Veterans Affairs committee  They aren't in any particular order, but they do show the magnitude of the problem. Something called the Canadian community health survey was carried out by Statistics Canada recently, and that survey indicated that the most common mental disorder of people who are serving in the military is major depression, followed by alcoholism.

Veterans Affairs committee  We're working very closely with DND during the transition phase. So while people are still serving, they're the responsibility of DND's case managers, but if DND notices that someone has some serious issues and they're going to be transitioning out of the force, then they contact us and we get involved.

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a good question. I have to say that we do have support. The families can get support. In particular, I'll go back to the example I gave in the Calgary area. The clinic there gave me some specific examples of how they treat the families of veterans. One of the issues they highlighted for us was that they can't provide treatment to the family unless the veteran is also getting treatment.

Veterans Affairs committee  As I said, we have the tools that allow us to respond appropriately. We sometimes have challenges in recruiting people. I'll give you another example that I recently ran into where I had a psychologist in one of our clinics talking to me. This chap was actually a psychiatrist. In the community he was treating a lot of different types of cases and was very overworked.

Veterans Affairs committee  I haven't heard of other provinces being reluctant. We've been talking, for example, about recent deployments, and some of the recent fatalities in Afghanistan were from Atlantic Canada. We've been briefed very thoroughly by our colleagues in National Defence about missionary work that they are undertaking with provincial health officials to help them get ready for people returning from deployments, especially in Halifax, at the VG, and from Gagetown, for example.

Veterans Affairs committee  I appreciate it.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  In terms of the favourable versus unfavourable, we thought you'd be interested in seeing the number of cases that we have approved. I can't tell you right now what the numbers would be in terms of unfavourable. In general, the favourable rate for these kinds of conditions is around 50%.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think the percentage increase in RCMP members is very similar to the increase for younger CF members. As you would know, the RCMP is eligible to receive the same kinds of interventions from the department, for the same sorts of conditions, in terms of disability awards or disability pensions.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm not a clinician in this field, but I can tell you from what I've read and from what clinicians have told me that PTSD can certainly result from a number of different types of events. I don't think our definition or our medical advice around people with PTSD conditions would constrain any very broad acceptance of a series of events as leading potentially to PTSD.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's the same thing. Raymond do you want to—

Veterans Affairs committee  Let me start by trying to answer your question in a more general way. Then I'll ask Raymond to deal specifically with some of the issues you've raised as they relate to regions in Quebec. You've touched on the important issue that many of the folks suffering from some of these conditions are not located in Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, or even Quebec City.

Veterans Affairs committee  That's a tricky question, as you know, in the sense that— Let me answer it in this way. One of the features of the new Veterans Charter that I think is very important is that the wellness programs we provided under the new charter also extended to families. This was quite a new approach for the Government of Canada.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you for that question. It's a good question. We don't have a direct number that we've been forecasting in terms of the number of clients who would specifically have these occupational stress conditions. What I can tell you, and I think it is important to think about, is that the number of clients we've received who are going through our disability award process has decreased dramatically since we brought in the new Veterans Charter.

Veterans Affairs committee  No. There are a number of doctors in my family, but I am not one of them.