Veterans Affairs committee  If you had asked me that several years ago, I would have probably told you that it's much more prevalent in CF veterans. I'm not so sure that's the case any more. It's interesting to see, as war service veterans reach a certain point in their lives, that they start to reflect back on their lives, as we probably all will do at some point, and it seems that as they do that, they start bringing up some of the traumas that occurred when they were younger and that have been repressed for up to 60-plus years.

Veterans Affairs committee  As for what we see, I'm not a clinician, so--

Veterans Affairs committee  --that said, we see a reliving of the experience. When they start exhibiting symptoms of PTSD, these individuals start reliving what they've experienced, very often with great anxiety. They start to look at separating themselves in safe places. Very often, you will find individuals with PTSD who cannot live in a home, in a traditional kind of setting.

Veterans Affairs committee  Again, this question would be better directed to the Department of National Defence, but I do know they screen in their recruitment phase, both physically and psychologically, and they screen before and after deployments. But you would need to ask the Canadian Forces themselves the details of that.

Veterans Affairs committee  I will start. There are many questions here. In terms of preventing operational stress injuries, your first question, one of the findings in research is that the best way to prevent, if you can prevent, is to build resilience so you have an opportunity to be more prepared for what you are going to deal with.

Veterans Affairs committee  PTSD is one of many mental health conditions. When we speak of mental health services we're talking about services that address a variety of mental health conditions, PTSD being one, but also depression, anxiety disorders, social phobia, any of those. The operational stress injury clinics focus on all the operational stress injuries.

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely. We speak of operational stress injuries exactly for that reason. It was understood that to talk about mental illness within the military had such a large stigma that individuals would not come forward to access treatment or any other services. So DND coined the term “operational stress injury” so there was an understanding it was related to operations; it was like any other injury, physical or mental: it's an injury and it was related to the stress related to the operations.

Veterans Affairs committee  Good afternoon, everyone. Although this presentation is on the new Veterans Charter, we felt it was important that you have an understanding of the mental health context in which the new Veterans Charter is provided. As I understand, Mr. Chair, there will be a separate briefing on the full mental health strategy of the department within the next few weeks.