Veterans Affairs committee  I can't even put it into words. I'm the tip of the iceberg, though, compared to my veterans. I mean, they're living it; I'm having to deal with it, so it's different. It's so easy to correct. It just takes some political will, and we need to get some of the VAC senior bureaucrats out of the way, because they seem to be the resistance.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's difficult. Talking about resilience getting worn down, I've been doing this a long time and to be honest, I feel worn down by Veterans Affairs. Initially, they were very good, but now they're obstructionist; they're restrictive. We have lay people typically overruling medical specialists and stuff.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much for this opportunity to address the committee. My background is that I'm a veteran. I served 22 years in the Canadian military as a doctor, and later as a psychiatrist. I'm an expert internationally and nationally in post-traumatic stress disorder. I currently have about 133 veterans on my caseload in Vancouver.

National Defence committee  I don't think I actually criticized the Liberal government. I was criticizing the Canadian Forces and its inability to move in a direction I thought was necessay. Certainly things are going in the right direction. It's much better than it was. There's still an issue around reservists and families that needs to be addressed.

National Defence committee  It's difficult. On the one hand, if you have shorter tours of duty, given the small size of our army it means that people are going to have to rotate back into theatre much sooner. The advantage of a longer tour of duty, nine months or a year, is it allows other people back here in Canada a little bit of extended time before they have to start gearing up for training, so they have perhaps a little more time with their families and stuff.

National Defence committee  Well, there are two parts to this thing. It is very difficult to screen and predict who is going to get PTSD. They attempted to do that in World War II, and basically you could flip a coin and be as effective as our screening procedures. So it's difficult to predict. Even if you say this person is vulnerable to developing PTSD, it does not mean that he or she necessarily will, and they may actually perform quite well in theatre.

National Defence committee  It's a very good question, and it's something I've revisited on a number of occasions with the military. First off, should we be concerned? Absolutely. A suicide death is a preventable death. If there are adequate resources available and they're accessible without stigma, and they're also experienced and competent, then a lot of these suicides could be prevented.

National Defence committee  In response to your first question, you need to realize that all people resist change. Organizations such as the Canadian Forces and the RCMP are steeped in tradition. It's very difficult to implement new types of programs, particularly if it goes against a belief system. The belief used to be that only weak people would develop PTSD.

National Defence committee  I'm Dr. Greg Passey. I served for 22 years in the Canadian Forces until September 2000, first as a general duty medical officer, then, in the last nine years, in psychiatry, with particular expertise in post-traumatic stress disorder and associated operational stress injuries.