Veterans Affairs Committee on Oct. 24th, 2023

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

I will start off with this. For someone who is in the military and leaves.... When they're part of the military, they're used to—and I'll use these terms, Ms. Rovak, because I believe you'll understand them—cadence, uniformity, team and efficiency.

When they go from base to base, their files follow them, so when you start dealing with Veterans Affairs, I think your expectation may be that it's almost like a military operation, but it's not. Do you think having more veterans serve in Veterans Affairs for vets would be helpful because they understand the system and what veterans are used to?

[Anna-Lisa Rovak]

Thank you very much for that question.

I've thought about this a lot. I applied to become a case manager, but my education wasn't high enough to become one. I have a feeling this is the case quite often: To become a case manager or to work in certain areas of Veterans Affairs, you need to have a certain level of education. Quite often, that isn't the case.

However, I have noticed that, for example, the best case manager I ever had was a parole officer. He understood the concept of getting back to you, checking on you and making sure you have the right programs for what you need. I think it's more about an attitude than it is about what you have done in the past. I have worked with many people who are first responders or who have been in the corporate world. It doesn't matter; it's all about attitude and what your decision is about how you're going to do the job you do.

I would like to see more veterans, but I would like to see more people who have the right attitude, the right care and the right heart, rather than basing it where they come from originally.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Thank you.

Unfortunately, when you look at someone's resumé when they apply for a job, compassion is not measured on a resumé. I want to let you know that I recognize this in you. It is unfortunate this has not been recognized.

Moving on with compassion.... I think we need to continue with this.

Last week we had the minister here. I asked the minister—and you touched on this—why a veteran with a proven lifelong injury that is service-related should continue to repeat or explain their case time and again. What does that do to their dignity?

You touched on this. I want to know how you feel about that question.

[Anna-Lisa Rovak]

What dignity?

We have to beggar ourselves. There's no other term: We have to beggar ourselves to get the treatment we require. We have to try to find our own treatments, and then we have to beg for those treatments. We're not allowed to talk to the people, who turn around and threaten us by phone and by letter. We're not allowed any of those.... We're not allowed.

I've heard people say, “Oh, you were in the service. You had to take orders and this, that and the other.” In the service, I had more freedom. I had more dignity. I had more self-control. I had more self than I do as a veteran trying to deal with Veterans Affairs.

I have no other things to say about that.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

I'm sorry you had to go to that level and experience that.

How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

You have 30 seconds.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Ms. Taylor, thank you for joining us.

When they leave the military, a lot of people feel a loss of purpose. Is there a way Veterans Affairs can help vets in that area?

[Eleanor Taylor]

One of the things that we at True Patriot Love are working on is a national veteran volunteerism initiative. There are a lot of ways you can reclaim that sense of purpose. One is through employment and another is through volunteerism.

We think volunteerism is an area that needs more exploration. In fact, we are funded by Veterans Affairs to do some of this work. Our intent is to work with organizations that leverage veteran volunteers, in order to gain a sense of the impact of volunteerism on well-being. We'll then take those learnings and try nationally to connect veterans with their communities so that they can contribute to that sense of purpose and to the communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

Now I have to go to Mr. Miao for five minutes.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for appearing here at our committee today for this important study of women veterans, especially those coming from out west.

Through you, Mr. Chair, I would like to ask a question of Senator Busson.

Thank you for being here today. I know you are also running a very busy schedule. Thanks especially for your lifetime of service to our country.

You were the first female commissioner officer, the first female criminal operations officer, the first female commanding officer of a province and the first female deputy commissioner of a region. Having had all these positions, can you share with us and speak more about your experience as a woman in the RCMP, and tell us about the challenges you faced, especially specific to your gender? As well, to your knowledge, what has changed since your time in the RCMP?

[Beverley Busson]

Thank you very much for the question. We have to turn the clock back quite a ways. Unfortunately, I think I'm the oldest person in the room. I'm looking around here. You have to go back to the 1970s, when Archie Bunker was a real person, to realize when I first joined the RCMP.

A lot of things were different. I was transferred from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. I really didn't even know where I was. The staff sergeant I worked for reached out in an almost paternalistic way, but at the same time it was a paternalistic time. The people I worked with treated me like their sister. They worked hard to make sure that I learned all the survival skills I needed to survive.

Luckily, enough things happened in my career, and even early on, I was able to do some fairly interesting investigations and be successful. I worked the night shift by myself and earned the credibility to move forward. I know that in some cases people never got that chance. It was an ugly time for some women I know and worked with.

When I was in staffing for a period of time while I was going to law school, I won't say I “rescued”, but I reached out to a number of these women who were on the edge of leaving or whatever. This was in the eighties, and we worked through some fairly nasty situations that had to be addressed at the time.

In my impression, I saw the tide turning when I was the commissioner. Maybe spending six years running RCMP policing in the biggest province in Canada made a difference, but no matter where you are, there are bad people doing bad things. I really saw the tide turn, such that women in the force had enough credibility that we were no longer seen as a threat and we were considered an asset in a lot of cases, as long as we did our jobs.

As I said before, I now have lots of friends and some family members who are females in the RCMP, and I think the system is now designed so that people can reach out for protection if they need it. I suspect that in every realm, including this one, people need protection every once in a while. I see that where I work. I do believe there's been a huge sea change in the culture. Women are now proudly taking charge and owning their own bodies and owning their own place in the world. I can see a huge change. I can speak only for the RCMP, but anecdotally speaking, people I know speak of that often.

As I said, last weekend I was at a celebration for the RCMP 150th, and half of the room was made up of women members with civilian husbands and women whose husbands were members, and it just seemed as though gender doesn't matter. I think that's a huge success.

Thank you for that question. I hope I answered it to the best of my ability.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you for sharing that with us, Senator. There is no doubt that there's still a gender bias barrier for women in the RCMP. In your opinion, how could we reduce or even possibly eliminate these gender-based biases or barriers?

[Beverley Busson]

I think any institution has to be viciously aware of the opportunity for abuse of people with any weakness, be they female or short or whatever, or people from diverse groups. There has to be a pointed focus and somebody keeping watch so that misbehaviour does not happen or is dealt with strictly when it does. I believe it is now negligence if that is not part of every institution's DNA.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

We're going to have our last round of questions. Because we started a little late, we will have four interventions for a total of 15 minutes. We have Mr. Dowdall, Mr. May, Mr. Desilets and Madame Blaney.

We'll start with Mr. Dowdall for five minutes. Please go ahead.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I too want to thank each and every one of you for your service and for being part of this study, which I hope will be one of those studies that can actually, perhaps, make a change in VAC.

I've been on this committee a fairly short time; I'm one of the newbies. I'm consistently hearing extremely terrible stories about the service.

I want to commend you on your comment about how they would do if they were a private enterprise.

I can tell you that I get calls constantly in my office from frustrated veterans. I think you hit the nail on the head. Many are inquiring, “How do we go through the system after it's done?” They can't navigate the process. The system is broken. In fact, I had one fellow who was one of the individuals offered MAID at one particular moment in time. His frustration....

Then there's the frustration of not being able to get hold of anyone. It seems that the only time the government wants to get hold of anyone is when that person owes taxes. Other than that, we have people who are in need.

My question for Dr. Rochford and for you is this: We hear about this system and how terrible it is. What can we do, and why isn't there co-operation to change it when we're hearing it consistently over and over?

[Adrienne Davidson-Helgerson]

From a managerial leadership perspective, and also touching on what you were speaking about with a culture change, I think what's needed goes to more than just doing it because of the moral impetus, such that women are equal and we should give them equal opportunity; it's understanding the true value of having women at the table and of what women bring, which is their collaboration.

I'll rewind a little bit. In terms of the military and the RCMP, the public has this narrow perception that it's just combat. Obviously, as everyone here knows, there are so many diverse functions and roles in the military. We saw it during COVID with the extra things that they did.

Understanding how war and the military and all of its functions have changed and how women fit into that picture with things that are a lot more technical and require more teamwork, cognitive abilities, emotional intelligence, collaboration and a diversity of opinions really helps to eliminate these blind spots. Understanding the leadership, really understanding what women bring to the table, understanding that we're not just doing it because it's the right thing to do but because it adds strength to the organization and having that belief system and communicating those values can change the system just by having that on its own. Then that can filter through to the way that the systems are.... Listening to what people are saying with feedback about how....

I'm getting a little bit off track here, but do you want to...?

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

One of the examples that resulted in a lot of calls to my office was when they changed the care provider for veteran care. Were you, as an organization, contacted? We heard earlier from Ms. Rovak about how important it is to have that relationship with your care provider. There are some success stories that we hear about, individuals who listened and had compassion, and they probably gave great direction on how to navigate. Were you part of that, or do you have any information? Would you like to add anything on that?

[Dr. Christina Rochford]

Sometimes I feel as if it's the elephant in the room. I've been reviewing hours and hours of testimony, and this is.... You're talking about the outsourcing to PCVRS.

We were not notified. We have referrals coast to coast. We were not notified. We didn't hear about this at all until very late in the game, probably midsummer. We heard that files were being transferred. The goal was that all files would be transferred by the end of August. Meanwhile, we were wondering what was happening to our veterans. Why are they getting blocked? Why, all of a sudden, are they not able to access the program choice?

To be completely candid, in all, it was not a process on which any of us were consulted or even informed. In fact, there seemed to be an aura of secrecy about the whole thing.

I can speak from British Columbia, with all of the contacts I have there. The rollout in British Columbia has been very bumpy. They don't have adequate staff in place in all of the kinds of capacities. All of a sudden, our usual veterans' care team is being stopped. Veterans are being told, “No, you have to take our providers.” There are no providers in place, so veterans are left hanging and are actually being told, “Maybe in two months' time, three months' time, four months' time, we'll have some people.”

Actually, we recently had an interview with PCVRS, with the view of onboarding—

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

Unfortunately, it was one of those examples of becoming a number again instead of an individual. I heard about it as well.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much, Mr. Dowdall.

Let's go to Mr. Bryan May for five minutes, please.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First and foremost, thank you, all of you, for being here with us today to help us with this study. Thank you for your service, both past and current.

I have a quick terminology question for Dr. Rochford, and then I'd like to open it up. I'm pre-emptively warning everybody that I really want to open it up to each of you, as we get to the end of this session today, for any last thoughts specifically framed in the form of a recommendation. We're hoping that this report will go forward with strong recommendations for the government.

Just quickly, Dr. Rochford, we know that you incorporated military sexual trauma-informed care into your program. How is it different, if it is, from operational stress injury? In terms of the terminology, is there a difference between the two? If so, what is that difference?

[Dr. Christina Rochford]

I would say that OSR is an umbrella term. Again, with women, and sometimes with men too, there is an aspect of MST that we address. Typically, I don't know that we....

We're very holistic in terms of how we integrate things. It's not like we have a unit on MST; it's integrated throughout the program in the individual counselling and the kinds of activities people do, such as yoga or equine therapy for trauma and that kind of thing. It's addressing the trauma. It could be going back to things earlier in life and self-regulation training so that people can manage the triggers, which have been alluded to, around things like that. There's psycho-education about that. Certainly, knowledge is power.

There are also some strategies about how to deal with that and move forward in a more positive way so that people don't feel victimized—they feel empowered.

That's a bit of a vague answer. The best way I can describe it is that we don't have one afternoon devoted to MST; it permeates throughout the program. We have women therapists and women's programs. It's all women working with women, which seems to work best with MST.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Excellent. Thank you for that.

I'll start with you in terms of recommendations.

Specifically, how do we nationalize what you are doing? It's a great program and we've heard a lot about it, but it's specifically in Vernon, B.C. How do we move that across the provinces? What recommendation for the government do you think would help in that process?