Overview:
This article describes individuals who have lost family members to suicide.
Margit Simon marked her son’s 30th birthday on Oct. 10 by purchasing 30 roses: 20 red and 10 white. The white ones mark every birthday since his death by suicide in 2016.
She laid the bouquet at his grave in Ottawa’s Beechwood Cemetery, the final resting place for thousands of Canada’s veterans.
Years after his death, she still has countless questions about what could have prevented Jason, a military reservist, from dying.
“Losing a child is heartbreaking, especially when there could have been help if someone would have listened,” Simon told the House of Commons veterans’ affairs committee on Oct 9.
“If someone would [have] believed Jason, then maybe he could have received help he so desperately needed and begged for,” Simon said, steadying her voice.
Simon is one of several relatives of deceased veterans who are testifying as part of the committee’s study on preventing veterans’ suicide.
“We must openly talk about suicide,” Simon said. “Not talking about [suicide] is not going to make it go away.”
But as the committee is hearing, mental health supports for veterans are scarce, despite a growing need.
Veterans who left the military between 2015 and 2018 appear to have more mental health injuries and difficulties transitioning to civilian life, Oliver Thorne, CEO of the Veterans Transition Network, told the committee Oct. 7.
“We may be entering an era of increased suicide risk for veterans in Canada.”
Military culture
In 2023, 21 Canadian Armed Forces members took their own lives. The rate of suicide in the Forces that year was 27 per 100,000 people, up from 20 per 100,000 people in 2022.
Veterans are at increased risk for suicide compared to the rest of the Canadian population.
Male veterans are 1.4 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, while female veterans are nearly two times more likely to die by suicide.
Male veterans’ risk for suicide is highest in the four years after they leave the military. For women, the risk often peaks later, about two decades after leaving, Fardous Hosseiny, president of the Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families, told the committee.
But military culture discourages people from talking about their mental health struggles, either during or after service.
Sherri Elms’ husband Brad, who died by suicide 11 years ago, was reluctant to talk about how his 34-year military career impacted his health. He struggled with memory and sleeping, and could be short-tempered and erratic.
But he was also a “super soldier,” Elms told the committee.
He was scared to ask for help, because he did not want to be seen as unfit to serve.
“He lied [about his mental health] and he was very good at it.” She says generals’ jaws dropped when they heard he had died by suicide, telling Sherri that if it could happen to him, it could happen to anyone.
‘Pick up the pieces’
Margit Simon’s son Jason, a private in the reserves, was always helping his friends who were struggling, she says.
But she did not know Jason, who was a student at Carleton University in Ottawa, was struggling with his own mental health issues until about three weeks before his death.
He called her to say he had been hospitalized twice for suicidal thoughts. He attempted suicide a few days later and spent 72 hours in the hospital.
Jason deployed for duty a few days after being released. After telling his commanding officers about his suicide attempt, he was taken to a hospital for assessment but was told he was not entitled to any help because he was a reservist.
His superiors’ requests that Jason receive help were denied, Simon says. Instead, he was put on two weeks unpaid leave, as recommended by the hospital.
That was the worst thing for him, Simon says. “He needed to feel that he was contributing to his unit. It would not have mattered if it was something to help in the office or sweeping the floors.”
He died during that period.
“Now we are left behind to pick up the pieces and make sense of what happened, what went wrong,” she told the committee.
“Some people say when they lose a loved one there is a hole in their heart,” she said. “It is not true for us. Our hearts shattered into a million pieces on that fateful and tragic day on Feb. 15, 2016. But our love for Jason and our memories are keeping our hearts together very strong.”
Urgent risk
Military service provides community, purpose and identity.
When a military career ends, many veterans wonder if Canadians recognize their service or their needs, says Brad Field, president of the Home for Heroes Foundation, which provides housing for veterans.
“We have a moral obligation to ensure that every veteran knows that they are seen, they are valued and they are never alone,” he told the committee on Oct. 9.
“Our heroes answered the call to serve. It’s now our duty to answer theirs with urgency, compassion and resolve.”
Instead, programs to help veterans are often underfunded and hard to access, the committee heard.
“These programs that are essential to veterans’ recoveries are funded largely off bake sales and bike rides and other community-based fundraising,” said retired Capt. Philip Ralph, director of clinical services for Wounded Warriors Canada. The charity provides mental health supports for CAF members, veterans and first responders.
Veterans Affairs often does not cover mental health services, said Thorne, from the Veterans Transition Network, a charity that provides group therapy for veterans.
Individual benefits from Veterans Affairs are “buried in a complex bureaucratic set of approvals,” he said. And the number of individual approvals from Veterans Affairs Canada has fallen by 60 per cent, he told the committee.
‘Mission failure’
Veteran Transition Network does not turn veterans away if their request to Veterans’ Affairs is not approved. But because they run on donations, the number of veterans they can help is limited, Thorne told the committee.
“We know who is at risk and we know this risk is urgent,” Thorne said, noting that most veterans who come to the network report having suicidal thoughts within the past year.
But he also knows that people’s lives can change when they get the right support. Many of the veterans who use the program’s supports say it has reduced their suicidal ideation, he says.
Veterans who are released from service because of a mental health injury should automatically be approved for mental health programs, he says.
In a statement to Canadian Affairs, Veterans Affairs Canada said that veterans who apply for disability benefits because of a mental health condition automatically qualify for the agency’s mental health benefit.
This mental health benefit is relatively new, having only launched in April 2022. It covers a veteran’s mental health care for about two years.
Ralph, at Wounded Warriors, says that the most important part of veterans’ suicide prevention is dealing with trauma.
“If you don’t deal with trauma, nothing else matters,” he said.
“It’s mission failure on the part of the government if it’s not done.”
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