Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 7th, 2023

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Sure.

[Shoba Ranganathan]

Again, I think—

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you. It was really interesting, but I have to interrupt.

Thank you, Mrs. Wagantall.

Now let's go to MP Carolyn Bennett for five minutes, please.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Thank you very much.

I would like to follow up on Ms. Wagantall's question about access to records. It's in the action plan for all the provinces and territories, so I can't understand why anybody working for the federal government or as a veteran would have to go through access to information when we are asking the provinces and territories to make sure that every patient in this country has access to their records.

I do understand that, once they had access to their records as a serving member, then it would be up to them to show Veterans Affairs what they want to see. That's how we find errors. I think what we've heard throughout this testimony is that there are serious omissions in what's in their record. The sooner they can find that omission and correct their document as a serving member...they can't be told later that because it wasn't in their serving record they can't be compensated for it.

I think what we're trying to say is that there's a sort of systemic problem. Ms. Meunier suggested that you've been watching this committee. I want to ask you this right out: Have you reached out to everybody who has testified to try fix their problems?

[Amy Meunier]

I have not personally reached out to all of them to address the issues, but I know that the department has reached out to many of them. I'm not privy to their client cases or that kind of information.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

It seems that, even when we heard from the RCMP veteran women's council, or as you're setting up.... Listening to the people who have had the lived experience, they're actually the experts. I guess I'm a bit worried that there doesn't seem to be the feedback loop in terms of the quality assurance even on gender-based analysis.

I think peer support is fantastic, but who is being involved in the peer support criteria, terms of reference, training, privacy, confidentiality, boundaries and all of that? Who is setting that up and why is it taking so long?

[Amy Meunier]

I'm sorry. If that was a question to me in terms of the sharing of information—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

No, it was about setting up the peer support.

[Amy Meunier]

Okay—my apologies.

[Shoba Ranganathan]

We did consult with people with lived experience to identify what—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Is there a formal committee that keeps giving you feedback as to whether it works or not?

[Shoba Ranganathan]

We did have a formal consultation group very early on to identify the various offerings. Right now we're running formal group sessions and getting feedback from the participants to see whether or not we're meeting their needs. Before we launch a formal program, we will collect all the feedback and do the analysis to have a better understanding of how to do the long-term sustainability of those formal group sessions.

So far we have received very constructive feedback and very positive feedback on the way forward. We do believe we'll be able to roll that out formally and make it more accessible very shortly.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

You've been there since 2015, and it seems a lot of people don't know about you.

[Linda Rizzo Michelin]

In terms of the sexual misconduct support and resource centre, one of the programs we've put in place recently as well is our outreach program. We are doing a concerted effort. Our team is going out to all the bases and wings across the country. We have our social media posts. There is a very detailed outreach process to make sure—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Is it at basic training that people know you exist? Are the men also being trained?

[Linda Rizzo Michelin]

In terms of outreach, we do a lot of outreach—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

In terms of the consequences of sexual misconduct, are both the women—

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

It's DND, not these ladies.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Yes, but they are DND as well. Are they feeding back into DND?

Surely we're in the business of prevention too.

[Linda Rizzo Michelin]

We do work collaboratively with the other organizations within DND and CAF. We are independent from the chain of command. We do share and we provide feedback and recommendations and guidance to the rest—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Can you let me know how? What's improved from some feedback that you've given?

[Shoba Ranganathan]

Previously, we were responsible for the development of training programs around prevention: the respect in the CAF and the building our future programs at the military colleges, as well as a scenario-based e-learning.

We've since transferred those over to the chief of professional conduct and culture, and they will be delivering it as part of the culture initiatives. However, we are still involved in the evaluation and the monitoring of the delivery of those programs, and we continue to provide subject matter expertise on all of those.

We are finding opportunities to involve ourselves so that we can let people know about our services and about sexual misconduct within the military in and of itself. As Linda mentioned, we are doing outreach sessions. Some of them are within predeployment opportunities and some of them are within the schools as well, so we are looking at expanding that reach as much as we can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much, Mrs. Bennett.

The next two interventions will be two and a half minutes.

I invite Mr. Desilets to take the floor first.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Witnesses, from the many questions we've just asked you, you must realize that there's a problem with the follow‑up of the military personnel files. I still don't understand why the military personnel files aren't being fowarded to Veterans Affairs Canada, even though they give all the consent possible that their files should be. In a way, you're even confirming that this file is archived.

One of the problems I see is that women who have been sexually assaulted tell us they have to repeat what they've been through over and over again. To me, that's so atrocious. If that information were circulated confidentially, perhaps we could in some way avoid re‑traumatizing victims of sexual assault.

Do you have a problem with not having access to the files? My question is for anyone who would like to answer it.

[Linda Rizzo Michelin]

For the sexual misconduct support and resource centre, again, because we're providing support to individuals as they come forward, it's really that connection between our practitioners and the individuals.

We help them with their choices in terms of what that could look like, whether it's advocacy to gain access to their reports or to seek some other type of care and support there. For us, it's really about the individual and what their needs are.