Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 28th, 2023

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

Do you think that the reason women's pay is lower than men's has anything to do with the type of work, which differs by gender?

[Marion Turmine]

No, it's just the same as for civilians. I was a senior director in international co‑operation, and I was earning less than my male colleague who was doing the same work in another organization, simply because I was a woman. In the armed forces, the exact same thing happens. If you're a woman, you're going to earn less, even if you do the same work.

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

Thank you, Ms. Turmine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

Now I'd like to invite Ms. Blaney for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you.

I would like to also ask questions of Ms. Turmine.

I really appreciate the recommendations that you provided to the committee. The one that I want to talk about is the second recommendation, because I think it's really important, especially the issue of addressing sanctuary trauma. From your perspective, what are some possible solutions to ensure that women report military sexual trauma or other traumatic events related to their service?

The other thing in that is this: What can VAC do to make internal changes to start addressing these issues in a more meaningful way?

Please answer in French. I really appreciate it.

[Marion Turmine]

Thank you for letting me answer in French.

Veterans Affairs Canada needs to support organizations that are not part of the government or the military so that safe spaces can be created in which women can get together away from government people. That's extremely important. It's why our programs are so popular. We get funding from Veterans Affairs Canada, but we remain an independent organization. We create groups where women can feel safe and free to talk about their trauma. Our familiarity with their trauma enables us to do something about it. However, when the services are provided by the government, women don't feel safe because of the sanctuary trauma they experienced. That's the challenge.

I've been talking about the Veterans Transition Network, but many other organizations provide services. I'm thinking for example of organizations that use horses or other animals for trauma therapy. That's what's most helpful for some veteran women, whereas for others, it's our transition program, which provides them with tools that help them enormously. The important thing is that the organizations should not be part of the government or the military. That's what enables us to help women.

The other important point is that these groups of women are never combined. The women are together, and the clinicians treating them have had training in the challenges experienced by women in the military, as well as in problems specific to women. Unfortunately, it's mainly sexual violence.

These women often stay in touch after having taken our programs. They establish a network, are no longer alone, and can discuss their problems among themselves. That helps them enormously.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Turmine. That's all the time we have for that question.

Now I'd like to invite Mr. Blake Richards for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you.

I appreciate all of your testimony today.

I'm going to start with you, Ms. Miller.

I really have a lot of respect for so many veterans across this country like you who have decided to continue your service to your fellow veterans through offering programs and peer support. I commend you for what you're doing.

I wanted to ask you a little more about it. It's often something we hear as a barrier for a lot of veterans when they get out of the service. There's a loss of a sense of purpose in many cases, and there's a lot of need for peer support, for veterans helping veterans. That applies across a whole host of things, whether it be employment situations, family, mental health crises or all those things. The ability for veterans to help each other is so important, and not only to the veteran being helped; the veteran who is doing the helping is also receiving something from it as well.

I want to give you an opportunity to talk a bit about that aspect of peer support—why it's so important and why it's something you believe there needs to be more of.

[Jessica Miller]

Before I begin with an answer for that, I would like to bring up a few points and answer some of what has been discussed recently.

I think something's missing the mark here with the RCMP. They have a human resource department. In the Canadian Armed Forces, we follow the chain of command. Our voices are stifled. We don't have the ability to shout from the rooftops whatever has happened to us and go to someone outside of our chain of command to find solutions. It doesn't happen. Women's voices are stifled. We deal with it. We have to listen to the chain of command and do whatever it is they say.

On the recent question of why women have a lower salary than men once they get out, in my opinion, the answer to that is that while serving, we make the exact same amount. There's no substantial difference on what members in the forces make. The issue is that young women are being harmed by senior leadership, and then those women are punished by being released from the forces because they can't handle working anymore beside the person who has assaulted them over and over again. They leave the forces and they have a pittance of a salary because they haven't even done 10 years.

That's why women are making less money. That's why women need more support from other women, because men don't get it. You're sexually assaulted; you've been violated and you're traumatized, but the person who did it to you is the one who got the promotions and the courses and moves up the ranks. We lose our job.

I think being able to be with other women.... In my experience at the Veteran Farm Project, we have been able to express how we feel with each other, knowing that there's no reprisal from a government agency that's going to step in and take away all the hard work we've done.

Sexual misconduct needs to be wiped from this organization, or you will continue to see struggling young women who have no future and are living without the means to even find a place to live.

One of the women who was with me has been with us for six years. She was assaulted in basic training. She now doesn't have a pension. She's given money through VAC, but she has no future. She has no ability to go and earn more money. She doesn't trust. She can't be around men. She can't take courses. What kind of life is that?

Providing food to support veterans' families who are feeling food insecurity due to inflation or changes in economic status gives these women a purpose and a drive and something to look forward to every day, because the organization that they gave everything to has sucked it all away.

I apologize for getting emotional—

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

Please don't apologize for that. I appreciate your courage in sharing.

[Jessica Miller]

—but it is pervasive. It needs to end. That's my last word on that.

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

It does. Thank you for what you've said and what you offered to us. Please know that it's valuable and it's something that is going to hopefully be in the report we will write, so thank you for that. I know it wasn't easy to share that. Thank you.

[Jessica Miller]

Can I just add that the reason it's not easy is that I am not just the person running the Veteran Farm Project? I am a woman who's been sexually assaulted by men in the Canadian Forces, the ones who are supposed to be having your back, your battle buddy. How do you expect someone to come back from that and retrust men, organizations...?

It is incredibly difficult. I put a smile on my face every day and I think of ways to support other women because I need that support too. It needs to be a group effort to lift each other up, because all we feel is oppressed.

Thank you.

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

Thank you so much for the strength and the courage to really share with us here, but also to do something to help others who are experiencing that same thing. That's why I think it's so important that programs like yours exist.

Is there anything you can tell us about how Veterans Affairs can better support programs like yours?

[Jessica Miller]

Thank you.

We are currently being supported through the VAC family well-being fund, which ends next year. We do not have future possibilities of funding because we are a non-profit, not a charity. I currently have stacks of paper of potential grant funding that we could apply for, but we're not a charity. We need a charity to have an MOU with. That is not easily done. There's so little funding out there that everyone wants to keep it to themselves.

If VAC could recognize these small grassroots efforts that can support women tangibly and allow them to think for the future, if it could be forward-thinking on more support and on building a better community.... Instead, every year I write reports and I write for grants and I search and beg for money from people to support us, because everything we are doing is supporting the community and everyone.

If Veterans Affairs could recognize organizations like ours and others out there, I think that would go a long way in giving back the power to the women who have been lost to a system that doesn't care about them.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

Now let's move to MP Bryan May for five minutes, please.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I too want to speak to Ms. Miller. I just want to check to see if you need a break.

[Jessica Miller]

No, I'm okay.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Perfect. Awesome.

Thank you for your service. Thank you for your courage for being here.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for their service.

Mr. Richards has touched on much of what I want to ask, and you have elaborated on it.

I am intrigued, though, about the programming. My background is in non-profits, and specifically recreation programming as well. I'm curious about the selection of the types of programs that you do at the farm and about what led you to choose, say, the food side, as well as tending the flower garden. I believe archery is also.... It's one of my favourite activities too.

I am intrigued about the type of programming and if there was maybe some research done to which those activities can be attributed.

[Jessica Miller]

There has been no research. This has been a labour of love from needing to be productive in society.

We deliver food, but it's not just food. We deliver everything a family needs for that month, from bread products to school snacks to toiletries. We add in creative items for the veterans, and every one of the boxes that is delivered is curated for that family. Although we don't know who they are, we know the make-up. We ensure that the appropriate amount is in there. I think I've always had a passion for ensuring that people have safety and are secure. As a medic, the only thing I did was to look out for everyone who came my way.

The food hampers, though, are not the primary focus of the farm; the primary focus of the farm is allowing women to come and find their own sense of purpose, joy, and healing and be with other women. The by-product of all of that has led to the ability of these women to find a purpose in curating these boxes to support both serving and veteran members. It's all circular. We deliver the food, we grow the food, we harvest the food, and then we pack the food. While doing that, women are gaining informal peer support in a way that they don't even recognize. They do not recognize that there is a compassionate listening ear trying to see if there's a way to navigate the difficulties they're facing.

Food insecurity doesn't have anything to do with the forces; however, our veteran community in rural Nova Scotia has limited access to fresh, nutritional grocery stores and public transit. There is none. If you're a senior veteran stuck in your home in wherever in the valley, how are you going to get fed? Where are the people checking on you? When boxes are delivered by service officers from the Legion, those Legion service officers check on the families we are supporting. They are doing wellness checks without their even knowing that they're doing wellness checks.

Even though we are doing this in Nova Scotia, I think it could be replicated anywhere in this country. It is not hard to find a plot of land, a space to grow whatever is needed in that moment. It all comes back to women supporting women, veterans supporting veterans and finding a way to navigate this new world that you didn't think you were going to be in but that you now find yourself struggling in.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

You absolutely anticipated my next question, and that was whether this was something that could be expanded and replicated across Canada. You mentioned a little bit earlier, maybe in jest, that you didn't know why you settled in Sweets Corner. I quickly googled it, and I could see why. Halifax is about an hour and 45 minutes to two hours away.

[Jessica Miller]

No, we're only 35 minutes from Halifax.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Okay. I googled incorrectly, then.

[Jessica Miller]

We purposely chose that spot. Unknowingly, we chose that spot because we are frontage on the road. You don't have to drive up a long, dusty, dirt path to find where we are. We have visibility and cleared space, seven acres of uninterrupted space where you won't be afraid that something is going to come around the corner and scare you. That was all purposeful. I ensured it even in the way we laid out the farm, the way our beds are designed and all of that. That was done purposely. You know, I read every horticultural therapy book and every therapeutic horticultural book, which is opposite, and I asked other psychologists how this could benefit women, and we just did it.