Veterans Affairs Committee on June 3rd, 2026

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

Initially you had trust issues with Veterans Affairs. You mentioned that your father was a veteran. Did he deal with Veterans Affairs?

[Door L. Gibson]

I was young when he passed, and the only thing I knew is that there was an income that came to my mother. I knew nothing more than that.

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

All right. Was part of the reason you signed up because of your—

[Door L. Gibson]

No, sir.

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

Was it just your own passion and desire?

[Door L. Gibson]

No, sir. I was just influenced by hanging out with friends. Their mother came home. She was a sergeant. It influenced us into going the next day.

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

Okay. Well, I appreciate it.

How has your interaction with Veterans Affairs been since they reached out to you?

[Door L. Gibson]

Oh, it's been awesome, I have to tell you. We've talked. I wasn't ready to deal with him. He called back. We made an appointment to call back. We had a conversation. He sent me forms. I reviewed the forms. We connected again. He told me about some of the health care practitioners in the area. I reviewed them and looked them up.

I will continue to call him, but I don't have the time and capacity at the moment to bring that up. I need space in my life to deal with it.

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

Yes, I understand that. I think that's great.

Your service was marred by racism, challenges, sexism and a history, but your interaction with Veterans Affairs has been good.

Have you dealt with racism in Veterans Affairs?

[Door L. Gibson]

Not yet.

What's the new one? The racialized persons vets are starting something. Again, they somehow reached out to me. I must have met them in the elevator or something—I don't know. Anyway, there's another journey starting.

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

I think they're afraid of you. I like you.

How much more time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

You have 10 seconds.

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

Okay.

Thank you so much to our witnesses for coming. I appreciate your service, your candidness and your openness to share.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much, Mr. Tolmie.

For five minutes, we have Mrs. Royer.

[Zoe Royer, Liberal, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Welcome, Captain Gibson. I'm so pleased to welcome you here.

I thank both of our witnesses for their incredible service to our country.

I think your background talked about your being at CFB Esquimalt in 2000. My husband was a base engineer in the early nineties at CFB Esquimalt. I don't know that your paths would have crossed, but I just wanted to share that as a bit of background and to recognize your 44 years of service. You received the Member of the Order of Military Merit medal from Michaëlle Jean, a Black woman governor general. That is really incredible and so very impressive.

You talked about having a really good experience with Veterans Affairs, but it's a more recent experience, I would say. Can you talk about some of the parts that you feel have been working really well in that experience? Can you give a bit more detail? What was the transition like from your 44 years to moving through this process with VAC?

[Door L. Gibson]

The experience in the military had its ups and downs. Something that I couldn't rely on, for example, was the medicals we used to have to take all the time. We took a medical for this, that and something else. I never trusted it. I also went to a civilian doctor, my doctor, who gave me the truth. Veterans Affairs.... Since I left, I think I became.... I never left sergeant major. I continue to ask questions. I continue to advocate for others. I have seen people hurt, and I see them not being successful. They don't get up in the morning, or they don't go too far from drugs or whatever addictions they may have.

You heard my introduction and who I am. Who I am is a daughter, a cousin, a sister and a partner of.... That is the spirit that keeps me alive, and that's the spirit that keeps me driving. I, right now, am here because I wanted to be here in person. I wanted to see all your faces and see what you're doing about the business of these folks. We get in the military from recruits to grave. It's not to grave. It's, boom, “You're 60. See you later.” I still continue to care. I came here to be in person.

I'm working with the Veterans Affairs commemorative partnership program. It has provided me a grant with the BC Black History Awareness Society on the No. 2 Construction Battalion. I have energy. That's my home; I live in Victoria. That's the energy I have. I have a performance tomorrow afternoon at CFB Esquimalt. I have one on Friday night at the Log Cabin Museum, and I have one over on Salt Spring Island at ArtSpring, talking about these men from before. That's my energy. That's my healing. The other communication or relationship building will be around how my process will go.

Again, I needed that space for my own healing, but I also need to be sure, and I need to build relations. You need to build relationships. I wish we had more time today, yes, but you can call me. You can call a veteran. You can call a Black one. You can call a woman. You can call a gay person. You can call a lesbian. You can call anybody to tell their story.

We couldn't get benefits for some folks, so the brigade commander organized some money for folks to go to the Tim Hortons. That sergeant took his troops, went to Tim Hortons and started to heal. Eventually, it became part of the brigade to help people through it. It can be done. You just have to talk to the right people to volunteer.

Thank you for paying for my way, by the way; I appreciate it. I really wanted to see you. It's my healing. You may not believe it, but it's my healing—speaking on behalf of others.

Thank you for the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

You have 45 seconds.

[Zoe Royer, Liberal, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Ms. Gibson, you served for 44 years. What was the thing that kept you in?

[Door L. Gibson]

I just wanted to learn. I was doing new things. I would try. I cared for people. I had troops. I loved to organize parades. I cared about the leadership and the people.

[Zoe Royer, Liberal, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

Thank you very much to both of our witnesses.

This concludes our study on the experience of Black veterans.

I want to thank you very much for your testimony and for your service.

With that, I will suspend the meeting before the committee moves on to the second hour and welcomes the next witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

I call the meeting back to order.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on April 13, 2026, the committee is meeting on its study on the monitoring of the rehabilitation services contracts awarded to Partners in Canadian Veterans Rehabilitation Services, or PCVRS.

We are welcoming two witnesses today: Christopher Banks, retired sergeant, and Natalie Gillis, licensed counselling therapist and Canadian certified counsellor.

Welcome to both of you.

I would now like to invite Mr. Banks—or rather Ms. Gillis—to make her five-minute opening statement.

I'll start with the lady, if I may, Mr. Banks.

Oh, you would like to start. That's perfect.

Then, Mr. Banks, as you requested, you may start your five-minute speech.

[Christopher Banks, Sergeant (Retired), As an Individual]

I'm sorry. We coordinated beforehand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marie-France Lalonde]

That's okay. I didn't want to be impolite to the lady.

[Christopher Banks]

Thank you.

I served in the Canadian Army for 20 years, deployed as a peacekeeper to Bosnia and deployed into combat in Afghanistan. I came home with PTSD and was medically released in 2019. I suffered from hypervigilance, a common symptom of PTSD, meaning that I was unable to let go of the extreme vigilance that kept me alive in combat.

During the decade that followed my return, I was angry, filled with anxiety, experiencing panic attacks and suicidal. Thanks to the efforts of my mental health team in the CAF and my VAC case manager, who arranged programs and connected me to a great psychologist, I was able to overcome my injury and start improving. That was until I enrolled as a participant in the rehabilitation program and was so disrespected and mistreated that it reinjured me and I became suicidal again.

You know my story already. Not only was I a witness at the last ACVA study for the rehabilitation program, not only has my brief been published as part of the study since April, but my story is the same as those of so many other veterans who have told you the same thing.

When I returned home, I used my experiences to help my fellow veterans, and for the last 16 years I have been a peer helper in the veteran community. Of little surprise, one really big recurring problem that keeps coming up is the rehabilitation program. I hear veterans lamenting that their RSSs won't return their calls or they don't understand the military or veterans, that they were told to switch providers, that they were denied the education program of their choice, that they were referred to clinics that retraumatized them during invasive and repetitive assessments and that there was a general lack of humanity.

You've heard this story too, because the same thing has been reported time and time again in the news. It's the same with so many other veterans who've sent briefs to the committee and reached out to MPs. The fact is that despite the dishonesty from the department and the contractor, veterans are complaining through official channels.

This dossier of complaints, discussed at length by VAC, was obtained through ATIP. The contractor bragged about their survey results, but it's already been pointed out in previous meetings that 732 surveyed out of 23,000 enrolments is a pathetic sample size, so even 100% satisfaction would be meaningless. Since their numbers actually indicate a 2% approval, this actually lines up with a social media analysis that I conducted for my brief, and I am very happy to answer questions about that.

Another piece of disinformation I would like to address is the assertion that veterans have a choice. It is presented to veterans as a choice, but it is a Sophie's choice: You either choose to participate on their terms or you are kicked off the entire rehabilitation program, which includes income replacement and other benefits, so it's not a real choice. It's a threat.

They also told you that they support our rehabilitation and vocational goals. They don't. You have already heard testimony that they force people through a meat-grinder towards a quick and cheap solution. Not only this, but they also artificially limit our career and income potential by forcing us into vocational programs and then into career paths based on our rank and salary at the time of our release. For many like me, this was early into my expected career.

“Sergeant” was not the last rank I thought I'd ever hold, but because that's the rank I was released at, that is the salary level they deemed would be good enough for the rest of my life. My injury didn't limit my career advancement nearly as much as the rehabilitation contract did, not to mention that many people view the military as their first career, where advancement isn't the goal—experience is. Absolutely brilliant people who will one day end up as executives serve in the junior ranks. If their injury occurs early in their career, they'll forever be limited to that part of their life.

Finally, they told you they offer rehabilitation services to survivors, but discussions with survivor advocates tell a much different story: They don't.

I beg the committee to see and accept the pattern displayed here. Those with a profit or power motive are telling you that it is a good, effective and supportive program while the veterans, families, case managers and service providers are telling you the truth. Veterans are dying because of this contract, and that's not an exaggeration.

Sadly, given the failure that was the soil turning for the Afghanistan monument and their refusal to meaningfully engage with veterans and the issues we care about, we are expecting that regardless of testimony and this committee's report, the government will ignore us to serve big business. We are all tired of hollow promises, and we are smart enough to see through them. If VAC actually cared, they wouldn't try so hard not to hear us when we speak.

Thank you.