Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 18th, 2025

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

Thank you. Let me just echo your thanks to all of the veterans who are with us today for their service.

As I see it, the government, through Veterans Affairs, has two basic obligations to veterans through which everything it does should be filtered. The first one is to provide the services and supports that veterans need to live their lives. The second one is commemoration. That latter one is how we honour their service. The former is how we meet the obligations that we have to veterans for what they've given to this country.

I think what I heard about in the opening statements from a number of you are some failures in both those areas. I'd like to explore them both a little further if time allows.

I guess I'd like to start with this: We had a witness—I think it was a couple of weeks ago—who brought to us that she was aware of 20 veterans who had come to the government looking for help to live their lives and had instead been offered medical assistance in dying. I just want to put it out there whether any of you have experienced that, or any of you are aware of a fellow veteran who has experienced that.

I see, Mr. Bona, that you have your hand up. If others want to....

I see Mr. McKay.

Let's start with you, Mr. Bona, and we'll work our way across for anyone else who may have experienced that.

[David Bona]

I deal with the veterans who are the reason that there's bulletproof glass in your Veterans Affairs office. I deal with the veterans who have extreme anger management issues because that's part of the injury from mefloquine. It causes uncontrolled rages and seizures. These individuals are the ones actually living down by the river in that tent because they can't access veteran benefits. I have gotten a veteran off the streets a bunch of times.

It's dealing with Veterans Affairs with individuals who are not set up to do this. It's the bureaucrats. Everything is set up so that it's easy for the bureaucrats to do their jobs, but the injured veteran has to jump through hoop after hoop after hoop. You even heard from Darren.... He's saying that he's trying to do a simple travel claim, and it's denied. No one will follow up and ask you if you need assistance with anything anymore.

When I first came onto veterans benefits in 2000, I had a case manager. There are no more case managers. I requested, four months ago, assistance from Veterans Affairs. I got a call about a month and a half later from a random 1-800 number, and it was this woman who barely even spoke English. I'm as deaf as a post, so when you have someone with a strong accent, I can't understand them. That was Veterans Affairs' response to me.

It's gotten to the point where I don't do my travel anymore, because I can't fight with them. I don't even bother. Oh, my God.

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

Yes.

So—

[David Bona]

Oh, and then there's medically assisted suicide. These veterans, these are the guys who can't get treatment because they're not functioning enough in society to walk into a Veterans Affairs office to say that they need help. They can't get help.

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

I'm sorry. I'm going to let the other guys jump in. We're cut off after a couple of minutes. I have to make sure the other guys get a chance, too.

[David Bona]

These are the guys who are ending up getting offered medically assisted suicide because they can't get care.

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

Right, that's the challenge exactly.

[David Bona]

You have a veteran, and he can't get care, so let's just offer him suicide.

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

Unfortunately, that's exactly what the problem is.

Mr. McKay and Mr. Hurley, I guess you'll have to be as quick as you can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

You have one minute.

[Justin McKay]

Briefly, while holding an event about a year and a half ago at our local Legion, I was pulled aside by a veteran's wife. She divulged to me that her husband was offered medical assistance in dying. This man's a double Afghan veteran.

We're not lame, broken farm animals that are to be put down. We're broken soldiers.

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

I'm sorry. Did that happen a year and a half ago? It would be after the period of time that the government claimed it's no longer happening.

[Justin McKay]

Right. It was during one of your first studies. It was after one of the first studies that was going on.

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

Go ahead, Mr. Hurley.

[Gordon Hurley]

Yes, I had a close friend who was offered MAID. He was one of the first guys who went public. He was just reaching for regular services. To hear the story from his mouth, it completely caught him off guard that MAID was going to even be an option when he was just looking for normal services. This guy's not suicidal like what Dave was talking about. He's just a normal guy. Sure, maybe he pushed through his limits with Veterans Affairs, but to be offered MAID is not on. It's full stop. We cannot be offering MAID to people.

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

I couldn't agree more. This kind of gets us to the next topic, sanctuary trauma, which I'll have to explore in a future round. I'd like to explore that one with all of you after, if I get another opportunity.

Thank you for being here today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much, Mr. Richards.

Mr. Clark, you have six minutes.

[Braedon Clark, Liberal, Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today, for your testimony and for your service. I really want to say that off the top.

Mr. Hurley, I want to touch on some things you mentioned in your opening statement around psychedelics and the work that you're doing and also hoping to do. I think, over the course of this study, we've heard this issue come up more than once, without question. Just last week on Remembrance Day, I was at a Legion in my riding, and a veteran came up to me and was talking to me about the value of ketamine in his life and his recovery. There's no question that it's an issue that is out there and that people see value in it.

I'm just curious. I hope I wrote this down correctly when you mentioned it: veteran accelerated access research program. I know you talked about it a bit in your opening statement, but could you elaborate for us what your vision is for that? How you think it would help? What do you think VAC and the government could do to make that happen?

[Gordon Hurley]

Yes, absolutely. When we talk about the veteran accelerated access research program, we're talking about a partnership.

Veterans Affairs has a wait-and-see approach when it comes to anything medical, which makes sense, because Health Canada is in charge of it. We're petitioning Veterans Affairs to change medical stuff that they can't even change anyways.

Let's lead with Health Canada, and we'll fund it through Veterans Affairs, implemented provincially through Alberta, who already has psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy baked into their health care system. We're going to run the pilot program through Alberta, test and adjust, and then re-roll. That is the essential framework for it.

[Braedon Clark, Liberal, Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS]

Thank you.

I think you said that, in your mind, there would be 10 to 15 patients in the beginning. You mentioned MDMA in your opening statement. Are there other psychedelics that, in your mind, would be beneficial to explore as well?

[Gordon Hurley]

Absolutely.

It's important to bring up something called the special access program. That's the legal framework of the legal way to get psychedelic-assisted therapy in Canada. Psilocybin and MDMA are legal. Ketamine is completely legal.

The special access program was made for extreme circumstances. Little Timmy at CHEO has a rare form of blood cancer. He needs an experimental drug that hasn't been approved by Health Canada. You apply through a bureaucratic process called the special access program, and it allows little Timmy to get his medicine and go on.

Canada is forcing people to go through the special access program, which is meant for extreme cases of health care. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is not an extreme form of health care. It's actually defined in a ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada in a landmark case won this summer. Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, you have rights as a Canadian under section 7 to “reasonable” health care, and “reasonable health care” are the key words. We went from extreme use to now reasonable health care.

The law asks, what is reasonable? Who determines what's reasonable? A doctor determines what's reasonable, not a bureaucratic system. You're forcing people to go through a special access program, which is a bureaucratic pathway to get an extreme version of an exotic drug, whereas in actuality you would need to create a new health regulatory system specifically for it.

None of this has to do with ethics. That's the big point we're missing here. This is all administrative. You can access this stuff. You're just telling people to jump through 50,000 hoops, which at the end of the day goes to the Supreme Court of Canada. That then gets overturned in favour of the plaintiff, because our Charter of Rights deems that we're allowed to have that care.

Australia, two weeks ago, on October 31, started funding psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy: psilocybin and MDMA. America last week just expanded their psychedelic research program to over nine veterans hospitals. We're one of the most progressive countries in the world and we're up here doing what exactly?

[Braedon Clark, Liberal, Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS]

You touched on a couple of other things that I wanted to get your take on, too, with the Australia example. Is there a certain type of veteran in your experience or a certain type of person in your mind that this type of treatment would be the most effective for? Are there commonalities you see, or is it difficult to generalize?

[Gordon Hurley]

Yes, it's hard to generalize. I gave you my little example when I led in. I could talk for hours. I am on the leading edge of this.

I just released a documentary two weeks ago called Advance Force Operations, which is a mission set in the special operations world, where you go and you set the conditions for the regular force to come and follow on. I did the same thing. I'm doing that for the psychedelic landscape for our veterans. I did a documentary on ketamine-assisted psychotherapy because there's a lack of education.

Is there a specific veteran? I've seen it take a veteran off being suicidal, just like that, with no problem. The flip side of it is that if there is no support when putting this person back into his home in Petawawa, he all of a sudden goes bonkers because he doesn't have the health care system around him. Then, all of a sudden, people say, “Oh, that's the scary thing about psychedelics.” Yes, it's a very powerful substance that you're taking, and without the proper people taking care of you.... Hence, you need a regulated program to actually help people through this.

You're not just getting guys like Gordo sending people to Mexico and Peru or getting treatment in their house from someone they don't know. That's unacceptable. It's actually a massive fault of the Government of Canada that we're not taking care of this properly.

[Braedon Clark, Liberal, Sackville—Bedford—Preston, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Hurley. I appreciate that. I thank you for coming to the committee with a solution and a structure in mind, based on your experience and the work you're doing.

I only have about 10 seconds left, but I want to thank you for that. I appreciate your time.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much, Mr. Clark.

Ms. Gaudreau, the floor is yours for six minutes.