QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Veterans Affairs
Use of Psychedelics in Therapy
October 23, 2025
Minister, welcome. Two days ago in Ottawa, veterans and experts said during a press conference that little progress has been made during the past two years on psychedelic-assisted therapy. Yet the Senate report in 2023 urged immediate action, citing alarming suicide rates among veterans: It was 50% higher among men, 200% higher among women and 250% higher for men under 25 years of age — the statistics are terrible.
In December 2024, your own briefing said that Veterans Affairs Canada had examined the Senate recommendation and was open to all treatment options. The question is simple: What concrete steps has your department taken since then to address this issue?
Thank you very much, senator, for the question and thank you for the opportunity to be here before you.
I am very grateful for the work that the Senate has done and that the committees have done, including the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs in the previous Parliament when conducting the study about this topic.
Obviously, ensuring veterans receive the supports and benefits to which they are entitled is core to my mandate and that of Veterans Affairs Canada. This includes ensuring that veterans have access to the right treatments, including emerging treatments, as well as responsibly addressing their health concerns, whether those are related to physical or mental health.
Veterans Affairs Canada reimburses treatments that are backed by scientific and clinical evidence. My officials work closely with their counterparts at Health Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to monitor emerging treatments and evaluate their appropriateness for veterans. That would include the psychedelics that you’re referring to.
Research into psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is ongoing, and, at present, evidence remains limited. We know that people diagnosed with military or combat-related PTSD may respond to varying degrees of treatments, including this. Health Canada continues to assess the safety, efficiency and quality of new drugs and treatments before regulating them.
Minister, I heard a lot about assessing, observing and monitoring, but fundamentally your department has the responsibility to show leadership and coordination in addressing the mental health crisis that directly affects our veterans.
Yet, for the past two years, we’ve seen mainly that: just an observational approach and monitoring while following the research without taking any concrete initiative to move it forward.
My question, minister, is this: Why hasn’t Veterans Affairs Canada taken the initiative to bring together Health Canada, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to establish a joint program on psychedelic-assisted therapy rather than waiting for others to act? Take the lead and align all these organizations together to take action.
Thank you, senator. We are continually working with our partners in some of those other fields, such as Health Canada, as I mentioned. We are continually engaging with health experts and regulators as the research for this, particularly, evolves. We will continue to look at timely and evidence-based treatments as they move forward. We will continue to evaluate these opportunities as there’s evidence for the decisions.
