Health committee  Presently our systems aren't allowing us to do that.

Health committee  If a regular member were to come forward, the person could go to his or her MEAP representative in the member employee assistance program, who could allow access to a professional, depending on what the issue was. It could be family counselling or whatever. MEAP representatives have lists of names of providers in the geographic area where they're located.

Health committee  I'm not 100% sure of what their training consists of today. I went through that process 15 years ago, and it was then a three-day course. It taught you not to be a counsellor. It taught you to actively listen and to be able, in a very primary fashion, to assess the issue and categorize it perhaps as a marital issue, a harm-to-self issue, or a financial issue, and then to be able to have the tools available in that geographic location to give them names or set up appointments.

Health committee  To the best of our ability.... Processes and procedures are one thing. What Mrs. Smith brings to the table is the human side of processes and procedures when they are not working as they should. What we have done is reaffirm the reality that all members deploying to remote or isolated areas need to be psychologically assessed by the MMPI-2 and have a follow-up assessment with a psychologist.

Health committee  There are approximately 14, one per division, more or less. But again, they're not psychologists who offer treatment. They are people who are more in the area of looking at trends for things like undercover operations, integrated child exploitation units, assessing those particular people in high-risk areas.

Health committee  In terms of those kinds of benefits that you're talking about, what we've striven for in preparing the documentation is to make the regular member population equal with the rest of Canadians who are afforded similar types of benefits.

Health committee  I'm not sure about the nod and the wink, but I know there is documentation that our minister has been briefed on. It's with our commissioner as well.

Health committee  I'm sorry, could you repeat?

Health committee  We have done a tremendous amount of work over the last several years in forwarding information to government to set out our position as an organization. Right now that's before the commissioner and the minister. We work diligently to try to put into place the regulations that are required to be able to offer certain benefits that are commensurate with the military.

Health committee  The part of the question that I think you hit on that is so important is that there is a tremendous diversity of experiences. Several years ago the military came upon the term OSI, meaning operational stress injury. We've adapted that because it works for us. Without being military, I don't want to float into a jurisdiction that I'm not versed in, but the experiences of the military in their everyday work are much different from ours.

Health committee  Sure, I can take that. Thank you. Generally, the way the RCMP health services presently works is under an occupational health model. As was said in the opening statement by Chief Superintendent Tousignant, except for immunizations we don't provide direct health care whereby we deal with members who are ill.

Health committee  We have trained psychologists in the organization. They are regional or divisional psychologists. They typically don't provide point of care; they don't typically do the counselling. They work with doing psychological evaluations for such things as our child exploitation units, undercover programs, that type of thing.

Health committee  They tend to be clinical psychologists—clinical or counselling.

Health committee  I didn't want to leave you with the impression that we leave our membership hanging in isolated communities. When issues are identified, we can either get the assistance they need at another location, or at times transfer them out of the community to a location that's better suited for them, for treatment, or because of the community itself.