THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON VETERANS AFFAIRS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, October 2, 2024
The Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs met with videoconference this day at 12 p.m. [ET] to examine and report on issues relating to Veterans Affairs, including services and benefits provided, commemorative activities, and the continuing implementation of the Veterans Well-being Act.
Senator Rebecca Patterson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome to this meeting of the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs. Before I begin, I would like to ask all senators and everyone in the room to consult the cards on your desk for guidelines to prevent audio feedback if you use your earpiece during the sitting. We have to protect our interpretation services.
Please make sure that you keep the earpiece away from the microphone at all times. When you’re not using your earpiece, put it right down on the sticky in front of you. Thank you for your cooperation.
I’m Rebecca Patterson, senator from Ontario and chair of this subcommittee. I’m joined by my fellow subcommittee members whom I am going to ask to introduce themselves. I’m going to begin on my left.
Senator Richards: Senator David Richards, New Brunswick.
Senator Yussuff: Senator Hassan Yussuff, Ontario.
Senator M. Deacon: Welcome. Senator Marty Deacon, Ontario.
Senator McNair: Welcome. Senator John McNair, New Brunswick.
The Chair: Thank you very much, colleagues. Because other meetings bump up to ours, you may see one or two other senators come in. They will quietly seat themselves and I will give them a chance to introduce themselves when they are here.
Before welcoming today’s witnesses, I would like to provide a content warning for this meeting. Today, our subcommittee is studying veterans’ homelessness, and will be hearing from veterans who have lived experience in this field and they may share disturbing, sensitive subjects, including trauma related to military and RCMP service homelessness, and gender-based violence. This may be triggering to people in the room with us as well as to those watching and listening to the broadcast.
Mental health support for all Canadians is available by phone and text at 9-8-8. If you are a veteran, you can call 1-800-268-7708 to speak to a mental health professional right now.
Senators and parliamentary employees are also reminded that the Senate’s Employee and Family Assistance Program is available to them and offers short-term counselling for both personal and work-related concerns as well as crisis counselling.
For those of us in the room today, should you need support during the meeting, a counsellor from TELUS Health is here with us today. Please know support is there if you need it.
I also would like to say to our witnesses this is your story to share. It is not ours to dig out. We are here to listen to you. You don’t have to tell us anything you do not want to tell us. We are thankful for any words that you wish to share.
I’d like to welcome the subcommittee’s witnesses for today. First and foremost, we have Jennifer Smith in the room with us, and she is a Canadian Armed Forces veteran. We also have Christopher Richardson, who is also a Canadian Armed Forces veteran. And by video conference, we have Jennifer Chorney, an RCMP veteran. Thank you all for joining us today.
We will start by having you provide your opening remarks. Then we will proceed to questions by members. Please note you have about four to five minutes, and the clerk will raise a hand or give a little warning. However, if you do end up going a bit longer, that’s okay. We got this. At this meeting, we are here for you.
Jennifer Smith, would you like to start?
Jennifer Smith, Veteran, as an individual: Thank you, senator. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak here today.
My name is Jennifer Smith. I am a single woman veteran and an advocate. My personal journey with homelessness and housing insecurity, or HHI, started shortly after leaving my military career early due to severe sexual violence-related events. I have already spoken about those events in detail to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, or ACVA, on November 9, 2023. I recommend you bring my ACVA testimony and the Invisible No More. The Experiences of Canadian Women Veterans report forward into this study.
Since officially entering into the VAC system in 2018, I’ve had many opportunities to share my HHI knowledge and recommendations. Groups spoken to besides ACVA include the Office of the Veterans Ombud, Ottawa City Town Hall, Ottawa Veterans Task Force, Soldiers Helping Soldiers, Pepper Pod, Veterans’ House Canada, VETS Canada, Respect Forum, VAC stakeholder outreach teams and several VAC-funded research groups.
After six years of advocacy attempts, I don’t, however, feel like progress is happening as urgently or as meaningfully as I would have expected.
I think we can all agree that this study topic is large and complex. The full spectrum of HHI, from total prevention to absolute homelessness, is a spectrum upon which any impacted person can easily slide back and forth on repetitively over the course of their lifetime. This is what makes prevention and intervention two sides of the same coin when discussing HHI issues.
Inviting people with lived experience, or PWLE, to these discussions shows a collaborative willingness amongst parliamentarians and the Senate to make earnest efforts to eliminate HHI. It is especially important that PWLE help to identify the key touch points along the HHI spectrum that can make or break a woman veteran’s chance at being appropriately housed and supported.
Though many policy advances and systemic improvements have been made over the years, veteran support, especially for women veterans, is not yet optimized. Canada still needs better prevention prioritization including the screening and identification of at-risk veterans, while concurrently providing adequate interventions and supports for those whose HHI was not successfully prevented.
Nothing short of a continuous improvement, multi-pronged, multidisciplinary approach to HHI will prevent the military — and likely also the RCMP generation behind me — from falling through some of the same systemic and process-related cracks that I did.
My lived experience in this topic area spreads across 33 years now; five minutes doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. However, during that journey I’ve gathered many examples of unnecessary barriers to receiving veteran services and support due to my being housing insecure. Those barriers were often further compounded in their complexities due to the intersectionalities of my sex, gender, marital status, service-related disabilities and age. I have also gathered many examples of how to improve on those barriers.
Briefly, a few of those barriers included: service providers not believing I was homeless, and apparently, I didn’t look or act how they assumed a homeless veteran should look or act like; the Catch-22 of being unable to access needed VAC services, supports and benefits without first having a fixed address; service providers assuming that extra supports would be no longer be required for me the moment I was no longer experiencing absolute homelessness; having to restart relationships from zero with new VAC service providers every time I had to move cities in search of safe accommodation options. This lack of continuity of care caused great personal stress, resulted in huge gaps in services and impacted my ability to access medical support and care.
The ongoing lack of VAC awareness around veteran-centric HHI practices often resulted in my re-traumatization versus healing, which in turn, prolonged my HHI.
The Canadian public still largely visualizes a homeless veteran as a man, not a woman. Indeed, VAC’s campaign of “one homeless veteran is one too many” only showed a man, thus perpetuating the stereotype that all homeless veterans must be men. Although recently changed, the new poster still makes women veterans invisible. Making veterans faceless does not help to break stereotypes and ensure that women veterans with HHI get equitable VAC care and supports.
While prevention of HHI must always remain the primary goal, appropriate intervention that is timely and adequate is also key. All these topics would, in my opinion, be best served by having the Senate organize a round table of people with lived experience to discuss and explore these important issues without the strict time limitations imposed on us here today.
Please feel free to ask me more about my lived experiences, lessons learned and recommendations during the question-and-answer session.
Thank you for your time and attention.
The Chair: Thank you, Jennifer. Much appreciated. I will now go to Jennifer Chorney. Over to you for your opening comments.
Jennifer Chorney, Veteran, as an individual: My name is Jennifer Chorney. I am an RCMP veteran of 18 years. This is the first time I am speaking in front of the Senate like this. Thank you very much for having me.
To tell you a little bit about myself, I recently retired about a year and a half ago from 18 years of service with the RCMP; 15 years of that was general duty, uniform, the one with the yellow stripe. We would wake up and be on call. We would work by ourselves. After 15 years, I was able to move to a federal section, and I did plain-clothes work for three years.
Throughout the job, I had seen many different issues — we call them calls, complaints — and it led me to realize that I have PTSD. I was diagnosed through the operational stress injury clinic, or OSI clinic, with PTSD, major depressive disorder and anxiety, and those were all job-related issues. Also, I have a few physical issues as well, but that’s a different story.
Since I have retired, I have found that people still minimize what we did as an officer, as a woman, and it’s almost as if they don’t think we’re capable of still doing anything else, and that’s why I’m here as well. I want my voice to be heard. Our voices have been heard, but they need to resonate, because things just aren’t happening. I never expected to be sleeping out in a car.
As a veteran, I didn’t realize — I do now — some of the programs that Veterans Affairs Canada, or VAC, has in place for homelessness. However, at the time, I didn’t realize it, and I believe that we need something even a little more short-term, for a few days or a week, until you can transition into something longer term, into a home or a place to live.
I did all my service in Saskatchewan, which is what we call F Division. It has all been in Saskatchewan in small towns. I was seconded out to the File Hills First Nations Police Service for a year and I was able to learn and grow from that experience as well.
I didn’t consider going to a shelter per se. Being a woman and being a veteran, I felt I would be looked down upon or judged. I think that we really need to have something in place for veterans, whether you are a woman, a man or whatever gender you prefer, that is a place specifically for us so that we don’t feel as singled out and we don’t feel as judged. Even speaking about this, people will probably judge and say, “You were RCMP. Why are you having these issues?” But it happens, and it happens so fast that you don’t realize that it is happening. With PTSD, anxiety and depression, it makes it harder to do those things or to get them going, because that’s a step back as well.
Something short term like a Ronald McDonald House that you can go to with your family or your children, which you would feel safe to go to, would be very helpful.
I will tell you a little bit more about my time in the RCMP. As a general duty member, you often work by yourself. You can get called out at five o’clock in the morning, do your shift all day, go home and then get called out again to help your coworkers because in many cases we would work alone. We go into domestic situations, murderous situation or car accidents. I have had a person set themselves on fire in front of me. In my federal service with policing, my PTSD was brought out because I was in two car accidents within three weeks. Once that happened, it was as though I couldn’t even leave the house. To move things forward for something like this, now that I find myself better, as I do have coping mechanisms, I want to help people that are like me, people who have been like me, hopefully people who won’t be like me who are still serving, and for the veterans that still need help now.
You can ask me questions. I’m a bit nervous. This is my first time testifying. Throughout my service, I’ve been a field recruit trainer, a critical incident scribe, a media liaison and I have assisted with training courses. I did many different things in my service, and I want to use my experiences to help people who need it.
You can ask me any questions you would like. I become a little jumbled because this is my first time testifying.
The Chair: You did amazing. This is your story. You own it, and we’re here to hear what you have to say and to listen. Thank you. Well done.
Ms. Chorney: Thank you.
The Chair: Christopher, I wish to apologize. I didn’t do the order clearly. That’s on me. If I can pass the floor to you for your opening comments, that would be wonderful.
Christopher E. Richardson, Former President, Occupational Stress Injury Special Section, Royal Canadian Legion and Former Vice President, Persian Gulf Veterans of Canada, as an individual: My name is Christopher Richardson. I served in the Canadian Armed Forces from 1984 to 1995. A few months after I completed my service, I found myself living in my car here in Canada without any money. I had planned to go to school and did go to school. I rented an apartment, and the apartment was sold. I didn’t receive my deposits, so between tuition, lab fees and everything else, I was broke and was living in my car. I was down to my last few hundred dollars. I was in a diner. I used to go to the diner in the middle of the night to stay warm. I saw an advertisement for airfare to the Cayman Islands, of all places, which took three quarters of what I had in my bank. The trick was that I had to leave Tuesday morning, and it was a Friday night. So I did that. I started looking for a job down there, not wanting to go through the winter here in Canada.
I arrived there, and for one week I walked around and slept on the beach. I found a job, but found out that it would take four months to obtain a work permit. So I continued to hang out on the beach. After I did manage to find work, it took me a few more months to have enough money to find housing.
It wasn’t pleasant, even though it was the Cayman Islands. You would think it would be pleasant, but it wasn’t. I was sleeping by an old cemetery at the edge of the beach. I was broke, collecting change on the ground.
I was a veteran without addictions other than cigarettes. I can’t even imagine the path back for a veteran with addictions.
It’s a tough journey. It’s not an easy journey.
Jennifer, you talked about going somewhere where other veterans are. This is not the image that we have.
Fast forward. I started to help veterans. I’ve helped quite a few veterans who have been homeless. I have been involved with Canadian Veterans Advocacy, the Royal Canadian Legion and the Persian Gulf Veterans of Canada. I was one of the founders of the Operational Stress Injury Special Section of the Legion, which is now nationwide.
I have been doing all this living outside of Canada. I live in the States. After five years in the Caymans, I went to the States. I was working in the dive industry. I have started a couple of companies. I worked for some big companies. I worked internationally. Every now and then, I blow up my life quite effectively when I fall back down into my OSI, and that has been a pattern.
So there is a little bit of duality here for me. One part of me is sitting here as a high school dropout, homeless, ex-navy cook, and the other part is sitting here as some dude with an MBA who actually started up a couple of companies. But it’s a wicked problem. It’s not easy. There are no easy answers. Every veteran is an individual.
One thing I can tell you is there are small things and big things that can change everything. When I talked about this isn’t the vision of who we are, there are a lot of things that the system contributes to that.
I was over in the Gulf War. Veterans Affairs doesn’t consider me a war veteran. I get it. War veteran is tied to World War I, World War II and Korea, and it’s tied to a benefit package that at one point the government didn’t want to do. We don’t declare war anymore. We just go along with our NATO partners and we have whatever article and off we go. We don’t call them wars so we are not war veterans. But they are tied to a different benefit package. I’m not going to sit here and talk about the benefit package or the money. It’s bloody insulting.
In my war — Senator Patterson’s war — we went there being told it was a war, hearing in Parliament that it was a war — and then afterwards you tell us it wasn’t. Where is our dignity? Where is that dignity? It’s gone. And it’s bureaucracy. It’s just bureaucracy, but it’s on feeling. And that on feeling, that impacts everything: whether you end up homeless or you don’t end up homeless; whether you end up working after service, happily retired, it’s there.
Jennifer gave testimony. She gave testimony that was just heartbreaking. She sat before the committee as a veteran without medals. They don’t mean everything. They mean everything and nothing. She served. She signed the blank cheque. You know what the worst thing is? It’s okay if we have to cash that cheque. It’s okay. But for what she got, you’re joking me.
Australia has a defence medal. You sign up, you do your contract, you get a defence medal. You sign the blank cheque. You did what you were asked to do. We won’t do that. The veterans’ community has been asking for years. I don’t know if it’s the $8 per medal, because they are cheap. I don’t know whether it’s jealousy. Some veterans don’t like the idea because they have the Canadian Forces decoration for 12 years of long service and good conduct, but you get that for being in. I don’t have one. I only served 10 and a half years, but I have medals, so what? But the point is, they signed the blank cheque; recognize them.
It’s about dignity, but there are a lot of other points. I made a bunch of bullet points. Let’s get to that. It’s a little easier for me.
The Chair: Christopher, if you’d like, I bet you they will come out in the question round. We can probably get to your points as we do the round table for questions. Would that be okay?
Mr. Richardson: That would be super, yes. One of the good things I can say is it feels like nothing changes, but some things do change. When I got out of the Candian Forces in 1995 and I wanted to go to school, that was on me. Today, a veteran would get the Education and Training Benefit. They wouldn’t have ended up in the same situation that I was in. So that’s a positive, right? We’re moving forward. But the flip side of that is I did my bachelor’s degree and my master’s degree on my own dime not that long ago, in my fifties. I got out in 1995. I was 28 years old. We have veterans out there right now who are in their thirties who might have served in Afghanistan or not — it doesn’t matter — that earned their Education and Training Benefit, and they’re coming up against that 10-year limit on that training benefit. We know — and you’ve had testimony here before — that many veterans end up homeless after 10 years. I was early, but others will end up homeless after 10 years. That benefit won’t be there for them. Why is that arbitrary limit on the Education and Training Benefit? It doesn’t make any sense. That’s just a quick policy change; have a nice day.
That was one part of it. The other part of it is that I got out because, truthfully, I was in a bad place. I wasn’t sleeping. I was drinking to try to sleep, and then I was dragging myself to work the next day and not doing that great. And I knew it wouldn’t end well.
So instead of getting into trouble — because getting in trouble in the forces is not entertaining — I got out. But before I did that, I went to the base hospital and talked to the doctor. I told him I hadn’t slept in weeks and that I was drinking. He gave me one sleeping pill and told me to get my act together; he didn’t want me to get addicted. But it was, “Get your act together.” So that told me I wasn’t going to get help there. I went to the padre and told him that I was drinking. He said, “Well, some people drink; have a nice day; you’ll be okay.”
Now I believe in the Canadian Forces that it would be a different conversation than I had. So there is some progress. But there are other veterans like me who got out 20 or 25 years ago who might still be working age. I’m 57. What about them? They don’t know that they’re out there.
That’s one thing I would really like to touch on. Veterans Affairs Canada has to do a better job of educating the clients on the benefits and the programs. I do not understand why so many veterans don’t understand their own benefits, but they do not. Every day on social media we see this, every single day, veterans on benefits not understanding it.
The Chair: Thank you, Christopher.
Mr. Richardson: Thank you.
The Chair: You are absolutely welcome. Thank you for that compelling opening statement. I have two new senators who have just come to join us. I’ll let them quickly introduce themselves and then we will start our question round. Please know if there is something that you don’t get to in your testimony, the clerk will certainly be standing by to receive any submissions that you have because we want to ensure we get everything that you wish to share with us.
I will go to Senator Klyne to introduce himself.
Senator Klyne: Welcome to our expert witnesses here and guests. Thank you for your deep emotional presentations as well. There is a lot of inner strength there. I am a senator from Saskatchewan, and I am pleased to sit in here for Senator Anderson.
Senator McPhedran: I’m Marilou McPhedran. I am an independent senator for Manitoba.
The Chair: Thank you very much. The senators are very interested in what you have to say. To the best of your ability, keep your answers tight, and then we’ll be able to get everybody to provide a response who wishes to.
For the senators, please direct your question to someone to start. And then our other two witnesses can certainly add if they wish to do so.
Senator Richards: Thank you very much for being here. It seems frivolous to ask questions after your talk, but I will try my best.
RCMP Jennifer, how is your PTSD now? I know you’re probably still suffering from it, but are you coping with it better than you were earlier on?
Ms. Chorney: I am. I have my coping mechanisms that I use. I haven’t gone to the OSI clinic in about a year, but I think I’m still doing okay with it. There are moments, as I said, that you’re just so low you can’t leave the house or the car or wherever you’re at, but I have my coping mechanisms now, and it has gotten a lot better than what it was when it first all came out.
Senator Richards: Do you have professional help with this? Are you seeing people, or are your coping methods yours alone?
Ms. Chorney: They were from when I was seeing a psychologist and a psychiatrist. That was through the OSI clinic.
Senator Richards: Thank you. Mr. Richardson, I know this from the experience that I have lived, though probably nothing like yours, but you said that at times things blow up again. You have recurring bouts where things all go to hell in a handbasket?
Mr. Richardson: Yes. My pattern has been to get things together and move forward, normally through being a workaholic. Then, it catches up to me with burnout or, in personal relationships, I distance myself and pull back, and things go to hell in a handbasket.
One of the more surprising times that happened to me is about seven years ago when I had gotten involved in helping other veterans and starting the OSI section. A lot of things that I thought that I had resolved, I hadn’t resolved. Working with the other veterans made it more difficult for me.
I was more emotional than I would like to be here today, truthfully. It is a little bit too vulnerable for me. I do not talk about me being homeless that much. Can you imagine? People have difficulty explaining a gap on their résumé in employment. What if you had written “homeless” on that résumé? How do you get a job? How do you move forward?
Senator Richards: Thank you. Ms. Smith, could you say how the government could improve, what help is needed and what might be the most vital way to facilitate this? Maybe in two, three bullet points or maybe one.
Ms. Smith: Senator, thank you for your question.
As I mentioned in my opening statement, by having to condense all of this vital information into these four- or five‑minute sound bites, we’re losing the opportunity to build relationships and trust. We’re missing parts of people’s stories that could include key clues on how to address the issues that are more common and misunderstood as it pertains to women veterans and veterans in general for homelessness and housing insecurity.
I would say the Senate could be influential here and initiate a full-day round table discussion in which you invite persons with lived experiences and have them tell their stories, talk to one another and create some salient points of where we might be able to start attacking this wicked, complex problem.
Senator Richards: Thank you.
Senator M. Deacon: Jennifer and Christopher, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for being here today. Your stories are unique, and, as said by our chair, your stories are yours.
We are trying in — you are right — a formal environment to get as much information as we can today with the invitation to submit more at any time.
I am sitting here with a variety of questions but also emotions, like each one of you. I feel strongly about the concern that Jennifer started off with, which was said quickly but was the number of tables that you have sat at already. That must be frustrating with the number of times that you’ve sat at a table with a message that has not been too different. We actually aren’t interested in putting another report together, setting it on a shelf and putting it away. This committee is interested in action.
First, in looking at the experiences that you have had and in speaking to different groups, what do you think might be getting in the way of converting pure testimony into action?
Ms. Smith: A very good question, senator. As you said, from personal experience, we now recognize the value of lived experience and having those voices at the table, but you are right. It seems that we are telling the story over and over again. Each group has that information, but it is somehow not translating into action.
Groups need to be willing to share that information. As I said, there needs to be more time to be able to address the issues more fully and completely. That is a really good question. I honestly feel a bit confused, myself, when I think about how I could speak of this so many times, and yet I wonder: Why do we not have a woman-veterans-only housing, for example?
Senator M. Deacon: I will come to that in a moment, if I could.
I hate saying it because it sounds like a cop-out, but there is no question that it is complex. When we talk about recognition, Christopher, about medals or the difference between being a war veteran and non-war veteran and what that means on top of and with all of these other issues today, it is certainly complex.
I’ll steal something a witness from last week said. They said “nothing about us without us” here at the table when describing veterans’ homelessness and that veterans themselves should be the main source of informing and information when we are trying to gauge and tackle this issue.
But we are hearing it clearly today. There is a pretty big trust issue at play. From what we have heard, homeless veterans are not always willing to reach out to Veterans Affairs Canada to ask for help, much less provide personal information on their circumstances and what may have led to that.
I suspect when we come out of this, one of our recommendations will be for Veterans Affairs to take on more of a lead in determining what sorts of services homeless veterans need, and I wonder if you trust them with this task. If I could, I will ask Ms. Chorney from the RCMP first. Then, if you folks could respond, I would love to hear your responses.
Ms. Chorney: Could you rephrase the question?
Senator M. Deacon: Sure. It was long. We are looking at who takes responsibility for trying to listen to veterans. Things are parcelled out.
Ms. Chorney: Right.
Senator M. Deacon: We are asking if Veterans Affairs should take more of a lead in determining the sorts of services that homeless veterans need. I wonder if you folks can trust them with this task.
Ms. Chorney: Yes and no. The OSI part, for me, has been really helpful. For the other part, I did not even know about it.
I do not know if Veterans Affairs is just slow to get information out to people or what. When they start proving themselves, maybe the trust will eventually grow, but it would be hard to trust them right now. It’s hard to trust them because you don’t know if you will get a result. It is so easy to say “phone this number” or do this or that.
If anybody is like me, they are not going to feel scared but judged. They are going to hold back. In my situation, I felt comfortable and safe going to the Legion because I knew there were people like myself, like-minded people who had been through certain things and the same kinds of situations.
The trust will eventually come when Veterans Affairs start to prove themselves, and if they don’t, we have to find the root cause of why it is not working.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you.
The Chair: As chair, I will take a privilege. Christopher, would you like to respond as well?
Mr. Richardson: As you asked that question, senator, I thought immediately, “Who at Veterans Affairs?”
My own experience with Veterans Affairs has been fairly positive. There are some issues with being OUTCAN that I would love to talk about more in depth.
One of the things in helping other veterans that has come up over and over again is the geographic inconsistency in service delivery and quality of care for that veteran.
For some of the veterans I have, when you put in a claim for them, everything starts rolling. It goes fantastically. They get a case manager. They get all of the help in the world. For other veterans, everything is a struggle with their case manager and the local office working against them.
I had one homeless veteran whom I helped and am still helping, and — I am going to name them — the London office did everything they could to throw up barriers for that veteran to the point I had to go on social media, scream and yell and get ADMs involved. Now that veteran is in Newfoundland. He has a new case manager who is absolutely fantastic.
It is not just a matter of helpful or not helpful. There are also doctors or regional managers who do Veterans Independence Program, or VIP. When people will move, they will lose VIP or they will not give VIP. There are so many different approaches.
For instance, in some provinces, for a veteran with PTSD who wants help with VIP services, some manager in that area has decided that if you have PTSD, I think you should be outside doing the yard work because that would be good for you. In other areas, it is, “Oh, well, I get it. Some days you do not have the energy to do that. Absolutely, we’ll get you VIP.” Why is it so inconsistent?
I am sorry. This is not a matter of good or bad employees. This is a matter of good or bad management. It is bad management. If McDonald’s ran like that, McDonald’s wouldn’t be open.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Klyne: I wish to begin by thanking you for your active service and putting it all on the line. From my perspective, and I’m sure the perspective of my colleagues, we are very grateful for that. Thank you.
I have a question for Mr. Richardson, and anybody else can offer their thoughts as well. A few months ago, I asked the Minister of Veterans Affairs a question related to mental health and veterans’ homelessness. The question was along the lines of how quickly veterans get access to mental health counselling, which can be a factor in preventing homelessness.
Through your lived and learned experiences, could you comment on the question that I got a vague and almost empty answer on?
Mr. Richardson: I wondered if you had read my bullet points.
A couple of years back Veterans Affairs Canada put in place that, when you put in a claim for mental health, you were immediately able to get mental health supports — only some, though. For instance, pharmaceuticals with a psychiatrist, that is not happening. As far as therapy sessions and stuff like that, that is happening. That is a good thing.
That is another area where Veterans Affairs Canada initially excluded veterans outside of Canada. That was one of my more vocal moments on social media once again. I was happy to see they changed that. You are getting some supports out of the gate right now, which is relatively new. It is fantastic.
One big area that bothers me when I am dealing with a homeless veteran is that if you are over 80 years old and you submit a claim to Veterans Affairs, it is going to get red zoned, which means they are going to work on it within a two-week period. The idea is that this veteran is old and going to die soon. Let’s get them their benefits before they are dead. Everything is urgent.
However, for a veteran who is not over 80, the only way you can get that is if you establish that you are frail. The only way to establish you are frail is to get all of the assessments done. How are you going to do that with a homeless veteran, folks? If you can go down to the corner of Elgin, get an occupational therapist to go down there and hang out with them to do the assessment; it does not work like that, right?
Why homeless veterans are not automatically red zoned with Veterans Affairs is mind-boggling, irresponsible, completely head-in-the-sand to the reality of a homeless veteran. Again, this is just policy.
I had a homeless veteran where the case manager was literally working to throw them off the program because they did not make their appointments. They did not have any money or a home. It is the same case manager who, even when I got a therapist to recommend intensive, inpatient therapy, wouldn’t approve it because he did not have a home to go to afterwards. Well, he has serious addiction issues and he is homeless.
I’m all for a housing-first program. But the simple truth is we have to meet the veteran where they are, and sometimes they are not.
Senator McPhedran: Thanks to each and every one of you for being so courageous and honest with us today. It is invaluable information. It comes at a cost. I can speak for all of us around the table. We appreciate that.
I am going to ask a question. Madam Chair, you may decide I shouldn’t. Let me know. Do we have anyone in this room from Veterans Affairs Canada, any officials?
The Chair: They have been previous witnesses. They are not here today.
Senator McPhedran: There is nobody here today?
The Chair: That is correct.
Senator McPhedran: Okay. If there are any Veterans Affairs officials online listening to this, would you please advise this committee of who you are and let us know whether you have heard this testimony today?
My second question is to each of you as our experts on this issue. I recognize we don’t have time for fulsome answers. My request is for you to follow up in writing with the committee as well. What is the scenario in your personal experiences that would have made the crucial, defining difference for you, if the service had existed? Each of you described a different turning point.
If you are not comfortable answering that today, if you would, please, undertake to think about it and let this committee know.
The Chair: I will ask Ms. Chorney first, then our in-person witnesses.
Ms. Chorney: That is a very good question. That is one I will probably think about more and write it out. It is a lot to think about. The wheels are turning in my head already. I will not speak as quickly as I am thinking. I will write it out if that is okay. Thank you.
Ms. Smith: There isn’t just one thing. That is the point.
Actually, because my experience is a 30-plus-year experience, I will say that as a VAC member in 2018, I came to them as a homeless veteran. I made no bones about it. I gave them the straight goods. I am housing insecure. I am couch surfing, living in motels and having to do this, that and the other. My case manager told me to go and look on Kijiji. It was absolutely not helpful. I had nobody to help.
What do you do with that information? It is not helpful. VAC did not help me in any way, shape or form in getting housed. That was me. It took three years but I got myself housed.
Speaking about getting quick access to mental health services, when you are dealing with housing insecurity and homelessness, people move a lot. While you might have access to mental health services in one city, if you have to relocate because of circumstances — in my case, I had to move to another province. Even giving VAC a heads-up that I will be there on this date, and I need to be picked up immediately upon arriving in this new province, I was still three months without access to OSI, without access to medical care. It varies. It depends.
They always say, “Well, we have so many veterans.” I was actually discharged from the OSI as a patient because of my PTSD and not being able to get to the clinic. Often I’m quite homebound myself. They told me I wasn’t good enough to be a patient there, I guess. So I have zero services from the OSI.
The Chair: Thank you, Jennifer.
For our fellow senators, OSI stands for “occupational stress injury,” in case you were not tracking.
Christopher, over to you.
Mr. Richardson: In my personal experience, as I said, I actually believe that there are some things in place now that would have changed the outcome.
Every veteran is different. There are themes that repeat, but they are different. We talk about the idea of whether a veteran like Jennifer be comfortable in a homeless shelter filled up with guys like me. Probably not. Veterans have families. Some don’t or some are estranged.
Some veterans react well in an environment that is more structured or regimented. That environment works with them. For some veterans, that is not going to work for them at all. I couldn’t do it, personally.
Addictions are a terrible problem. Tiny homes are talked about a lot. There was a veteran’s tiny home that had a lot of addiction going on there. The veterans got kicked out because of the way that things were going. The truth is, there was a negative peer pressure there. Behaviours were normalized to a certain extent, and they ended up homeless again.
There’s so much here, more than we can cover in this time, but what I would say is the most important thing is communication.
Infrastructure Canada testified here. They are pouring a tonne of money into this. A couple of the senators were concerned about the amount of the budget going towards administration. Do you know what? They are spending that much money on administration because they do not have a clue how to work with the veteran specifics. They are trying to fold this into what they have been doing for homelessness in general. It should have been VAC doing that. It is wonderful that they are doing it, but it should have been VAC.
On veterans’ organizations, VETS Canada is outstanding, absolutely superb. Why we have not figured out how to take VETS Canada — they are working on volunteers — and get them more supports. I know that they have just gotten some money from Infrastructure Canada, I believe. They do incredible work.
The Legion’s Leave the Streets Behind is a great program in some areas, not as mature in others. They need the resources to do this.
One of the things that I will say to my fellow veterans and veterans organizations is straight up, ladies and gentlemen, if you do not stop thinking that you are competing with one another as veterans’ organizations and your turf wars and get over it, just get out of the game. Seriously, folks. This is action stations. Get together and do the job.
That is an internal veterans community problem. We do not make it easy either.
You, as senators, are the most consistent politicians on the Hill. You are here. Yes, you get whipped by your parties or not. You do. Those are real things. It is politics. For the MPs, more so. You can be the most consistent and unified voice here in Ottawa to help us. You have the least to lose.
The Chair: Thank you, very compelling.
Senator McNair: I want to thank you for being here today, for your service and for your continued service to try to make the lives of veterans better, and for your very honest testimony today.
Chris, as you indicated, every veteran is unique. One size doesn’t fit all. VAC has to do a better job; that is the bottom line.
I’m trying to find some steps forward in this discussion and understand some of the unnecessary barriers that you talked about, Jennifer, that are in place. It is incomprehensible that you would be going to a different province and starting the process over again and again as you search for safe housing.
The other thing that is disturbing about what we are hearing today is the lack of continuity of care or consistency in care throughout the country.
Mr. Richardson: Sir, there are many of us outside of Canada. The Veterans’ Ombudsperson’s office, in their report last year, listed where they get their complaints from. They have more complaints from Canadian veterans outside Canada than they do from Prince Edward Island or from any of the territories, yet, Veterans Affairs has their advisory boards. There are no representatives of OUTCAN vets on there. The policies, the legislation, are different for us than they are for veterans inside Canada.
I know other veterans like me. They left for reasons. There are a lot of reasons. I didn’t want to freeze, but I was also pretty down on myself.
Some veterans leave for affordability. Let’s be completely honest. For a veteran who is on Income Replacement Benefit with Veterans Affairs Canada, it was corporal or below. They are making $55,000, $60,000 a year. That is hard.
Ms. Smith: Before taxes.
Mr. Richardson: Before taxes, correct, with maybe another $6,000 to $12,000 not taxable.
The bottom line is it is really hard to live on that. It is more affordable outside of Canada.
But it is tax. We are taxpayers, even if we are not here type of a thing.
It is complicated. VAC’s geographical inconsistencies are maddening, and it is really hurting people.
I mentioned the London office earlier. That is an office that, along with some other organizations, announced that they had eliminated veteran homelessness. Two weeks later, a veteran was dead, frozen in a snowbank. What do you say about that? How does a veteran who is homeless in an area when they announced that they eliminated homelessness feel? He or she is not seen.
The veteran I was helping was OUTCAN. He was in the States. He was from London originally. VETS Canada and I got him back to London, and his case manager was horrible. I mean beyond horrible. Even when we were moving him to Newfoundland to get him away from there, she set up all of these notes for extra things that she would have to do that, to be honest, the new case manager, when she looked at it, said that is not going to happen.
It is inconsistent. Thank you.
The Chair: I’m going to ask a question now, and I’m going to leave it wide open. After having this discussion, because you’ve also shared your experiences with each other as well and Ms. Chorney, I know you’re new to this domain, but based on what you’ve heard, we will hear what you have said, but I’d like you to point out what your key message is for us on this committee. All of you can reinforce the same thing you’ve already said, or you can add something new.
Ms. Chorney, I’ll go to you first.
Ms. Chorney: I think we need something more quickly. Things take forever. Government takes forever. You have someone lying on the street dying, and no one is helping because it’s too much to do this and too much to do that. We need something that is more immediate. People don’t even have phones sometimes nowadays, but somehow maybe they can find a payphone, dial a number and say, “Hey, I need help.” I think we need something more immediate. Things just take so long, and when they do hear, it still takes so long, and it’s so much paperwork. It’s unreal how many hoops you have to jump through when you have no food, money or gas.
You’re transient. How are you supposed to do things?
Things must be quicker. I don’t know what the solution is, but that’s what we’re here to find out.
The Chair: Thank you. Please feel free to add other key messages as well.
Ms. Smith: To add to that senator, I agree with Jennifer that things need to be far quicker, but I see a lot of funding going into organizations that are supportive in nature, which helps people to start moving, talk to somebody or be hooked up with an online peer support if that is helpful to a veteran, although many say that it’s not helpful, in which case, it’s a wasted resource.
Things need to be quicker, but we need to have a plan that actually puts women veterans into appropriate housing. That’s a huge issue for me. There is not enough effort to put roofs over people’s heads.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Richardson: I mentioned that I binge-watched the committee prior to coming here to get up to speed.
Emotionally, let’s exit that for a minute. I mentioned that sometimes I feel there are two different Chris’s. Let me throw my MBA hat on for a second. One thing senators were asking for over and over again was metrics. You are all very aware that the metrics are a problem.
The truth is, I don’t think Veterans Affairs Canada even saw the metrics. They have better information, but if you don’t ask the right question, you’re not able to do the calculation.
I would ask that responsible people — and our politicians are supposed to be the ultimate bosses — force it out of them. They know it.
One of the things we talk about is homeless veterans. Let’s prevent them from becoming that way. What does that cost? Who has done that actuarial calculation? In talking to VETS Canada, they tell me that if they can intercede early, before a veteran or his family is hopeless, it costs five times more after they have become homeless to fix it. It’s easier for the veterans’ organizations to ask for a million dollars to help a homeless veteran, but if they say, “I want a million dollars to help veterans who are not making their monthly bills when things are looking bad,” can’t you give them some budgeting help? That sounds like a great argument until you start throwing in operational stress injuries, PTSD, major depression and anxiety. Sometimes it’s not as easy as merely doing a budget.
It’s amazing. I can do well some days. I can probably do your budgets better than mine because of my anxiety, because I remember being homeless and broke.
We have to ask the right questions. One of the things is to obtain the data. Let’s figure out what it costs to help people from becoming homeless. How do we obtain that money? You’ll save money by fixing the situation so that they don’t become homeless in the first place.
It’s important to be less critical. It can be easy to say, “Why can’t they just budget? Everyone else does.” Well, there are reasons why. Let’s understand that people are human.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Unfortunately, this hour is very brief. What you have provided to all of us is compelling. I would like to thank each and every one of you, not only for your service — and I mean that the bottom of my heart, and you can believe me when I say that — but for being willing to share your story with us. You have solutions in what you have shared today. We are interested in other elements that you weren’t able to convey today. We care what you have to say, and we will stand by to hear what you have to say when the time comes.
I’d also like to say that veteran housing insecurity and homelessness — if I hear you correctly — is about dignity, respect and going to where people are and listening to those who experience it. Ultimately, the question is, how do we not get there to begin with?
I’d like to thank all of you on behalf of my fellow senators. With that, I want to wish everybody a good afternoon. Thank you again.
(The committee adjourned.)