Veterans Affairs committee  I just want to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak today. If there's any follow-up research material that we have, we'd be absolutely delighted to share it with the committee to support its deliberations and final report.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'll just underline some of the things that I started with in my statement. With respect to suicide, I think it's important.... I don't look at suicide as just a mental health problem. I consider it a well-being problem. When I say “well-being”, I mean that, if you look at the i

Veterans Affairs committee  It's not exactly on that timetable, but we do find that levels of mental health problems are higher when they're veterans than when they're serving. That much we know. We think that suicide is probably higher as well, although the Canadian Forces has noted, I think in their test

Veterans Affairs committee  There is excellent training in the Canadian Armed Forces, and there's no question about that, but there's also no question that it's an occupation of wear and tear to a certain extent. The body isn't built to carry 125-pound packs for years on end without some kind of consequence

Veterans Affairs committee  The answer is yes. I mean, medication can also impact well-being and can be a factor in physical and mental health. The answer would be yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  Dr. Richardson is a clinician, so he would see these people on a day-to-day basis. I'm more of a researcher. He would probably be able to clinically answer that better than I can. I might have a thought on it, but—

Veterans Affairs committee  First of all, I just want to go back to the record, which is that I had said that if you look at the reserve population as a whole, you could divide those into two groups. There are reservists who serve full time for a substantial period of time. That would be about three years o

Veterans Affairs committee  You would have to ask the Canadian Forces that question. I'm not absolutely certain.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, they would. Once they're a veteran, once they're released. Is that the question? Once they're released, they would have similar access, yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  I could speak a little about which veterans are more likely to have mental health issues. Would that help or not?

Veterans Affairs committee  It would depend. Some would have symptoms before they start in the Canadian Armed Forces and could have pre-existing mental health conditions. Some will develop conditions while serving, and some could develop conditions after they leave. It's really all of those. We have learned

Veterans Affairs committee  We did a file review in 2014 that looked at 80 cases of suicidality, and they included ideation attempts and completed over a fairly long period of time, I think from 1960-something to 2013. We do have some data on the circumstances surrounding suicide, but I don't recall that wo

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't know the answer to that. I think some of the group processes that veterans go through as well are also helpful. When veterans can share with each other and open up about their experiences, that's also helpful, and some programs do that as well.

Veterans Affairs committee  We did, but the numbers were small. I think the difficulty was with the number of cases, which was small, and that made it more difficult to do analyses.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, I'm sorry, there was an overall female rate that was similar to the male rate. Is that right?