National Defence committee  There is a lot to be said about the honours and awards system for Canada, and I think the veteran community is particularly loud about that. It is very notable in the military that medals are few and far between. You get a medal for deployment and if you're an officer you might get OMM or an MSC, but if you are just running and gunning as an infantry soldier or a combat engineer or a sailor, you may not get anything for everything that you do.

National Defence committee  Actually, a lot of veterans are already engaged. There's an organization called Rubicon. These are primarily veterans who have gone into emergency management fields. They volunteer through Rubicon to deploy within Canada, primarily. I think they also deploy, occasionally, internationally.

National Defence committee  It is a very diverse community. I would say the Canadian Forces is a snapshot of the Canadian demographic. We are very well represented. I think the only area where we're not well represented is women. We have a lot of people who want to go on operations, whether it's domestic, operational or expeditionary.

National Defence committee  I would be happy to. I'm not quite sure exactly what you're asking, but I can give you an overhead to start. I was a part of the response to the Ottawa River floods in 2017. My contingent, my company, was deployed to Rigaud in Quebec. From there, I was part of the second wave.

National Defence committee  Yes, absolutely. In this regard, I'm just going to give it up for the combat engineers. As a trade, they are amazing in their capabilities, and they are incredibly useful when it comes to Lentus-style operations. There are things that the military can do that no other institution can, and I think first and foremost is force generation.

National Defence committee  Speaking in the context of domestic ops, for a lot of people, especially when we're speaking about reservists and Canadian Rangers, a domestic deployment might be the only deployment in their career, which may last decades. There is an appetite for more people to be engaged in domestic ops because it is a way for us to serve and it is an opportunity for us to serve our own communities.

National Defence committee  Thank you. My name is Christopher Banks. I retired as a sergeant and quartermaster after 20 years in the army reserve. During my career, I deployed to Bosnia in 2003 as a peacekeeper. I deployed to Afghanistan in 2008 as a machine gunner in the battle group. I deployed in Operation Cadence in 2010, the Canadian Forces contribution to the RCMP-led security task force for the G8 conference in Toronto.

Veterans Affairs committee  I spoke to my psychologist on Tuesday, and she had not received queries that she had put in weeks ago for her other veteran clients.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think you hit the nail on the head when you said we don't know what the new role of the service delivery person or rehabilitation service specialist you mentioned is. We don't know what they're going to do. We don't know what their role is going is be. We don't know how it's going to impact it.

Veterans Affairs committee  I would disagree with the phrasing that it's “a good thing” and that it's benefiting them to take administrative processes away from them. The view might be that we're helping them by taking more things off their plates, but what you're doing is taking control away from people who actually have face-to-face interaction with the veterans, the clients, and are now being represented by people who don't care.

Veterans Affairs committee  I went through the process, but the ombudsman removed me from the program.

Veterans Affairs committee  Through the previous CVVRS? I don't believe so, although my other mental health services are either through Blue Cross or direct billing to Veterans Affairs.

Veterans Affairs committee  For one, I heard the committee ask about a dozen times today regarding who, of the various stakeholders, was consulted, and I don't know if any veterans with lived experience were ever considered for consultation.

Veterans Affairs committee  Not to be rude, but I believe I already answered that by saying that this privatization and outsourcing scheme is doomed to result in inadequate service levels and further suicides.

Veterans Affairs committee  As far as my injury goes, I was in combat. As much as I took the mental health training seriously before deployment, I think everyone with lived experience will tell you that there's no amount of pretraining you can go through to just walk away from that shit—pardon my language.