Veterans Affairs Committee on April 29th, 2024

[Phillip Lopresti]

That's a very good question, actually, and it's hard to answer because I didn't create it. However, my initial personal goal in the play was to better understand our veteran community myself. As a very junior member in the military at the time, I wanted to deepen my understanding and know what I was signing up for. It's this idea of informed consent. Do you know what you're signing when you sign on the dotted line? Do you know the type of career you're engaging in? Are you confident? Do you have the tools to survive it and provide meaningful contributions for the lifetime of a career?

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

What is your conclusion?

[Phillip Lopresti]

It was absolutely the right choice.

I strongly believe having more GPs in the military is important, as well as medical officers. My next career move, hopefully, is to be an MO in the CAF. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, which is why I can't answer questions as the OC. If I do, I'll lose my job.

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

All right.

After having participated, as I understand it, in the writing of the play and having had some military experience in the field, did you determine that something was missing from your play?

What message did you find difficult to convey through the play?

[Phillip Lopresti]

The message that was harder to get through with this play was something called “invisible wounds” or “moral injuries”. There are some injuries that CAF members experience that no one can see on the surface. It's horrible to hear stories of people who have lost a leg or lost a life, but there are many other types of injuries that are invisible and no one can see. There's a new type, moral injuries, where people go against what they believe is morally right in the line of duty.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

Let's go to Ms. Blaney for six minutes.

Please go ahead, Ms. Blaney.

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

Thank you so much, Chair.

I thank all of our witnesses today so very much for their testimony.

I'm going to start with Mr. Lopresti.

I'm really fascinated by a lot of your testimony today. I was very pleased with some of the language, like observing the play as a way of having informed consent about serving, which I think is really profound, and calling it a therapeutic re-enactment. I know from a lot of my studies that this really can make a difference for people, so thank you for using that language. I think it's really important.

In the work I have been able to do with multiple veterans in my role, one thing I have seen again and again.... I'm not interested in blaming or shaming. I'm not going to blame any past government. I think it's something that's wrong in our society. What I don't see in VAC workers is really strong trauma-informed training, so when they're addressing the issues, they don't always have the correct way of managing really big things. I think one thing we all agree with is that the veterans who come back again and again are the veterans who have the biggest struggles, so making sure they're supported in a way that is trauma-informed is really important.

We've heard testimony today from one of our witnesses—thank you, Mr. Meincke—about the changeover of caseworkers and not having people who follow you through the process. You have to retell and retell, which can be very challenging. We also know that VAC is hiring people on short-term contracts, which means the turnover is really high. We don't want to see that for this particular group of people.

Based on the play you did and the research you have done, can you talk to us a bit about your thoughts around how important it is to have service providers on the other side, regardless of their role? That's really important, because if you don't have everyone trained on how to provide trauma-informed care, things fall apart eventually. I'm just wondering if you could talk about that and if you saw or did anything in your studies that was, in particular, about how important that is and, of course, how important that is during the transition period.

[Phillip Lopresti]

Thank you for your question, ma'am, and for putting it in the context of the research. That helps me answer it.

One interesting thing about going through the performance as many times as we did is that, even with someone as experienced as Dr. Marvin Westwood, who has been working with veterans for a long time, we were still constantly learning. Just as some of the other witnesses mentioned, there are different generations of veterans and different needs. Even their learning abilities—how we're taught in school to learn, interpret, share—50 years ago were different from what they were 10 years ago and are today. What we noticed when audience members would come up and we'd have conversations with other practitioners in the field is that they were constantly having to adapt and change to the group.

It's difficult. It's really challenging to have one course per se, and for all people working with veterans to take this course to be certified as trauma-informed, because how trauma is perceived and how people manage it and work with it are changing.

What I personally witnessed in the play was the importance of immersing yourself in the community. You can't do it every day or all day, but at different parts, you can immerse yourself in the community, have a sense of what's happening today with the population you're serving and then inform your practice based on what trends you're seeing today. You might have to do that at regular intervals to have the best approach and be trauma-informed for today versus yesterday.

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

No, that makes sense. In my office, almost all of my team have been trained by veterans—people who are very educated—around trauma-informed care, and it's really made our lives a lot better. Hearing those stories is really hard, so I think trying to find that balance point is important, and self-care is very important if you're trying to care for others.

You talked about hypermasculinity across gender expression, so I'd like to hear a bit more about what that means to you. We are in the process of finishing up, hopefully soon, a study on women veterans. We heard again and again how they felt extremely invisible and how their reality wasn't reflected. In fact, the general public seems to think that if they are wearing medals with civilian attire, those medals belong to somebody else—to a man who is in some way connected to them. I'm curious about hypermasculinity across gender expression, what that means and the impact.

The other part I'm curious about is whether in the play you have any stories that are women-specific. Were there any challenges in getting women to speak out in relation to their service, as compared to men? What was the reality on both sides?

[Phillip Lopresti]

Please let me know if I misunderstood the question, but the first part was on the idea of hypermasculinity and how that impacts veterans in transition and their service.

As I mentioned, one of the things we noticed was that the more strongly a person adopts an unrealistic idea of hypermasculinity, the more rigid their belief system becomes and the greater the barriers to accessing help they create in front of themselves. Accessing help often leads us to take an approach whereby we admit to ourselves that we're injured, we need help and we need assistance. That's an extremely brave and difficult thing to do.

A lot of participants who have gone through the VTP often say it's the hardest thing they've ever done. Harder than any course, pathfinder or service they've done is sharing what they've gone through, because it makes them so vulnerable. They've expressed that nowhere in their training leading up to that was it something they were taught. Often in their education, as a student in elementary school or high school, there was not necessarily a course on emotions and how we process trauma, so adopting hypermasculinity in that role and being very rigid are very difficult.

That is a focus for me, and the lens I take to counselling is a feminist lens. That means we explore social gender roles and how those shape someone's path in their career and even in accessing help. Where do they go to access help based on the social gender norm they adopt? That's something very close to me in my current practice and in my interests.

The second part of your question, ma'am, was on female participants. We had a female participant who was a non-veteran, and she worked closely with the families and some female veterans to try to weave in those elements of the story. She was doing a doctorate in psychological counselling at the time, and she was able to provide that voice. Nowhere in our discussions following the play did we feel that the female veterans or witnesses in the room felt any barrier to approaching us. We didn't notice any barrier.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Blaney.

It's already 12, but because we had technical issues at the beginning and we have a procedure regarding acoustics, I can offer one minute each before we start with the other group, if you have any other questions.

Mr. Tolmie, please go ahead.

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

I'm going to talk fast. Thanks to the panellists for joining us today.

I would just like to ask if you agree with this. The traditional view of war combat service was to send our military to a conflict zone, with the consequences being death, loss of limb and other physical injuries, which a lot of people could see. Then World War I came along and we started experiencing shell shock, and with modern-day conflict, it's PTSD.

Canadians live in a peaceful society. Most of our conflict has happened overseas, so our civilians and civilian organizations have difficulty accepting veterans into the workforce because they don't understand them and haven't experienced what veterans have experienced. These people have a lot of skill sets, as we've noticed. They are hard-working and organized.

Mr. Bury, would you agree with that statement? Would you point out, maybe from your perspective, some of the challenges that vets have when they're transitioning with their skill sets into the civilian workforce?

[MGen (Ret'd) Paul Bury]

That's a great question.

We've seen over the last 100 years a number of different conflicts. They went from the trench warfare situation in World War I to a counter-insurgency conflict in Afghanistan. Not a lot of Canadians will put their hand up and volunteer for service, so you're right that there are a limited number of individuals in the civilian workforce who understand the operational stress injuries and the PTSD consequences of Canada's conflicts.

From my perspective, one of the things I've noticed is an overwhelming desire on behalf of the construction industry to embrace veterans. They understand what veterans bring to the table, and they're cognizant of the fact that there may be issues involved when accepting veterans into the workforce—OSIs, PTSD or perhaps a medical issue. There are procedures to deal with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much, Mr. Bury.

Let's go right away to Mr. Sarai.

You have one question in one minute.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you. I actually have two.

Well, the first one is not a question. It's just to ask if Mr. Lopresti can submit the paper he did with others called “Mental Health and Well-Being of Military Veterans during Military to Civilian Transition: Review and Analysis of the Recent Literature”. If you can submit it to the chair, that would be great. Then we can add it to our study.

My question is for you, Mr. Bury. In your opinion, how can we better improve employers for veterans integrating into a new workplace culture? You've seen a lot, done a lot and continue to do a lot. What are better ways to help transition CAF members and veterans into civilian life?

[MGen (Ret'd) Paul Bury]

I think there are a number of points I would make on that question.

I would say continue with VAC's veteran and family well-being fund. That grant process is ideal for not-for-profits and other community-based organizations working with veterans at the coal face. Currently, I do not believe there are any grants in play, but that is a specific tool that's extremely beneficial to those of us in the communities working with veterans every day.

I think the other thing, perhaps, would be a regional-based forum hosted by Veterans Affairs that could get not-for-profits together to try to cover some of the gaps that exist when helping veterans and their families with ongoing issues, or to ensure a successful transition. There are many organizations out there. I think there needs to be better coordination to ensure those gaps are covered off.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much, Mr. Bury.

Mr. Desilets, do you have a question? You have one minute.

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

I have thousands of them, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Bury, my question is for you. What does a successful transition mean to you? You mentioned that earlier.

[MGen (Ret'd) Paul Bury]

I would say that a successful transition is when veterans and their families are able to move from the military to the civilian world with a minimum of issues, and when they feel supported and can benefit financially from that transition.

We see many cases—we heard this today from the other witnesses—of the effects of a negative transition, with financial, mental and emotional impacts on veterans. There are organizations within the community that can work towards alleviating or lessening those stressors on veterans and their families. I say that pointedly, because it's not just the veterans. Their extended family is also involved.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you so much.

Ms. Blaney, the last word is yours.

Go ahead, please.

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

I love getting the last word. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Bury, this seems to be your round, so I'll ask you a question as well. More specifically, I'm curious about the transition and how that connects to H2H.

In terms of people coming to work with you to be connected to the building trades, is there anything that can happen before someone leaves the military, in their transition phase? How do they connect to you and how does that go? If that doesn't happen, how could that happen?

[MGen (Ret'd) Paul Bury]

We are engaged with releasing individuals. Ideally, it's prior to their release. We attend the Canadian Armed Forces base and wing SCAN seminars or what used to be a SCAN seminar. Now they're transitioning over to career fairs. We're proactively engaged prior to the release of the member.

As I said in my opening comments, we talk to those I have identified as releasing prior to their release. We talk to their families. We offer spousal employment opportunities also. Ideally, when the individual makes that transition, they already have an apprenticeship or a support occupation lined up within the construction industry. That helps to alleviate any stressors pertaining specifically to civilian careers.

A lot of individuals, if they joined the army or the Canadian Armed Forces at 18, will not have had any other civilian career until they release at 32 or 34 years old. If they're married with two young kids, that is a significant stressor.

We get in prior to the release, ideally, and deal with the individual to help guide them through that process. The system works well now. We're always looking for efficiencies on how to make it better as we go, but right now the system does work.