Veterans Affairs Committee on Feb. 7th, 2024

[Kristina Sharp]

With regard to how some of my symptoms manifest, one that affects me the most, especially when I'm out in public, is auditory stimulation. I am incredibly sensitive to sounds. I can hear little things in the background that will distract me. I'll end up dissociated and taken to another place. It can be incredibly distracting and frustrating to deal with.

With regard to some of the physical symptoms, I can sometimes go days without eating. Even though I'm hungry, if I'm activated, my symptoms are really bad. My stomach and digestive system really can't even tolerate food going in. I do end up physically ill.

Similar to what Paula was saying, there are pain issues. I have pain that there really is no explanation for. I've gone to the doctor for pain in places where I don't have injuries. I experience exhaustion and physical symptoms for which there really is no explanation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Blaney.

We have a second round, but this round will be a little bit short. I know that we don't like to interrupt our witnesses, especially with this kind of study, but I'd like to ask members to try to restrain their questions a little bit.

We have four minutes for Mrs. Wagantall, four minutes for Mr. Casey, and two minutes for Monsieur Desilets and Madam Blaney.

Let's start with Mrs. Cathay Wagantall, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses. I really appreciate your being here.

I only have four minutes, but there is so much here, so I'm going to talk a lot. I want you to know that these resources are available to you, and I would love to meet with you further with regard to the service dogs.

VAC has an issue. The Government of Canada has an issue. Part of the problem is that the programs have grown across the country. Different provinces are doing different things, and there is no federal standard. There is no national standard. They tried to do that in the previous sitting, but there were issues around conflicts of interest, and the whole thing imploded. You may be familiar with that. Okay.

It's wonderful that your veteran-run charity is free service dogs. Everything I hear I love.

You are actually not the only one. There is another one. It's called Audeamus—I have a terrible time saying that—which is Latin for “May we dare”. It's out of Saskatchewan, and they actually went to the Canadian Accreditation Council with all of their work and research and everything, and now they have, as of 2023, national accreditation. Also, because of their great work, they received international accreditation without asking.

I would encourage you to reach out to them. My office can assist with this. The program is similar: free dogs. There's no reason that veterans should be spending $30,000 on a dog. The training program is remarkable, with them and the dog and the follow-up and all these things, so I would encourage you to reach out. They have research that was done through the University of Regina and the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. The researchers had their own service dogs, and their research definitely supports the view that these dogs make a huge difference in the lives of the veterans who qualify for them and certainly need them.

I just want to draw your attention to one more thing. We did do a service dog report at this committee. Are you familiar with it?

Okay. We had four meetings with 16 witnesses in the 43rd Parliament from May 12 to June 14, 2021. However, the report wasn't adopted until the 44th Parliament on June 10, 2022.

This is something on which we as a committee—and this government, in fact—need to get things done properly. ADI is not accredited in Canada, so you have a non-accredited body being picked up by the provinces, which are then saying that you need to use this organization. One of our researchers here, I mentioned, took her dog into the States, and they're accredited there. They're nationally accredited in the south, but she can't get her dog back into Canada without ADI recognizing it. This is the kind of mess that our country has in this regard, and we'd love to work with you guys to make sure that this gets cleaned up through the various steps we need to take.

Did I use up all my time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

You have one more minute.

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

I have one more minute. Okay.

I would just like to know this: Are you located in Ontario?

[Dwayne Sawyer]

We are actually in Ottawa. Our headquarters is out of the Legion in Bells Corners.

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

Okay.

[Dwayne Sawyer]

We chose that way to be able to spread across Canada a little more easily.

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

That's great.

[Dwayne Sawyer]

You were talking about Linzi Williams, and we actually work with her. Sandy right there is actually on their council, on their committee.

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

That's wonderful. That's good to hear.

The thing we need to do.... There are all kinds of different ways to do service dog supports, but we need that level of accountability. I know that that's what you're looking for, and that's what we need to do on your behalf.

[Dwayne Sawyer]

Yes. We need standards.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

[Inaudible—Editor] seconds. That's okay.

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

This is Tristan. He makes me look good.

We will connect with you to make sure that we can communicate on issues, and I'll connect you with the other dog program.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you very much for respecting the time.

Now let's go to Mr. Sean Casey for four minutes, please.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Sharp, I appreciate your comment with respect to case managers at Veterans Affairs and how you had positive and negative experiences.

Ms. MacDonald, I understand that for a brief period of time in your career, you were a case manager at Veterans Affairs. Is that right?

[Paula MacDonald]

Yes.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Can you talk about that a bit?

[Paula MacDonald]

It was a good experience in terms of being able to serve veterans.

I found there were issues with the medical documentation that was coming out of the Canadian Armed Forces, which has its own medical system, separate from the rest of Canada's. There were issues with veterans saying they had certain service-related conditions that were not documented in the record. That made it so the department was not able to give them the benefits they were seeking for those issues.

There is an issue with quality if you work in the civilian system and then transfer over into the military system. In the civilian system, if you don't follow your professional standards, you will have issues within that profession. You'll be called out on them. That is not what happens within the military health care system. That's an issue. Military service members need to have the same quality of health care and access to health care that the rest of Canadians do. They are trying to defend our interests, so we need to treat them just as well as we treat civilians.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Thank you.

I understand you currently have a case before the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Is that right?

[Paula MacDonald]

Yes.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

What's the status of that?

[Paula MacDonald]

It's been going on for eight years. It's incredibly painful, in terms of the amount of time it takes for a case to go through.

I had to do a lot of the background work. I had to put the case together by going through access to information. With the evidence I gathered when I was in the military and being abused by them.... I was lucky. I have a very awesome lawyer in Prince Edward Island who is working on consignment. She's helping me. Not everybody can have that, and not everybody has the amount of time you need to go through and work with the Human Rights Tribunal. Eight years is too much time. The reason it is taking a lot of time is that the Government of Canada made a lot of frivolous arguments to prevent the case from going forward.

I believe the stuff you guys have done in saying that any member of the Canadian Armed Forces can now go directly to the Canadian Human Rights Commission if they're being discriminated against will help current serving members protect themselves, so thank you for doing that.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I saw in the records that you put in an access to information request, and it was denied. I'm not sure whether that's the same thing you referenced earlier and you're continuing to pursue that.

Am I correct in that? Are they tied to the human rights complaint?

[Paula MacDonald]

Absolutely. Everything is tied into trying to prove what happened and collecting evidence about what happened during my service. All the access to information requests would be working towards—