Veterans Affairs Committee on May 8th, 2023

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

To what extent did your life in the military lead you to launch this organization?

[LCol Sandra Perron]

When I was in the armed forces, there were no other women in my unit. So I had no women friends who could understand what I was going through.

When you leave the armed forces, you think you've left military life behind, putting all your equipment aside and becoming a civilian. But a career in the military gives you a sort of second skin for the rest of your days.

What I needed was the understanding of women, and that's what I found at a healing weekend. I want to provide other women who are leaving the armed forces with the same kind of experience.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

It's now over to Ms. Blaney for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you.

First of all, I want to come back to Dawn, because I believe you wanted to say something about wait times. Did I get that right?

[Dawn McIlmoyle]

I just wanted to say that a lot of times I've seen it where they approve you automatically at 10%, but then you wait about a year and a half to get the 10%. You have to go to a doctor and get reassessed, and then you wait another year and a half to get it to something like 32%. If you could cut out that middle process and get it all done at once, perhaps there wouldn't be some redundancy.

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

Thank you.

I think that's interesting. I've heard a lot of testimony about the idea that issues for women often take a while to become realities. I think you gave some very good examples across the table today about why that might be. It also continues to show how important it is for us to do research on how women are impacted and what the outcomes are, because women are just a bit unique.

Ms. Hughes, if I could come to you, I know you have gone through your own transition process and I know you've been providing services for a lot of veterans who are going through that process. I wonder if you have any thoughts or feedback, when it comes specifically to women veterans, on what could happen to help the transition be a bit more holistic and helpful in the future.

[Carolyn Hughes]

DND and VAC have now created transition groups, which are for everybody leaving the military. It's not just the ill and injured anymore. I haven't become familiar with them yet. I'm just starting to develop something with them for our organization.

However, they have to look at the unique needs of every veteran, whether they're women, men or LGBTQ2. Everybody's transition is different. Mine went fairly smoothly. I had a supportive spouse at the time and older children, but not everybody has that.

There are single women who leave and have no support system once they leave. It's the same with single men. There may be addiction issues and their transition is different. They need to be taken care of before they can even move on to any kind of normalized life in the future.

That is the main thing. It has to be recognized that it's individual. It's not one size fits all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Blaney.

We're going to stop now.

I'd like to thank all of you for your input and participation in the study.

Let me finish with the witnesses, and then I'll go to the committee.

I would like to remind the committee that as part of our study on the experience of women veterans, we had several witnesses with us this afternoon: as an individual, Ms. Dawn McIlmoyle, Sailor 3rd Class, Registered Nurse; from the Pepper Pod, LCol Sandra Perron, (H), Chief Executive Officer; from the Royal Canadian Legion, Ms. Carolyn Hughes, Director, Veterans Services, National Headquarters; and from the Women Warriors’ Healing Garden, Dr. Elaine Waddington Lamont, Mental Health Director.

Thank you once again. You can stay, but I'm going to take a few minutes to speak to the committee members.

Our colleague Mr. Richards has to leave. We had planned to set aside a few minutes at the beginning of the meeting to discuss the trip we would like to make. We think it's important to meet women veterans in their own surroundings so that we can better familiarize ourselves with them for the purposes of this study.

You have the floor, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Well, Mr. Chair, I think the issue is that we are now almost five minutes past the expected end time of the meeting. I think there was an understanding that we have a discussion at the meeting at 5:15.

I have a standing meeting every week that follows this meeting. It has been moved to enable me to be there on time and it starts at 5:45. It's in another building. I know that at least two other Conservative members of the committee have other meetings they have to get to.

I'm happy to have this discussion, but I think it needs to wait until Thursday now, unfortunately. We can't have this discussion properly at this point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Okay, I understand that, with your agenda. We started 15 minutes late because we had votes. In my schedule, I thought we would do it at the end of the meeting, after 5:30. That's why I pushed on with the question rounds.

Would any other member like to say something?

We're going to have a discussion at the end of the meeting next week.

Go ahead, Mr. Darrell Samson.

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

He has no headset on, so he can't talk until then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Yes, sorry.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I have my headset.

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

There you go. Excellent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Okay, but we have to make sure that the sound is good with our technicians and interpreters.

Okay.

Please go ahead.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

For the next meeting, I'd like to do that at the beginning. We should have done it at the beginning of today's meeting, but it was delayed. The deadline is Friday, May 19. To prevent any problems, I'd like us to begin with that at the next meeting. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Good. We have taken note of that. That will give the team enough time to prepare a detailed budget for the itinerary, for submission to the committee for approval on May 19.

Do I have the consent of the members to adjourn the meeting?

[Some members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I'll take this opportunity to thank our interpreters, the technical team, the analyst and the clerk, as well as our witnesses.

The meeting is adjourned.