Veterans Affairs Committee on April 20th, 2023

[Dr. Maya Eichler]

I'm sorry, but I misunderstood the question, because my audio is not very good and there is a lot of feedback. I just wanted to say that I can respond to your question.

The way I understood what the director of research at VAC shared, he was talking about the members of his team, the research directorate. Not all of those, as far as I understand, are dedicated to women veterans research; however, they have developed a women veterans research plan.

The other thing that was mentioned is the military women's health research interest group, which is something that the women veterans research and engagement network has been organizing. It brings together individuals working in the field of military women and women veterans research. It is an informal networking and information-sharing group that we have been involved in, so those are two different things that I think maybe we're getting mixed up.

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

Are you in contact with the research team? Have you shared any data?

[Dr. Maya Eichler]

Yes, I am in contact with members of the veterans affairs research directorate. I have done some research for them, some contracted research. I did one follow-up study for them, looking specifically at the transition experiences of women veterans.

There is some collaboration and contact. It is not a very close, coordinated kind of relationship, but certainly we are aware of each other's research.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Dr. Eichler.

Now, let's go to Ms. Rachel Blaney for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you so much. I assure you, Chair, it will be at least six minutes.

I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here today. This subject is incredibly close to my heart, and I'm really grateful you're all here to shed a light on this most important issue.

My first question is going to be for Dr. Karen Breeck.

I want to thank you so much for your service. I'm confirming that it's okay if I call you Karen when I ask you questions. Okay.

Could you tell me what the women veterans research and engagement network is?

[Dr. Karen Breeck]

In case it isn't evident, especially in our environment, we often wear multiple hats, so we have three co-chairs. It is tonight your privilege to meet all three co-chairs: Dr. Maya Eichler, Ms. Sayward Montague and I are the three co-chairs of WREN. We call it WREN. It is spelled differently from the navy Wrens. If you look at the women veterans research engagement network, you will notice it's missing a “v”. That was done very consciously. It was, in our minds, the systemic silencing of the “v”, the veteran, hence part of the name.

We came together in around 2019 to try to help amplify the voices of the women veterans who we were finding were falling through cracks on a consistent basis. Often, when you looked at them individually, you could see the organizational...the trends and the recognition of the actual root issues they were bringing forward.

Especially in my case—I'm going to feel old now—I would see women falling through cracks still today for the exact same reasons that I was identifying already as one of the many physicians 30 years ago. The pain of seeing unnecessary, preventable issues that have been identified up our chains to our different governments for over 30 years is what breaks my heart, knowing we can do better, knowing this maybe wasn't necessary. In order to try to amplify that voice, we knew we needed research, because we were constantly told, “No, never heard this before. No, there must be research. We would have had research telling us this was important if it were important.” The absence of proof, however, is not proof of absence. Again, it's with Dr. Eichler's work and study that we can come to a group like this and say that there is no research in this area. That's why you haven't heard about it. It's not because it's not important. We haven't had the research that is specific to us yet.

Again, to have the voice, especially for people who are military, we are apolitical. We are here to serve our country. We are here to equally serve every government, regardless of what party they are in, so we're very uncomfortable coming forward in this manner. We come forward to speak at a political level only when we've tried everything else. It is our last stop to be here. It is very hard for me personally to be here. I do not wish to have to bring these problems up. Again, it's been 30 years, though, so if not me, who? If not now, when? That's why we have WREN.

We've been trying, through groups like Sayward Montague's, to understand how politics works, how we can amplify our voice, how we can get heard at the only level that can fix these problems. We have had this on our backs to fix for all of these 30 years, and I know I speak for many in my generation. We're tired. We can't keep doing it alone. We need your help to finish this off for the next generation of women.

That's why we have WREN.

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

Thank you.

It's interesting, because I've been talking to a lot of women veterans in the last several weeks, and one of the things I've heard repeatedly is that not having the proper integration occur means we're losing a huge opportunity, because women aren't feeling they can engage. If they could engage in a more meaningful way, there would be a lot more innovation, perhaps, in our military. I think an important part to talk about is the heaviness of this weight and the opportunity that there is on the other side of it.

I don't have a lot of time, but I know your specialty is the field of reproductive health.

One of things I've learned, just from the conversations I've had, is that there are particular ramifications for the reality of how invisible women who serve our country are in terms of their service and then later on as veterans. I'm just wondering if you could give us any examples of where this would be the case, so that we could better understand it as a committee.

[Dr. Karen Breeck]

In one minute—so hopefully someone else will allow me to finish this off—if I can, I'm just going to go straight at it.

When I was a brand new physician in Greenwood, Nova Scotia, very early in my career, one of my first calls was to the flight line for a medical emergency, and it was a pregnant woman who had been up flying—because we had said it was fine to fly—and she was miscarrying in flight. When we're in the military, these aren't just patients. These are the people we live with, we breathe with and we go to the grocery store with. It's a very tight connection, and for the rest of my life I will still remember—and this was 30 years ago—her looking up at me and asking, “Karen, did I just kill my child? Am I safe to be doing this kind of military flying on this plane?”

I was new and I looked at her and I still remember I said, “I do not know the answer to this question, but I promise you I will find out.” It is with her permission.... I spoke to her today to say I might talk about this and to ask if it was okay. She said, “Yes, it has to be done.”

It's these kinds of memories.... I'm 30 years from that, and I don't know the answer to these questions yet, and neither do the other women. For 30 years we've been asking, “Can we please find the answers?”

Maybe it's unrelated. Maybe it wasn't related, but we don't know, because we haven't been gathering the data and we haven't been asking the questions. Doing so is a political inconvenience. We are an inconvenient truth, and we need to address these things directly in order to fix them, so that we can have our daughters and our sisters joining the military.

I feel very strongly that we need a military, but we need to do it better.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much.

Dr. Breeck, do not hesitate to—

[Dr. Karen Breeck]

That was probably more than one minute.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

It's no problem at all. Members of the committee understand that we are dealing with a special subject, so it's tough for me to interrupt you.

Now I'd like to go to Ms. Michelle Ferreri, for a round of five minutes.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you guys so much for having me here. It's an honour to serve.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Thank you for your service, Dr. Breeck.

I sit on a couple of committees, one of which is on the status of women, and there are definitely a lot of intersections here between what I'm listening to you talking about and many of the studies we have done on abuse in sport and many other things.

I will go through this as quickly as possible, even though I would like an hour with each of you. I will start with Ms. Montague.

I feel you have an opportunity, and I will ask you first. Do you feel that female retirees feel more safe once they're out, sharing what they have experienced in terms of trauma?

[Sayward Montague]

I think that's highly dependent on the individual and the supports they've had since release, which can be a challenge depending on transition.

There is evidence as well that transition can be very different for women. There are more medical releases and there are different needs. There are different risks that can come with that, so what that looks like is highly dependent on the individual.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

I ask you that because one of the things I've seen is that in the systems of actually reporting abuse, it seems to be a significant problem. If they were able to feel safer later, some of these retirees would be very helpful in pointing out where the gaps in the system are in terms of accountability when they go back to make a statement or a complaint.

It's been two years since the Chief Professional Conduct and Culture change was implemented. I am just curious as to whether you guys have heard if there have been any observed changes in the culture of the Canadian Forces with respect to women.

[Sayward Montague]

I don't want to put Dr. Breeck on the spot, but I think Dr. Breeck would have the correct answer to that question.

[Dr. Karen Breeck]

Obviously, I'm a veteran. I can say without question that CAF has made quite significant efforts to include stakeholders and engaged people, and it has held a number of town halls and stakeholder engagements—almost too many—which brings up a whole pile of issues.

For people like us who are trying to help, how many times can we keep being asked to be part of these? There's an emotional labour for us to be part of these all the time as well.

Again, to me, to some degree, it comes back to the importance.... When we look at other countries, we see that they have standardized external advisory groups. People apply for it; they get screened for it—there are no conflicts of interest—they get honorariums if they need them, so that the burden isn't on all the same people to do this kind of work voluntarily. Having said that, I must admit, CPCC has done so much work over this last bit to the point where, again, as a physician, I worry about the burnout of the people involved. Things are changing.

If I can again be a little brutal, I think we are at a pivot point. We really are at a pivot point now where we understand enough and are far enough along. We really need to start integrating men into this and stop having the women be the only voice and the only inclusion and be in charge of these “pink roles”.

We can't fix this without the men. We cannot fix this without the men being allies, and the men in the locker rooms when they are alone, saying, “Dude, that ain't cool,” and, “You gotta stop it.” Until that happens, we're not going to go forward.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

I agree with that. We've also heard that in many other instances: You can't measure success if you're not collecting the data. We've heard that in other studies. The data collection seems to be a massive gap.

You touched on something that I think is really interesting. I wanted to ask your opinion on this. One of the greatest strengths of the Canadian Forces is its homogeneity—you are all one.

How do you maintain that homogeneous culture while also recognizing that there are diverse needs of women and other people under the umbrella of the main group?

[Dr. Karen Breeck]

That's a nice, easy question.

To me, it's about mission. We share the same mission. We are here to support Canada and Canadians. That's what keeps us on the same team. I think what we are still working on is how to ensure individual respect, so that every member of the team feels respected.

These are some new skill sets for all of us, aren't they? We're all learning new vocabulary. We're all learning to understand different ways of being, with some more education, the right vocabulary and understanding individual respect. At the same time, we need to be really clear where that line is for people who maybe shouldn't be in the military, and when we're clear that they shouldn't be, we need to have a more effective way for them to go.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much, Ms. Ferreri.

Now, I would like to invite Mr. Churence Rogers for five minutes. After that, we will take a five-minute break.

Mr. Rogers.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to all three of our witnesses. It's good to have you here, and for you to give us the benefit, of course, of your experience and knowledge, and of the work you've been doing on this issue.

We listened to a panel in the last meeting we attended. One of the things that was said at that last panel that really shocked me was that some of these women, following their leave from the CAF, said that they did not know they were considered veterans, for whatever reason.

Is this an experience that you've heard from other female veterans? Why might this be?

Dr. Breeck, you can start, because you were telling a Tim Hortons story, which I really wanted you to carry on with. To comment on this question, maybe I'll invite the other two guests as well.

[Dr. Karen Breeck]

Thank you.

As a proud grad of Memorial University, I have to do the shout-out for Newfoundland, or I will get into trouble there.

Unfortunately, I think it is very common that women leave the military and want nothing to do with that chapter of their life at all. In order to move forward and close that chapter, they would not self-identify as a veteran if they had institutional betrayal, military sexual trauma or negative experiences.

When we think of the full spectrum of age groups, we have a number of women who—especially in the earlier generations, when women couldn't be part of combat—would say, “Well I gave 15 years or 20 years, but I didn't go into combat. I didn't deploy. I didn't do those real roles, so I can't consider myself a veteran.” That's not an uncommon terminology for people, especially from the fifties and sixties. “I didn't go to Korea. I would have, but I wasn't allowed to, so I'm not a veteran.”

Unfortunately, a lot of the women had to leave quite early in their careers after a sexual misconduct event. Again, they haven't felt the right to call themselves a veteran, because they left earlier than they wanted to. Their vision of who they thought they were going to be never manifested, so there is a lot of work....

I believe that Christine Wood is here today, and she said it very well. It took several years after retirement of processing it, thinking about it, getting involved with the community and advocating before you felt that you owned the right to use that word. We have such reverence for that word. We have such reverence for the World War I, World War II and Korean vets, and if we weren't that, how can we call ourselves veterans?

[Sayward Montague]

I would like to touch on three or four different things—quickly, I promise.

One of them was something that Dr. Breeck mentioned about WREN. One of the reasons that developed was to provide some institutional support to women veteran advocates. Some of them would walk into a room and be ignored and shut out or shut down. It was not acceptable, but having some of that organizational support gave credibility. It was quite unfortunate, but it was a role that we were, if not pleased to fill, then there to fill.

VAC is doing better on commemoration in many respects, in terms of reflecting veterans and who they are. I would encourage everyone to take a look at an event that we sponsored on veteran identities, which, as I mentioned, highlighted some of the people you heard from on Monday.

Have a look around at Remembrance Day and think about the women who are front and centre and the organizations they are part of, the women veterans community. How included are they in national events that are significant, and what is the policy on that? I think that's a question that needs to be asked.

To Dr. Breeck's point, in terms of taking time to process and understand and find a place, there's also a sense of moral injury and institutional betrayal. There is some disconnect there in terms of how people feel able to identify as a veteran, and certainly to connect to Veterans Affairs, sometimes, to receive the supports they should be accessing, which weren't always very transparent or clear to them as they transitioned out of the military.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you very much.

To our online guest, do you want to take a moment to comment on that question?

[Dr. Maya Eichler]

If there is time, I will.

It is certainly something I hear a lot about in my research with women veterans, that they don't readily self-identify as veterans. I also hear that they encounter situations in their day-to-day life where they are not recognized as veterans: having a veteran's licence plate and someone commenting on how many years their husband served, or going to Remembrance Day with their medals and being asked whether those are their father's medals. Those are stories that I hear a lot. I think that makes it all the more difficult to self-identify.

Again, this hierarchy of service exists, which is a gendered hierarchy that is linked to length of service, type of service, combat or not, deployed or not. That's a reality for a lot of veterans, not just women but also veteran men, who may not identify as readily if they have not served in combat and been deployed. I think that is part of the broader culture that needs to change as well.

I think there is also a lack of a clear-cut woman veteran identity that you can step into in Canada. There's no social imagination of who a woman veteran is. If you talk about veterans, people will see the image of an elderly Second World War veteran. I think that's part of what needs to change at a broader national and societal level, that we see women as service members and as veterans.