Testimony to ACVA - Text of Testimony on Reprisals by VAC Bureaucrats against Sean Bruyea
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1 Testimony to ACVA April 15, 2010 Sean Bruyea Captain (retired) Advocate for Disabled Veterans and Their Families and Freelance Journalist Text of Testimony on Reprisals by VAC Bureaucrats against Sean Bruyea for Opposing New Veterans Charter and other Advocacy Work Many of you in Committee have known me for several years. You also know that I take great pride in my advocacy work: work which will hopefully help Canada take the best care possible of its disabled soldiers and their families. In May 2005, while I called for Parliament to send the Charter to Committee for study just as you are doing now, certain officials at Veterans affairs coordinated their efforts to seek reprisals against me principally for my opposition to the Charter as well as my support for a Veterans Ombudsman. I now have in my possession more than 13,000 pages of Privacy Act information which the department holds on me and my activities as an advocate. At least 10,000 more pages exist but have not yet been provided to me. What emerges from this information is a clearly documented and disturbing picture of public servants seeking reprisals against me for my advocacy work. In possible violation of ethical boundaries and privacy legislation, policy officials who designed the Charter such as Ken Miller worked together with treatment officials such as Orlanda Drebit and Jane Hicks to blend my advocacy efforts and my medical files into briefing notes seen by Cabine t Ministers and MPs in an attempt to discredit me and my work. Their plan was twofold: First to attack my credibility by falsely accusing me of defrauding the crown while attempting to force me to be admitted to Ste Anne’s Hospital for a psychiatric assessment reminiscent of Stalinist tactics. The second part of their plan was for these officials to use highly personal information and distortions thereof in Briefing Notes. These Briefing Notes were given to the sitting Minister whenever I carried out advocacy work. The Notes were typically 10 pages long and included the most inti mate details of my pharmacological drug use, financial benefits, my bladder functions, my mental health state and excerpts from psychiatric and other medical reports. The Briefing Notes concluded that the only reason that I advocated was because I was mentally unwell; in the sense that in their opinion, one would have to be crazy to advocate change. These Briefing Notes were sent to almost all VAC senior managers in Head Office involved in the areas of Policy and Treatment. In fact, more than 400 Veterans Affairs employees have seen some aspect of my personal files. 2 When I reported allegations of these reprisals to two separate Ministers, the response, on the advice of bureaucrats including Veterans Charter authors, was to ignore my allegations and instead refer me to a VAC psychologist. I then reported the matter to the Prime Ministers Office. Documents in my possession clearly show that the Minister’s Chief of Staff and the two most senior VAC officials briefed the Prime Minister’s Office that although they could not talk about my allegations due to Privacy, that many soldiers in the Canadian Forces distrust authority and that whenever VAC denies a request, the soldiers imagine a “conspiracy”. Furthermore, these VAC officials told the PMO staff that PTSD is like alcoholism and that the way to deal with my allegations was to refer me to a VAC psychologist. I bring this matter to you to emphasize the almost unbelievable lengths to which certain VAC officials have gone to prevent any meaningful debate on the Veterans Charter and resist all attempts to impose transparency on the Department and this controversial new legislation. As a sufferer of PTSD and other service-related injuries, I am a client of Veterans Affairs. At no time in my Military service did it ever occur to me that I would face personal reprisals from bureaucrats for exercising the very rights I defended in uniform. I never imagined I would lose far more of my self, my health and my dignity through malicious and vengeful actions of the government I fought to defend so that that same government could destroy me and my attempts to help all those disabled soldiers and families who need help the most. By the grace of god, the support of friends and the love of my wife we stood up to the Department and I am still here. I suspect that other veterans and Canadians who are thinking of speaking out are waiting to see whether anyone can call these bureaucrats to account. I hereby give Parliament responsibility to investigate and call to account those responsible for such grievous wrongdoing. If what happened to me is not addressed by Parliament then there is nothing to stop VAC or any other government officials from attacking those current or future clients of VAC or any other department who would advocate for policy change.
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