QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of National Defence
Health Care for Military Families
November 1, 2023
Thank you, minister. The Canadian Armed Forces are short-staffed by 16,000 members. Retention and recruitment shortfalls are the worst they’ve ever been. Family consideration is an important fact for many members. I’ve been contacted by members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are concerned that, given the current health care accessibility crisis in Canada, medical support for their immediate family members will be next to impossible to obtain if they are posted to new locations in Canada.
As you’re well aware, members of the forces have access to military medical personnel, including doctors and nurses, but their family members don’t. Therefore, when they’re posted to a new location, their quality of medical care will continue, but their family members have to join a waiting list for a family doctor that, in many provinces, can be thousands of names long. For example, the wait-list for a family doctor in Prince Edward Island is over 30,000 names.
In light of this, and the impact it is surely having on recruitment and retention, why is your department not extending the Canadian Armed Forces medical coverage to members’ families, like they do in the United States?
Thank you, senator, and as you quite rightly point out, members of the Canadian Armed Forces are not insured persons under the Canada Health Act, and the Canadian Armed Forces actually provides those services. I was recently in North Bay where we opened up a new medical centre providing those services, which I think is a very important investment and an important initiative to support the men and women who serve.
However, I’ve also heard — and I don’t disagree with you at all, sir — that family members, particularly because of the way we transfer people, often go on a wait-list. By the time they reach the top of that wait-list, they’re transferred to another location. That has created a real burden.
Yesterday, I went to the Minister of Health. They are negotiating a number of different advancements to medical supports and services with each of the provinces and territories, and I’ve asked him to make, as part of those discussions, provisions in order to ensure that family members of the Canadian Armed Forces are given priority in gaining access to family health services because of the unique challenges that our members face. He’s undertaken to me that this will form part of our discussions with our provincial partners with respect to enhancements to medical services that will be provided across the country.
I am committed, senator, to continuing to work with them in order to ensure that we support military families in everything we do. Recruiting and retaining the very best talent — the men and women who work there — is a great strength of the Canadian Armed Forces, and we must ensure that we support their families.
As you know, under the regulations of the forces, you have the ministerial authority to instruct the Canadian Armed Forces, as with other circumstances prescribed by the ministerial regulation team. You could do that right away.
My concern is that the Ontario government, for example, gives priority, but priority needs availability on the other end. There are simply not enough doctors and nurses in this country to assist. Your authority, as minister, could change that to duplicate what is done in the United States, where members’ families could be covered by the Canadian Armed Forces medical system. Is that something that you’re considering?
I would be concerned about the impact of the services that we do provide to the Canadian Armed Forces members. They are not insured persons under the Canada Health Act, except under exceptional circumstances where we may pay for a specialist, for example, but I do not want to take measures that would in any way take away from the important services that are provided to the members. Instead, I think the right thing to do, sir, is to make sure that their families are treated on a priority basis, and given access to the services that we have invested quite significantly in across this country. I would be very cautious about impacting the limited services that we do make available to Canadian Armed Forces members.
