Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 20th, 2025

[Ben Wadham]

It is agreed on in Australia that the most important recommendation is recommendation 122. We've had a lot of inquiries. One of the things the royal commission found out was there had been 57 inquiries since the mid-nineties. There have been 750 recommendations, and very few of them have been met. We have a cycle in Australia, which I don't think is dissimilar to Canada, where we have an incident, an inquiry, a report and then silence. That's also called a policy graveyard.

In 2005, after 10 years of deliberating on military justice, we recommended that there should be an independent body to oversee redresses of grievance and some other issues like that. The fundamental point here is that all militaries are insular, inward-looking institutions that are somewhat skeptical of taking outsider advice.

The argument goes straight away.... We look very strongly at the Canadian system to ask, how do we create an independent mechanism of scrutiny? Recommendation 122 is an attempt to achieve that independent mechanism of scrutiny. What it will do is look at how the recommendations are rolling out. For any more cases that come up, it won't have prosecutorial powers, but it will have the ability to refer. I believe Jon can correct me on that.

The other key recommendation, I think, is the call for a national study on military sexual assault. My research has personally led the way on this in Australia. We have multiple publications and a few books on this subject matter. This one has been very hard, very intractable and very difficult to move. I can't even begin to tell you the history of it.

What we have in Australia is a class action. That's something that Canada has done in the past. We also have begun to change the language away from “sexual misconduct” to really naming what it is, which is sexual violence.

These are the top two. There are a bunch of other ones that are really important. Probably the other one that's important is the transition piece.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Chair, I assume that we have access to the commission's 122 recommendations. I don't have them with me right now.

Mr. Lane, you have lived a rich life as a soldier, doctor and chief psychiatrist. I believe that we can learn a great deal from your advice.

After our meeting, if you have any further information to share, please send it to us. It will contribute to our recommendations in our report.

Clearly, 78 active armed forces members who completed suicide is 78 too many. I'm also pleased to see that you have been collecting data since 2017. I imagine that this contributed significantly to the report.

My question is more about the national report on suicide. I gather that it's forthcoming.

Is that right?

If so, when will you have the full report?

[Jonathan Lane]

Thank you.

That report—the plan—has actually been released. I have sent that to the clerk. In the interest of saving your time, the clerk has copies of the suicide prevention plan and the implementation plan to go along with it.

Just to touch on what Ben said, for me, the most important thing is an independent body that collects data and oversees both suicide attempts and completed suicides, both from the serving community and from the veteran community. As Ben said, service cultures, service organizations and government departments can be quite opaque, protective and secretive by definition and by operation. Having an independent body actually allows the community to have faith that those services and those organizations are doing the best thing they can for their personnel.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Since I have only 30 seconds left, I just want to confirm something with you.

In Australia, once armed forces members complete their service, they aren't abandoned. You make sure that veterans receive support and tools. They don't need to try to navigate the public system to get help.

Is that right? You can answer yes or no.

[Jonathan Lane]

Yes, and those well-being measures of finance, health, education and community still remain the biggest priorities at the individual and community levels for the well-being of any individual, and therefore for the prevention of suicide down the track, as well as—

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

I've allowed each member a little extra time, and I want to make sure I'm fair to Madame Gaudreau.

Would you want maybe 15 seconds to comment on Madame Gaudreau's question?

[Jonathan Lane]

Thank you.

These well-being matters aren't just about health care. They're about having productive members of our society who have done so much and have so much more to give. The more support we give in terms of employment, the more they give back to the community, and the better we are as a society going forward.

[Ben Wadham]

May I have two seconds?

We recognize our veterans as national assets that we placed a lot of investment in and that we must invest in afterwards in order to give back to society. That's a return on the financial investment into them, but it's also a return on investment in their and their families' well-being. It's very important for us to support veterans on the way out and afterwards.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much.

For five minutes, we have Mr. Viersen.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks to our witnesses.

Mr. Wadham, many people who have come to our committee have talked about what's going on in Australia as a bright light in the world. From your perspective, is what Australia is doing working in order to prevent the suicide epidemic?

[Ben Wadham]

It's a hard question. In the first instance, I think we had a royal commission because it wasn't working. I think that's the main point.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Since the rollout, and the work and the psilocybin and all these things, have you seen it change, or is it too early to tell?

[Ben Wadham]

No, I don't think it's too early to tell. I think that for the community—and there will be those who don't agree—the royal commission was a very positive outcome. It really brought a lot of issues to the table, a lot of things that had been going through a cycle of being identified, looked at and then forgotten. I think this has really put all of that on the table.

We have a complete sheet now to go from in order to address things, and things are starting to happen. From outside of the community, we'd like greater transparency about how those things are evolving, but that's understandable. The departments are getting down and doing the work. We have a very versatile and diverse understanding of the issues, as you mentioned—issues like TBI and different forms of alternative therapy.

It's also focusing, as I mentioned before, on the social aspects, on the DVA well-being wheel. If you can give people the pathways to success after service, then they're not going to create as much health care cost burden.

I think the future looks bright. I think there are many challenges. Institutions take time to change. DVA, I think, is leading the way. From an outside perspective, I'm quite impressed with DVA. I think the defence level has a bunch of different challenges that they're working through.

Overall, we've identified the range of issues, and we've decided to tackle them. You have to remember that out of 122 recommendations, only one was rejected. The rest were either agreed to or agreed to in principle. I feel like we're on a good platform and we have a—

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

I think you're using an acronym that is not working for me. Is it DVA?

[Ben Wadham]

Yes, it's the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Okay.

[Ben Wadham]

I think we've identified the issues. I think we have a strong sense of consensus, and I think we're moving forward. I'm positive about the future.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

All right.

One of the challenges we hear about is.... At every meeting, we get a new group in front of us with a new solution, but it feels like our department is saying that they have this one track to go through, or they have to be aligned with this particular organization in order to get funding.

I imagine there was a similar problem in Australia. Have you been able to capture the range of different methods that work for different people?

[Ben Wadham]

I've had positive conversations with Alison Frame, who is the secretary of the Department of Veterans' Affairs, and with other commissioners who say that they want to diversify the approach, that we've probably overfocused on the biomedical and that we need to place stronger emphasis on understanding culture, systems and the social elements of it, so—

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Has there been any particular system change to that end?

[Ben Wadham]

Yes.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

What does that look like?

[Ben Wadham]

Well, recently—this is a little bit on the downside—the Department of Veterans' Affairs issued a $25-million tender for something called VF-LINK, veteran and family learning and innovation network of knowledge. The idea was to take away the decisions about research that were being centred within DVA and to canvass the broader academic community. The principle of that was around real change. I think we might have decided to stay with the same sort of model, as opposed to really enhancing and improving the social health element of things. That's my bias, I admit.

We have brilliant work in psychiatry, psychology and allied health. We need to do better in the preventative space, and I'm not sure we've taken that up as much as I'd like just yet.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

All right.

There are a few seconds left here.

Mr. Lane, do you have anything to add?