National Defence committee  I agree with you: there is little confidentiality, and some people are uncomfortable with that. On the other hand, there might be some advantages to locating the clinic on the base, in terms of proximity and accessibility. I am somewhat divided over this issue.

National Defence committee  Which table do you mean?

National Defence committee  In each document that we publish, we can only present a certain amount of data. Regarding this study, it includes all the persons who suffered from mental problems during the past year. The sample gives details of the characteristics of the 1,220 persons. Theoretically, we could cross-reference a certain amount of information, as you suggest.

National Defence committee  To my knowledge, decompression takes five days and it is done in Cyprus. Decompression seems to me to be a good idea in itself. I think that it could have a beneficial effect, because if you are back in your living room 24 hours after leaving Afghanistan, you might not be able to adjust that well.

National Defence committee  It seems that it could be an element of protection for those who are religious. I imagine that it can be helpful for them to be able to speak to a person in whom they can confide.

National Defence committee  There were two questions there. The first question was whether or not assessments need to be improved. Based on the discussions that I have had with Canadian Forces members and based on what I have been hearing, screening and assessments are now more systematic than they were in the past.

National Defence committee  If you refuse to enrol someone in the Canadian forces because he was a victim of abuse when he was young...

National Defence committee  With a good selection process and a good assessment based on the symptoms of post-traumatic stress, I am not sure that you need to know if the person was abused sexually as a child, whether that is a risk factor or not. In fact, what we would want to know, three or four months after the person has returned from a mission, is whether he is exhibiting the symptoms of post-traumatic stress, whether he is clinically depressed, whether he is currently abusing alcohol, and so on.

National Defence committee  I don't know if it is the key reason, but it is one of the main reasons mentioned by the 8,441 participants in the survey conducted in 2002.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the honour of appearing before this committee. My name is Alain Brunet and I am a professor at the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University. I specialize in post-traumatic stress disorder. I have submitted a document that my group wrote recently.