Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Chair, ladies and gentlemen. I feel sincere gratitude to be here. Your study, the accompanying report and the hope for changes will not reverse the tragedies and neglect of the past, but your work can change the future. We as a nation can make up for years of neglect

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Brassard. I'm very humbled by your comments. The ombudsman was absolutely correct in using the expression "in their own right". That is the availability part of the program. We all know that there are a lot of programs... [Technical difficulty—Editor] s

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Ms. Blaney. That's an excellent question. If we take bits and pieces of what everyone has said here today, I think we really need to include a multidisciplinary approach. Mental health research has shown that veterans, especially with severe chronic illnesses, do not

Veterans Affairs committee  It's a very tragic situation that needs to be addressed and I would think a multidisciplinary team can help fill that gap that families would normally fill.

Veterans Affairs committee  In the public opinion field, yes, I think I have. Has government done anything to change it? No.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you. As you know, Mr. Brassard, I usually come here and advocate for policy change and on behalf of other veterans. It is very difficult for me as a veteran to speak personally about what I go through. I can't tell you all, members of the committee, how difficult it is to

Veterans Affairs committee  I would really like to show the trail of how decisions are made, how senior bureaucrats interfere with frontline workers, the burden that's placed on frontline workers, what little time they have to help with their veterans when they're being case-managed. I'd be able to show ove

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Ms. Wagantall. I think today is a perfect example of how you are all hearing from individuals who are unhindered in their ability to speak openly. That's what we really need. I think the public and Parliament needs to hear this unfiltered information, the unfiltered d

Veterans Affairs committee  Good afternoon, Chair and ladies and gentlemen. I sincerely thank you for inviting me back. It is well documented that Minister Seamus O'Regan spread falsehoods about me in retaliation for my writing about the government's flagship election promise for veterans, the pension for

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Brassard. To that end, I submitted a 40-page report with 53 very substantive recommendations. Why? We've been looking at this problem.... For me as an advocate, not much has changed in 20 years in the way the department deals with veterans with psycholo

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm sorry, John.

Veterans Affairs committee  Let me emphasize that the culture at VAC has nothing to do with the people themselves. The people are all well intentioned. They're all working very hard, but they're working hard on the wrong paradigm. At Veterans Affairs, we have a frontline staff that is completely ignored b

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Ms. Blaney. What happened was that Craig Dalton—unlike the previous ombudsman, Guy Parent—thought it would be, and I agree, an excellent plan to have a more expeditious process of having recommendations acted upon. What was happening under Guy Parent previo

Veterans Affairs committee  I think fundamentally that we have to take away this interdisciplinary care team they have at Veterans Affairs. It is a policy interdisciplinary committee that rules on files of veterans they've never treated. It provides a sort of fake front that Veterans Affairs really is using

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Doherty, I've long written about the huge gap between the rhetoric and the actions. What happens, especially with veterans with mental health illnesses, is that when they hear government say these words but the actions show something different.... When they show up at Veter