Chapin: What veterans' families want

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Chapin: What veterans' families want

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ANGELINA CHAPIN Published on: March 20, 2015 Last Updated: March 20, 2015 8:19 PM EDT

This week, Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) announced a proposed benefit of $7,238 for family members caring for severely ill or injured veterans. You’d think Jenifer Migneault, the wife of a man who suffers from PTSD, would be celebrating. But she’s not.

The 42-year-old Quebecois woman is known in Parliament for chasing the former minister of Veterans Affairs, Julian Fantino, down a hallway to plead for help. Her husband, Claude Rainville, served for 20 years as a traffic technician in countries such as Rwanda, Syria and Haiti. “Mr. Fantino, as a spouse, can I talk to you please?” she yelled last May after a committee meeting, as the minister and his staff ignored her and kept walking.

Migneault wanted VAC to recognize the struggle of spouses who care for veterans with injuries such as PTSD. Since then, she’s used the publicity from her infamous encounter to meet with more than 150 politicians – including Romeo Dallaire, Justin Trudeau and eventually, Fantino himself – to advocate for more family support.

Migneault does not think cash is the solution. She wants a program that trains family-turned-caregivers to live with PTSD. “I can have all the money in the world,” she told CBC in reaction to the caregiver benefit. “But if I don’t have a quality of life, this money doesn’t serve anything.”

In the months I spent reporting a story on the spouses of veterans with PTSD for Maisonneuve magazine, I learned that quality of life is the biggest struggle for those who end up as primary caregivers to our wounded and traumatized vets (the proposed benefit applies to physical injuries as well, but my research focused on mental injury). Of course, $7,000 never made anyone’s life worse. The new Veterans Affairs Minister Erin O’Toole said in a press conference that the benefitwill give caregivers “additional support” so they can “recharge their batteries.” But at this point, the benefit is a cherry with no cake. If the government is serious about supporting veterans, it needs to educate their families and train them as caregivers. Throwing money at the problem simply isn’t enough.

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