Veterans Affairs Committee on March 22nd, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to the seventh meeting of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.

In accordance with the order adopted on Tuesday, February 8, 2022, the committee is meeting to continue its study on equity in services provided to veterans with respect to francophones and anglophones, men and women, and the LGBTQ+ community.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so that you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

Today's meeting is also taking place in the webinar format. Webinars are for public committee meetings and are available only to members, their staff and witnesses. Members enter immediately as active participants and all functionalities for active participants will remain the same. Staff will be non-active participants and can therefore view the meeting only in gallery view.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room, your microphone will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly, and when you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. As a reminder, all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

With regard to the list of speakers, the clerk of the committee and I will do our best to maintain the established speaking order for all members, whether they attend the meeting in person or remotely.

I would now like to welcome the witnesses, who are online with us.

First, we have Brigitte Laverdure and Sergeant Nina Charlene Usherwood, who will be testifying as individuals. We also have Michelle Douglas, executive director of the LGBT Purge Fund, and Sandra Perron, founder and chief executive officer of the Pepper Pod.

You will each have five minutes to make your opening remarks.

We will start with Brigitte Laverdure and then go to Sergeant Nina Charlene Usherwood, who will be followed by Michelle Douglas and then Sandra Perron

Ms. Laverdure, you have the floor for five minutes to make your presentation.

[Brigitte Laverdure, As an Individual]

Good evening, Mr. Chair.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen members of the House.

Allow me to introduce myself: I am Brigitte Laverdure, a peer support worker for Canadian Forces veterans who are part of the LGBTQ community.

The purpose of my testimony is to denounce the injustice experienced by francophone veterans in Quebec during the processing of their file submitted to Veterans Affairs Canada.

In the exercise of my recognized role with my peers, I have very often been called upon by them to help them understand why the waiting period was interminable while their application was being processed. I remind you that these long processing times have a significant impact on the morale of the people affected. This ranges from discouragement to abandonment of the process. Worse still, some people go so far as to commit suicide.

For several years, I have been consulting various veterans' groups across Canada through social media, and I can read many comments from English-speaking veterans who have obtained quick responses to their requests. Sometimes, the deadlines are even shorter than those that the department undertakes to respect. I have forwarded several of these comments to Mr. Luc Desilets.

Why is the francophone community being subjected to discrimination? Here, we are not talking about weeks, but rather years. Yet, on the Veterans Affairs website, the notice of decision reads, verbatim, “We are committed to providing a decision to you as soon as possible. In most cases, a decision will be made within 16 weeks of the department receiving all the information required from you in support of your application.”

In addition, during a 2020 Radio Canada report in which I participated, the director of veterans' support services acknowledged that the department had experienced an increase in the number of applications from the French-speaking veteran community. As a result, he promised to hire francophone staff to provide responses to francophone veterans within the department's commitment of 16 weeks, as a general rule.

Distinguished listeners, it is clear that, two years later, in 2022, many files still have an unacceptable processing time, whether for receiving a notice of decision or for paying compensation. I would like to remind you that this situation existed well before the pandemic.

Mr. Chairman, members of Parliament, I thank you for your attention and interest in this cause.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much for your statement, Ms. Laverdure.

We'll go straight to Sergeant Nina Charlene Usherwood.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Sergeant Nina Charlene Usherwood, As an Individual]

Thank you, Chair.

I am Sergeant Nina Usherwood. I am speaking to you from the unceded territory of the K’ómoks and Pentlatch first nation.

I come from a military family. My dad, mom and sister have all served. I joined in 1979, and I am still serving 42 years later.

Growing up, my parents knew I was dressing in my sister's clothes. My parents were worried about how I'd be treated if I joined the forces. My dad gave me the military policy before I joined, so I knew I would be immediately discharged if I was discovered.

Hiding who I was from the military so that I could serve Canada has cost me my health. While I am aware the military policy on transgender members was changed in 1999 and that I would no longer be discharged, I saw transgender service members suffer vitriol and extreme hostility. I stayed hidden. It was not until 2009, after 30 years of service, that I felt safe to tell the military who I really was.

My health has continued to deteriorate, and I will now be medically released from the forces in August. I applied to Veterans Affairs. I have not been assigned a caseworker. When I log into My VAC Account, it pulls up my old file with my old name and gender. My medical records do not use that name or gender. It took a number of phone calls, secure messages and two uploads of my legal documents to get my name and gender corrected at VAC to match my legal name and gender. Each time, I had to explain to a new person at Veterans Affairs why my name and gender were incorrect.

In the military, the form DND 1209 for self-identification is used to take a census of serving members. On it, you indicate if you're indigenous, a visible minority or disabled. You cannot indicate that you are a member of the LGBTQS+. The military has no idea how many members are LGBTQ2S+. Likewise, Veterans Affairs has no idea how many veterans are LGBTQ2S+.

Thank you for listening. I look forward to any questions the members have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much, Sergeant Usherwood. Thank you also for your service to Canada.

I now give the floor to Ms. Michelle Douglas for five minutes.

[Michelle Douglas, Executive Director, LGBT Purge Fund]

Chair, members of the committee, I'm honoured to be invited to appear before you today.

Talking to you tonight is a great privilege for me.

I am a veteran. I served in the Canadian Armed Forces from 1986 to 1989. I was hoping to serve in the military for my whole career, but unfortunately I was one of the thousands of people who were caught up in the LGBT purge. I was fired in 1989 for being “not advantageously employable due to homosexuality”.

When I was fired, I took steps to change that policy. I sued the government over the policy in 1992, and it was my legal challenge that formally ended Canada's discriminatory codified policy of discrimination against LGBT people in that year. I've been an activist ever since.

I went on to have a successful career in the Department of Justice and retired in 2019. Since then, I've been the executive director of the LGBT Purge Fund. We're an organization that was set up as part of the class action lawsuit settlement that brought together more than 700 survivors of the LGBT purge. We've been in operation since 2019.

We're the lead organization that's mandated by a court order to build the LGBTQ2+ national monument, among other things. While we do many other things, one thing we don't do is provide direct support services to LGBTQ2 veterans, but we encounter them all the time. We act as an informal referral hub and network for these veterans, who just aren't sure where to go to get support. Some of our board members even volunteer their time to gently support these folks and help them access services and supports through Veterans Affairs Canada. It's a beautiful buddy system network, and more of this is welcome.

We're also very pleased to now have an Office of Women and LGBTQ2+ Veterans at VAC to work with. In this regard, we'd like to offer some suggestions to the committee for consideration.

We're hoping that Veterans Affairs continues and funds this office for the far future. It's very essential that this office be well resourced.

We urge the continuation of work to improve the level of consistency of service. Other panellists have also addressed this issue.

We also want to make sure that there's specialized awareness training for case managers because, as we can see, the trauma experienced particularly by LGBTQ2+ veterans is quite serious and unique, and people must be well trained to support and encourage our members.

Finally, we're hoping that Veterans Affairs Canada will develop communities of practice for both veterans and practitioners—mental health practitioners—so that the practice of supporting LGBTQ2 veterans has an even greater level of awareness and professionalization.

In preparing for tonight, I want to thank the Rainbow Veterans of Canada, VETS Canada and It's Not Just 20K for help in preparing these remarks.

Again, I'd like to thank you for this invitation. It's my honour to appear.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much, Madam Douglas.

Also, thank you for your participation in this study.

I now yield the floor to the founder and chief executive officer of the Pepper Pod.

Ms. Perron, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Sandra Perron, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, The Pepper Pod]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also thank all the members of the committee.

Thank you, also, my dear esteemed veteran colleagues.

On March 15, 2017, at 9:15 in the morning my editor called me to say that I was going to be a published author. The memoir that I had just spent the year writing, about my time in the military as an infantry officer, was going to be published in three weeks.

An hour later I was in the hospital, with what I thought was a heart attack. The doctors advised me that it was not heart attack but a panic attack. I denied it and fought against it. I said there was no way that I could be having anxiety or a panic attack, and yet they sent me home with antidepressants.

I drove to Charlotte, North Carolina, where my parents were spending the winter and proceeded to spend five days on their couch curled up in a little ball, thinking that my world was about to end. After five days, my father had the insight to call VAC. They said, “bring her home, and we'll take it from here” and they did.

In the next six months to a year, they put me back together. They got me all of the amazing resources to help me get back on my feet. Today, I am the founder and CEO of The Pepper Pod, a retreat centre for women veterans in Chelsea, Quebec. Two hundred women have been through our programs—soon-to-be veterans, veterans, and spouses of military personnel.

VAC made me the woman I am today to be able to deliver these programs. That being said, they're not perfect. I've heard from these 200 women, and what they are telling me is that we can do better.

I've heard that many of their disability claims are being denied or rejected because they cannot prove that some of their ailments—back aches or injuries to their knees or feet—were a direct result of their military service. That's partially because they didn't have an accident. I'm here to tell you that when you wear equipment that was designed for men with the weight bearing on the shoulders instead of the hips, that will injure your back over a long time. It's the same with the boots that didn't fit and the other pieces of equipment, such as frag vests that weren't designed for women's breasts. I'm here to tell you let's do better with regard to these claims.

I also have other recommendations, but for now I'll leave it there.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Ms. Perron.

I think you know that you have translation. You can choose French or English during the committee.

Right now we're going to start with a round of questions. MPs are going to ask you questions, and I'm pretty sure we're going to learn a little bit more about your experience and how you feel. It will be really interesting for our committee to listen to you.

The first six minutes will go to our first vice-chair of the committee.

The floor is yours, Mr. Caputo.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Excuse me. I'd like to remind you, members of the committee, to please indicate who the question is addressed to since there are four witnesses.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before I begin, I want to thank each and every one of you, first of all, for making the time to be here. It really means a lot. Second, thank you for your service to the military and as pioneers, each in your own way. These are sometimes difficult discussions to have, depending on what your experiences are. I recognize that. I want to thank you for being here, for being pioneers and for the bravery each one of you has really shown in tackling what sometimes may seem really big problems. Thank you.

Where do I start? There is a lot to unpack here, to be very candid with you. I'm just going to dive right in.

Sergeant Usherwood, you have been serving for just about as long as I've been alive. I thank you for that. I was born in 1978.

You mentioned an upcoming medical discharge, which saddens me. I'm sorry to hear of this. What I'm asking, Sergeant, is whether you can comment, based on your experience, on what impediments you face, knowing that you are going to be a veteran who is discharged come August.

[Sgt Nina Charlene Usherwood]

Thank you for the question.

Not having been discharged yet, of course, I don't really know for sure. I have talked to other people who have been discharged.

In the last few years, I could see that I was going to be released. I knew that my medical condition was leading me that way, in that I would no longer meet universality of service. As a result, I was reflecting on my previous career, and I'm finding now that, kind of like another panellist, I didn't think it was affecting me mentally but I can see that it is. I've already started doing some.... Part of it was that as a member of the military, especially someone from way back, was literally the words “suck it up”. I swallowed all of that.

I'm just at the point now of seeking medical help for my mental health, and where that's going to take me I don't know. It's my physical health that has suffered from hiding who I was. It's my physical health. The many things I had to do to protect myself caused me a physical injury, and that is the claim that I have. I have not put a mental claim in yet, but in talking to my health care workers, that will be proceeding in the next week or so.

What obstacles am I going to face? I don't know. I don't know anyone else who's had a career quite like mine. When I joined, Toronto police were still raiding gay bars. To protect myself, I had to swallow everything.

I'm sorry, I don't really know how to answer your question. Thank you for the question though.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you. I apologize if it was vague. Just hearing you speak is really moving, so thank you very much for that.

I'd like to speak to Michelle Douglas next, if I could, Mr. Chair.

You mentioned specialized awareness training. Are you aware at this time of how effective that specialized awareness training is when it comes to people who are dealing day to day with veterans, and what could be improved?

[Michelle Douglas]

Thank you very much, Mr. Caputo.

I think a basic level of awareness about what LGBTQ people have experienced in the military is vital to being welcomed into a community where you're now called a veteran, but who have reservations about whether they will continue to be judged and marginalized and discriminated against.

If a case manager has training from which they understand what something like the LGBT purge was all about, what they may have experienced, or other kinds of discrimination and, frankly, oppression that was literally on the books of the Canadian government, that goes a long way to acknowledging the history of what someone's been through. A case manager who has been trauma informed as that person has approached, and understanding their story from an informed position, is really helpful.

I believe it to be part of the process that's under way already. However, I also hear many stories. People contact their case manager, and if the case manager happens to be new and doesn't know about the LGBT purge, they may not believe that it could happen in Canada. People have this notion that a history like the LGBT purge couldn't even happen in a place like Canada. There are basic levels of training needed so that it's not the victim, and it's not the person who's traumatized—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you. Could you please conclude.

[Michelle Douglas]

—who would have to explain the story to a case manager. It's essential that we train them well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Douglas, and Mr. Caputo. That's all the time we have.

Now we're going to go to Ms. Rechie Valdez, for six minutes, please.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Good afternoon, Chair and colleagues.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us here today. It's amazing, because you're taking your personal experiences and the experiences you hear from so many others and you're advocating for those people. I appreciate your being here to do that.

First off, Ms. Perron, thank you for sharing your personal experience with VAC. I want to congratulate you for being a published author.

You described recommendations regarding claims. Can you elaborate on where in the claims process there are issues?

[Sandra Perron]

I don't have all of the specific details of their claims. What the women are telling me is that, first of all, a lot of women have backaches and sore knees, and they're telling me that a lot of their claims have been denied because they could not prove that there were significant injuries during their career, or that their career was a direct cause of their injuries. Their initial claims have been denied.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you for clarifying. That was specifically what I wanted to know.

You created The Pepper Pod, where you have built a strong community of women veterans. I understand that Veterans Affairs recently provided just under $1 million to The Pepper Pod through the veteran and family well-being fund. Can you share with us how The Pepper Pod is using the funding and how it will help the women veterans you serve?

[Sandra Perron]

Yes, absolutely.

One of the core programs we have is called “Lifeshop”. It's a weekend retreat. Eight to to 10 women come to the centre. For the most part, they don't know each other. They're scared. They're anxious. They're nervous about the weekend. They don't know what they're getting themselves into. By Sunday, they are sisters in arms. They are best friends. They hold onto each other before leaving. Then they follow up with other sessions, together with their new tribe.

In the other programs we have on the agenda is a “No Agenda Weekend”. Any graduate of our programs can come and just spend a weekend with other graduates at The Pepper Pod to build their network. They do a little mind-mapping of any transitions they're going through or new projects or adventures. They get a bit of executive coaching.

We have “Wonder Woman Wednesdays” once a month, when we have amazing women come to talk to them. We've had Jody Thomas. Minister Anand was supposed to come, but she unfortunately has bigger fish to fry this month. We're having Christine Whitecross, one of the top generals in the forces, come to coach women. Louise Arbour has committed to come as well.

We're all about networking and providing them a bit of coaching, mentoring and a new tribe of women who, for the most part, have gone through the same thing they went through.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Being an advocate for women, this is music to my ears, so thank you so much for going into the detail and providing us that context.

I'm limited in time, Sergeant Usherwood, but you described your experiences in your interactions with VAC, and what I'm interested in hearing about is how we can make improvements on our service. You were mentioning how your name and your gender kind of went back and forth. Can I just confirm that this issue is now fixed?

[Sgt Nina Charlene Usherwood]

Thank you for the question.

Yes, it is now fixed, but it took a while to get it right. The problem, of course, is that every letter they send out to your doctor to get them to fill in something needs to match the name that's on your medical file. That's the issue.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Since you've gone through this a few times, can you clarify what other recommendations, very specifically, we can improve in the terms of our service?