Madame,

I write to you to express my displeasure over the government’s budget. In particular I wish to raise awareness of the $4.23 billion cut in Veteran Affairs Canada, as juxtaposed with the increase in the National Defence budget to $82 billion.

It can be commended that after years of Liberal neglect the government is now finally placing a greater effort on defence. However, it is very troubling as to the cuts used to achieve this increase in defence spending. In the last several years there have been numerous reports of how our government has failed our veterans, too many to list here. Suffice to say that our government has failed veterans on my fronts, specifically with regards to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

The veterans suffering from PTSD were those engaged in special operations. They, like many other veterans long neglected by our government after serving in foreign lands under the harshest physical and mental conditions, returned home with deep mental wounds only to find little in the way of healing mechanisms being offered to them. Suicides, increased divorced rates along with drug and alcohol abuse have become the only and failed alternative for many, resulting from their sense of abandonment by the government.

Some of these men and women have in recent years resisted suicide by finding relief via healing with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP). I invite Ms. Chatel to view the recently released first episode of the Canadian docu-series that focuses on this issue with a look at the tremendous results of using ketamine as a therapy tool, entitled Advance Force Operations, Episode 1: Ketamine on YouTube. 

This veteran-led documentary details veterans’ attempts to form a collaboration between Veterans Affairs Canada, Health Canada and individual provincial health authorities to create a psychedelic psychotherapy delivery system for veterans, at government cost, over that of the individual. The bureaucratic hurdles, coupled with the cultural stigma over this form of therapy, are holding back groundbreaking progress.

So, my question to Ms. Chatel is this: while your government is committed to spend record billions on rebuilding, rearming and reinvesting in the Canadian Armed Forces, do you and your government also commit to providing funding and attention to our veterans to receive PAP?

Your government needs to be a leader in this form of therapy. If the government’s desire is to increase the numbers of soldiers, it better be prepared to help heal these increased numbers as well. 

Todd Hoffman, Campbell’s Bay