Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, we have looked at that, not broken down by commands, but, overall, when you look at all the people who have deployed, they do have higher incidences of mental illness compared to military members who have not deployed. Those include depression and PTSD and general anxiety disorders, for example.

Veterans Affairs committee  I actually have the answer to your original question. I must have missed it then. We do know that people who deploy come home with higher levels of mental illness. We know that. Again, it gets back to the original couple of comments. It's not so much the deployment; it's what happens to you on deployment that makes a difference in terms of risk for mental illness.

Veterans Affairs committee  Do you mean when someone is in theatre?

Veterans Affairs committee  An individual who is identified as having symptoms, perhaps related to PTSD or another mental illness, would typically be referred to a primary care physician for an initial assessment. Subsequently, there would be a referral made to the deployed mental health team, if there is one, such as we had in Afghanistan.

Veterans Affairs committee  If somebody required an antidepressant, for example, or medications that we would use to treat PTSD, they would not typically be retained in theatre. The symptoms would likely be significant enough that staying there could cause them to worsen.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, and we do fill them out.

Veterans Affairs committee  Could you refresh our memory on which three recommendations these are?

Veterans Affairs committee  We gather information from different sources. Perhaps the most important study we've done is the 2013 Canadian Forces mental health survey. The data was collected on our behalf by Stats Canada, and that actually showed a lot of important information, including the rates of several of the more prevalent mental illnesses like depression, PTSD, and so on.

Veterans Affairs committee  In some of the very isolated communities, like Goose Bay, for example, military families are entitled to care by the Canadian Forces, but those are rather the exception. Otherwise, family members are provided health care through the provincial health systems.

Veterans Affairs committee  You're right. Mental health carries a stigma in Canadian society, as it does within the Canadian Forces. We've recognized that the stigma is one of the many barriers to seeking care that exist for our patients. But it turns out that it's not the most significant barrier to care.

Veterans Affairs committee  I would say that every mission has its risks. I think when we look at wars like World War I and World War II, there were significant mental illnesses that came from that. I think the Canadian Forces has looked at ways to interact as effectively as possible with the local population, but bearing in mind that there are still going to be circumstances in which soldiers are exposed to psychological trauma.

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't think we have numbers on how many people were sent back, or not, with mental illness. I'm not aware of any such statistics.

Veterans Affairs committee  I know people were sent back, but I don't know that we have a list of who those people were.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll answer that one: Absolutely. What's important to understand about suicide is that the suicide rate changes over time and varies according to people's age. When you compare people of the same age, which is the analysis that we've done, that's where we get this observation that the rate is higher in the army than in age-matched males in the civilian sector.

Veterans Affairs committee  Just remember that the 13 per 100,000 I think includes even children. I'm not sure what age it starts at, but as people move into middle age, that's when the suicide rate is actually the highest. That captures our serving population.