

Not only is there no science department, but when we look at all this beautiful science that's happening around the world on Gulf War illness, presumptive illness, diagnosis illness, cancers and treatments, not just for Gulf War vets but for depleted uranium, Kosovo, Somalia, Afghanistan, you name it, it's not just Gulf War veterans we're speaking about here. It's modern combat veterans as a whole, and I was appalled that here we were being judged and denied and ridiculed and minimized and delayed. You know, treatment delayed is treatment denied, and all they basically wanted us to do was go away and disappear.

I must say, the only thing that's fast-tracked in the system, sadly, is cannabis. You can have as much as you want, basically, because it doesn't have to go through Charlottetown.

Sometimes, when I speak with certain veterans.... Are we being asked to be silent and stoned in the basement of a place and just be basement rats tucked away conveniently? No, we want a life. We want at least a bit of quality of life. We want to be part of a society. We want to be members of our families. We want what you all have. We sacrificed. We understand that, but why does the true war happen, when one comes home, against the government and the country that sent us there in the first place? I don't get it.

To bring it back to you, sir, in Charlottetown, when I was there for that extra day with Dr. Pedlar and saw that we do not have a research department, the other thing I witnessed that must change was when I was alone at a local pub, minding my own little business. What was being chit-chatted about at the table beside me were different cases. Where's the confidentiality here? As a registered nurse, I understand the importance of my nursing notes and the legal aspect of medical documentation, and when it's chatted about at the local pub, I'm sorry, sir, but that is crossing the line.

I will just come back to this: Where's the accountability? I'm not disrespecting the people who work there. The problem is greater than the people who are there.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mr. Casey.

Mr. Desilets, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

Madam, sir, we can see that you're struggling. We may all struggle in our own way, but when people share examples like the ones you've shared and open up to us like you've done, that helps us understand. I have a lot of respect for both of you.

I'm going to ask both of you the same question.

A year and a half ago, the government changed its practices. An external provider now delivers services for Veterans Affairs Canada.

Have things gotten better, or have they gotten worse?

[Sean Bruyea]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

Louise indicates that she's not aware of that. I think Louise has answered the first problem, which was that stakeholders, meaning veterans themselves, were never consulted on this. As well, advisory groups were never consulted on this and frontline employees were never consulted on this. That's the first problem.

The second problem is that I have a tough time validating my sacrifice and my worth to our nation when I'm being cared for by a for-profit company. It really strikes at the heart of what it means to be a veteran and to care for my nation that when I get back I'm farmed out to a for-profit company.

I can tell you from my personal experience that I have insisted that I don't be put on that model with Veterans Affairs, and so far that has come to pass, but what about those who are? I can tell you that the people who are being put on that model are being put through eight-hour interviews by this for-profit model, and you've heard about the suffering of dealing with paperwork and the procedures they clearly can't handle. I have veterans calling me in tears saying they had to walk out on the second day after 16 hours of questioning by a psychologist who didn't know them and whom they had never met. It's inexcusable that this is being allowed to occur. We don't even know the price or details of this program, as the contract has been kept confidential. How is that in any way a democratic value of transparency?

I can tell you that the practitioners whom I see have been aggressively pursued to sell their clinics to this company. They would be paid large moneys as owners, but they were clearly informed that their employees would take a cut in pay. Why am I not given the best value practitioner who gets paid what they're worth? I don't understand it.

For me, it's anathema to my service and it's really horrific that this is the way that government chooses to handle this problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

We'll now go to Ms. Blaney for about 2.5 or three minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Sounds good.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Louise, I'm going to come to you and ask a question. I'm just giving you a little heads up here.

You spoke in your earlier testimony about the Gulf War illness being like a puzzle.

Could you talk a little bit about what that means and what that looks like for people who are having that experience in Canada?

[Lt (N) Louise Richard]

The puzzle starts with all of the experimental drugs and vaccines that we were ordered to take without our knowledge or consent. Protocols weren't followed starting from here, Canada, with mass inoculations that were not documented in one's yellow book—the vaccination book—to arriving on the battlefield and being ordered to take nerve agent pills, and ones for anthrax, botulism, toxoids and the plague. It was to counterattack nerve agents and biological warfare.

Then there are all of the environmental exposures one is exposed to regardless of where you are, in my case as a nurse dealing with casualties' contaminated uniforms, or where Sean was. He may have been far removed from where I was, but desert winds blow a lot of stuff around, so you don't necessarily have to be in the immediate vicinity to be exposed or contaminated by something like vehicles, ammunitions and depleted uranium.

When I speak candidly about my wards, imagine a big, giant sandbox, and instead of toys for the kids, there are tanks and soldiers, and you get the Scuds and other missiles, tanks, planes, bombs and then oil-well fires. You're getting exposed to all of that. You don't have the luxury of taking a bubble bath at the end of your day. You go days and days without water, without showering. You're wearing this toxic, contaminated clothing on you with no hope of getting clean. You survive this.

Canada—which was shocking—was one of the only countries that I witnessed packing up all our equipment and bringing it home with us. The Americans just left all their stuff there, and when they did choose to bring something back, they had decontamination teams take care of decontaminating either the vehicle, tent or whatever they felt was precious enough to bring home with them. But Canada...?

When the receiving end is here, the poor guys who are working in logistics have never been over there, but they're receiving all of these contaminated goods back, so they're getting secondary exposures, and the puzzle becomes huge.

With that, illnesses have happened. Some are defined and some are not quite so defined. Some are clear-cut and some aren't, and some are immediate. Some people got sick immediately. Other people may have delayed reactions. It's like, why can I not eat a shrimp because it might kill me or I may have an allergic reaction, but you can go to the seafood buffet, help yourself and you're fine? We're all different. Everybody is different, but with the military, it's one-size-fits-all.

I was inoculated for anthrax, which I reacted terribly to, and it was so bad that I had to have shoulder surgery because it destroyed all my muscle tissues and everything in my shoulder. Why me and not Sean? The thing is that it doesn't matter if I was injecting a 95 pound female or a 250 pound guy. It was the same dosage. Something's going to go wrong. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand this.

We're sent anywhere in the world, and trust me and Sean, we're sent to the worst hell-holes in the world. Someone has to do the dirty business of a nation, and we're the ones, and we do it.

All we want in return is when we come home, if we need help, please help us. Don't question us. Don't make us justify our needs. Don't make us beg for crumbs, and then have to justify and appeal all of this. Before we're even sent anywhere, we have a full medical and dental check, we see a psychologist. We're checked from head to toe. You can't have a cavity. You're checked everywhere to make sure that you're not going to become a problem on that mission. How dare our country, when we come home and we're in need, especially, when you've sent us basically as lab rats—experimental everything—and then we come home, and it might not be black and white.... Things might not be diagnosed, and then, yes, finally, thank God for the Americans and the British and Australians, where they do have medically unexplained illnesses, presumptive illnesses, because they've affected every single part of the body. It depends on what the toxicity is. It could have been from the injection, from the pyridostigmine bromide, the Norwegian pill. It could have been from depleted uranium. It could have been from the burn pits. It doesn't matter what mission you're on, the burn pits are everywhere.

We say one man, one kit. When you leave, you have one duffle bag. That's your life. When you're on mission somewhere, you have to burn your garbage. You have to take care of it. Well, that is toxic. We burn anything from amputated limbs from the operating room to waste in the latrines, to food. Whatever is of waste is burnt.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Lieutenant Richard. I know that you have a lot to say, but there are other MPs who would like to ask more questions.

Allow me to invite Mr. Dowdall for five minutes, please.

Mr. Dowdall.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank our guests today for their testimony. It's certainly bee emotional and touching to hear from each of you. Lots of the things that have been brought forward were consistently brought forward when we did our study of the transition of women from the military and just transition in general. I think this speaks to the earlier comments of my neighbour here, Cathay, about our lots of reports and not a whole lot of action in response to those reports. I think there's even another one coming forward for service dogs as well.

I hear the frustration when you say there are these outlets where you get to go and have meetings at any of the headquarters, whatever.... I have Base Borden in mine, and lots of veterans often wonder why they have to drive to Toronto, because most of the military, when they're done, can't afford a house in Toronto and to live there. It's certainly been raised many times with me in my riding.

We're really studying the Persian Gulf. I hope we can solve some of these problems, and we're trying to see exactly how that falls into place and why you're not recognized as having wartime service. There really is one individual who can probably do that and recognize it more so than the committee. Have you had meetings with the Minister of Defence to discuss these issues?

[Sean Bruyea]

No, I've offered to the Minister of Veterans Affairs to meet with them. A number of times we've met with her, and there's been no response.

As for the minister of defence, we gave up on that quest a long time ago, because we're veterans. Their priority is active, mission-serving members. Veterans are really an afterthought for them. We are very low on their priority pole. They're already struggling with their limited resources. You hear our frustration, our anger.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I guess the follow-up question is this: In your mind, why has nothing been done thus far? Why has there been no action? Certainly it is a story now. The good news is that we're discussing it and there's been some pickup from the media. I know Global News picked it up as a story, as an example. Why do you think it is not recognized?

[Lt (N) Louise Richard]

I personally think it's a twofold answer. If you acknowledge and recognize our war, then you need to acknowledge and recognize our illnesses. That's not just for the serving members, but our families, partners, spouses and our children.

There are a lot of illnesses that have come home with us that are communicable. There are a lot of reproductive problems, such as burning semen with men and severe gynecological problems with women.

I personally had to have a full hysterectomy at the age of 34. I was bleeding out of control and needed transfusions. It was that serious. Even there, I was labelled a malingerer because I was cutting my veins, so my blood work would look bad.

A lot of soldiers are afraid of what we bring home with us. The toxic...the equipment, our stuff....

To me—

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Do you not think Veterans Affairs would want to know that?

[Lt (N) Louise Richard]

They do.

This is the first committee I've done since 2013. In 2013, we had met over 14 ministers and five prime ministers. How far do you go and repeat and beg and explain?

We're not healthy to start with. You don't realize the toll this takes on us every time we have to do this. We go home broken. We get discouraged after a while and it's like, what's the point?

Furthermore, why would I have to justify if I went to a war or not? The world recognized it.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

I agree.

[Lt (N) Louise Richard]

Kuwait recognized it. Why not Canada? What is wrong with Canada?

The Americans would like to know what's wrong with Canada. The British would like to know what's wrong with Canada. The Australians would like to know what's wrong with Canada because Canada's not contributing to international research. We are not carrying our weight. We are doing nothing.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Do you think most of the veterans that you speak to are of the same mindset on why it hasn't happened as of yet, to have a consistent process?

Is that part of the frustration, that you shouldn't be having to fight for this still?

[Lt (N) Louise Richard]

Absolutely.

[Sean Bruyea]

Disillusionment is widespread in the veteran community, I think. Then after a while, they just give up and they don't interest themselves anymore in veterans' issues, which is sad because they could be real emissaries to educate the public about what's going on.

I think you asked why this is happening.

Number one is money. Number two is public awareness to justify spending that money.

Do you know what? Veterans shouldn't have to give up on their country. We certainly didn't give up on you guys when we were in uniform.