Thank you. I'll be starting.
Mr. Chair and committee, thank you for inviting me here today to speak about this important issue impacting our Canadian veterans.
I began my career at Veterans Affairs Canada six and a half years ago with the belief that I would be able to positively contribute to and enhance the livelihoods and well-being of our Canadian veterans and their families. This position was a perfect fit, considering my education as a social worker. As well, I was the daughter of a veteran, experiencing my father being deployed and the struggles we faced as a family upon his retirement. Four years later, my older brother would deploy to Afghanistan, again in 2012, and most recently to Latvia. I am also the spouse of a U.S. Army veteran of the 101st Airborne, who deployed to the early invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and was injured in his last tour. I have personally witnessed how war changes our loved ones.
I am all too familiar with and extremely proud to be part of the lives of military families and military culture, but for many civilians, there exists an ignorance as to what the reality is truly like in re-establishing in civilian life after these experiences. Veterans' physical and mental health issues are often complex and multi-layered. Operational stress injuries, moral injury, chronic pain and psychosocial issues are just the tip of the iceberg.
My great concern with this rehabilitation contract is that privatizing these services will only serve to further isolate our veterans from their government and their community—and from the public service employees who have their best interests at heart, rather than a bottom line, a policy or a profit. Our veterans already face difficulties trying to relate to others who do not understand their experiences and the residual impacts those experiences have on their social integration, emotional support, self-esteem, identity, sense of coherence and trust. This contract will undoubtedly exacerbate these psychosocial challenges.
I cannot explain to you the helplessness I feel when my veterans ask me what this contract means for them and their re-establishment. I am unable to provide them with reassurance or comfort when I myself am faced with so many unknowns about what my work will look like and how much control I will have in ensuring that they get what they need. I cannot ensure that they won't have to build trust with yet another stranger, expose their vulnerabilities and retell the darkness they are living in.
I fear that for a long time the department's expectation of case managers has been to simply placate and manage veterans' anger and frustration. As a social worker as well as a public servant, I have the responsibility and an ethical obligation to respect the dignity and worth of the person, uphold integrity, and advocate for the importance of human relationships and social justice. The uncertainty of this contract prevents me from espousing these values and ethics, to the point that this year I chose not to keep my social work registration. I felt I was unable to uphold these values and ethics within my workplace.
I'm left with the feeling that the department is using this contract to further distance themselves from veterans and their families, and that it serves to abdicate their responsibility to uphold their very mission, mandate and values by minimizing the relationship with their case managers. Since March 2020, I have been unable to see my clients face to face. My office remains closed to the public. The department has ceased our ability to perform home visits with veterans and their families, which was a critical tool in building rapport and trust. Building rapport with clients by phone or virtual call is nearly impossible. These decisions do not honour the sacrifices of these dedicated heroes, and they certainly do not foster the trust, care, compassion or respect that they deserve.
During my first month on the job, I was given 45 files, which steadily climbed to 62. When we expressed our grave concerns, not only for our own mental health but for the quality of the service to the veterans, management's only reply was that the work would always be there. Within a year, I began experiencing severe burnout and anxiety, to the point where I was waking at night with panic and with nightmares of my clients dying of suicide because I couldn't keep up.
Many times we were working not with a sole veteran but also with their spouse and children. We were managing families. This is a grave responsibility when you feel as though you're drowning. Life as a case manager is incredibly challenging, but it's also one of the most rewarding experiences I have had the honour of doing. The ratio of 30:1, let alone 25:1, has never been a reality for us. We have been told that this is an unrealistic expectation.
Being silenced, gaslit and invalidated by the department has been one of the most demoralizing experiences of my life, but I vehemently refuse to give up advocating for better service for our veterans and our heroes. That is why I am here today.
Thank you.