‘Stifled by the system’
Veteran says the onus is placed on survivors to back up medical claims
Survivors of military sexual assault are often met with barriers to accessing needed supports through Veterans Affairs Canada, a P.E.I. veteran has told a parliamentary committee.
Paula Macdonald said Veterans Affairs Canada is committed to helping veterans but women are often “stifled by the system.”
Speaking before the standing committee on veterans affairs recently, Macdonald, who served as a medical technician in the Canadian Forces between 2014 and 2016, says she experienced three different instances of sexual assault during her service.
After leaving service, she began working as a social worker. She has also continued advocating to have the assaults she experienced investigated as criminal matters.
Macdonald said VAC needs to prioritize making the process of applying for benefits easier for veterans who have experienced military sexual trauma.
“What's happening is that a lot of women are having to provide more medical evidence than their male counterparts in order to receive access to health care benefits and to receive the service,” Macdonald told the committee.
The committee has been conducting a study of the experiences of women veterans for nearly a year.
As one example, Macdonald said the framework for assessing physical injuries stemming from sexual trauma or sexual abuse is based on a male body standard.
Macdonald said this puts more onus on women veterans, including some of whom she works with, to get accurate medical assessments to back up their claims for disability
awards and to receive other benefits to which they are entitled.
“It's death by repeating your trauma over and over again, and no one comes to help you. You either make it on your own or you don't,” Macdonald told the committee.
Macdonald also said the post-traumatic stress disorder associated with military sexual trauma is often “lumped in” with addictions treatment by VAC staff, even if the survivor does not suffer from addiction.
‘AN EXERCISE IN FUTILITY’
Macdonald also told the committee the Canadian Forces military police failed to act when she reported sexual harassment and sexual assault.
She painted a picture of her military superiors working to systematically suppress and delegitimize her complaints while she was serving.
After she reported one assault to the Saint John, N.B. police in 2015, Macdonald was required to undergo a mental health medical exam. She believes this was retaliatory. She was found fit for service. Macdonald said she later reported assaults to military police but was met with a lack of follow-up. She says the military police failed to adequately document these complaints.
“It's just an exercise in futility,”
Macdonald told the committee.
In 2020, the military police complaints commission dismissed her complaints. Her file was reopened in 2022 and was transferred out of the hands of the military police. Her complaints were split into three separate criminal investigations assigned to civilian police in New Brunswick and Quebec.
That decision came after an independent examination into sexual assault in the military, written by former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour. Arbour’s report recommended military police be stripped of the ability to investigate or prosecute sexual assault incidents.
To date, three different civilian police agencies have opened investigations into Macdonald’s complaints. Her complaints are also before a human rights tribunal.
But Macdonald still does not believe the military is holding the officers who were her superiors accountable.
"The criminal investigations only focus on the rapes themselves. And they do not focus on the lead-up to the rapes, so the sexual harassment that lead up to it. And it doesn't look at what the chain of command did to facilitate the sexual assaults," Macdonald told Saltwire in a March 12 interview.
Macdonald recommended several improvements to how VAC provides services to women veterans.
She called on VAC to provide legal supports to veterans who have reported military sexual trauma.
Macdonald also recommended survivors of sexual assault not be placed in addiction recovery programs when they don’t have addictions. She said VAC should avoid hiring decision makers who had previously been in positions of power in the Canadian Forces, who had enabled a hostile or misogynist culture.
Macdonald also said the Canadian military must establish an independent system for reporting sexual assault in the military, outside of the chain of command.
There are signs that VAC may be changing some of its practices. Macdonald told Saltwire on March 12 she had recently attended a national forum between veterans and senior staff of VAC.
Macdonald said senior staff said the department is changing its table of disabilities to ensure it is less male-centric.
Minister Ginette Petitpastaylor has also announced the formation of a women veterans council, an advisory committee to address barriers for women veterans.
"I do think that the Department of Veterans Affairs is trying to address the harms that were done. It's taking a long time," Macdonald told Saltwire.