l.gal lant.a1@par l.gc.ca (cheryl.gallant.a1@parl.gc.ca) Add to contacts 24/05/2011 To: barrylw11@hotmail.

com Hi Barry - I'll get this to Cheryl tomorrow for you. I'm off today - my back's messed up. Karen McDonald, Constituency Assistant to Cheryl Gallant, M.P. Renfrew Nipissing Pembroke "This e-mail (including attachments, if any) is confidential. If the reader is not the intended recipient or its agent, be advised that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail or any of its content is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify us immediately and delete the e-mail without retaining or printing a copy. Thank you."

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barrylw11@hotmail.com May-21-11 3:32:11 PM pm@pm.gc.ca; Minister of defence (mackap@parl.gc.ca); Cheryl Gallant1 (gallant.c@parl.gc.ca) Cheryl Gallant2 (gallac1@parl.gc.ca); Cheryl Gallant (gallac0@parl.gc.ca)

All First of all thank you for your continued service to Canada and gaining the confidence of Canadians to the point where you now have a majority government it is, in my opinion, something that was long overdue. My name is Barry Westholm; Im a member of the Canadian Forces presently (and voluntarily) employed as a Regional Sergeant Major with the Joint Personnel Support Unit Eastern Ontario Region. I just returned from a recent conference during which information was tabled which I thought important enough to bring to your attention, should you not already be aware of it. However prior to my getting to my areas of concern, a little background about the unit itself in the following six numbered paragraphs: 1. The Joint Personnel Unit, or JPSU, is one of Canada newest Canadian Forces (CF) units, and has a role unique in the history of the CF and perhaps even in that of Canada itself. The role of the JPSU is to provide a single point access to support services to injured and ill CF personnel and their families the JPSU makes no distinction between serving and retired, if theyre in need of assistance then were there to help. 2. The JPSU is very much in its infancy; in our Region we only just opened our newest Integrated Personnel Support Centre (IPSC) in CFB North Bay a few weeks ago making for five IPSCs in total throughout our Region. The Region itself is very large, stretching South from Trenton, East to Kingston/Ottawa, West to Petawawa then heads North-West past North Bay to

just shy of Thunder Bay. Within this Region we serve two air force Wings (22 Wing and 8 Wing), an Area (2 ASG), two Brigade Groups (2 CMBG and 33 Bde Grp) and five Bases (CFB Petawawa, CFB Trenton, CFB Kingston, CFSU Ottawa and CFB North Bay) which have within them multiple units. To coordinate and serve the people in our Region we have a Regional HQ located in CFB Petawawa staffed by four military personnel (including myself) and one civilian financial manager; our five IPSCs are of varying strength depending on their geographical location and amount of people they serve - our strategic level HQ is located in Ottawa. 3. The IPSC is the frontline sub-unit that is staffed by both civilian and military personnel who provide the services we offer directly to the people who need them most. The military component of an IPSC is called a Support Platoon and is designed to support still serving injured and ill CF personnel who have injuries/illnesses that are severe and/or long-term and which require an inordinate amount of oversight to administer. This oversight includes managing medical appointments, one-one-one counseling, mentorship, maintaining CF leadership, a military environment and discipline. 4. The structure of the Support Platoon itself is very traditional and well known to the CF. This is important so that the people that are posted to us know they arent being shuffled off to the wilderness (something that happened far too often in the past), and so that the Commanders and peers in their former units have the reassurance that their men and women will be looked after in a structured military environment that fosters CF ethos. The Support Platoon serves two main goals its ultimate outcome is to return the injured/ill member back to service, either in his or her original trade or in one that may allow for a lesser medical standard due to injuries (a clerk instead of a Commando), with their military deportment intact. Secondly, it allows the injured members' former units to focus on training and operations while relieving the requirement of assigning a percentage of their Unit/Wing/Regiment to support injured members. It also frees up a position at their unit that can be filled with an un-injured member, which improves overall unit effectiveness, lowers stressors and increases flexibility. 5. Should the persons injuries be so great as to exclude them from further military service, then the goal of the JPSU switches to that of a smooth transition to civilian life an equally important focus. The journey to either goal is assisted by the Services side of the IPSC and its partners (VAC, OSISS, MFRCs, Royal Canadian Legion, Soldier-On, PSP, SISIP, etc) who provide assistance within their areas of expertise. The IPSC is open to all serving/retired military members and families and you do not have to be posted to the JPSU to use its services it has an open door for all comers. Overall the initial rollout went quite well and the JPSU has proved very successful, with the numbers of personnel we serve increasing both through walk-in services and through postings to our Support Platoons. 6. During my time in my former trade (EME) we had a saying that 10% of your people took up 90% of your time it is a common and accurate saying. What it means was that 10% of your personnel will have very complex issues (medical, disciplinary, family etc) that will take an exorbitant amount of time to manage, while the remainder go about their day-to-day duties with only routine oversight. A good portion of that 10% of complex cases that units once had to manage are the personnel who are now posted to the JPSU. While this allows units to better use their time towards operational effectiveness, it skews the ratio in our unit to around 40% of our personnel who have complex issues; it is a ratio which keeps our staff very busy. The preceding six paragraphs was a brief of the JPSU, and now to the issue at hand: At the conference I attended we were told in no uncertain terms that the well was dry for getting more staff so dont even bother asking. As it was explained, the focus now was on saving the jobs

already established in the JPSU and to possibly use injured posted-in personnel as JPSU staff, looking at position adaptation and finding by more efficient ways to work. Efficiency was to be established and tracked was through the collection of data in a Performance Measurement tool. I have a few concerns about these developments, firstly to the Performance Measurement tool (which is considered absolutely vital to the survival of the JPSU) is that some of our staff still share offices, desks and computers and the numbers of people accessing the JPSU are far above original estimates. Much of our time to-date has been spent, not so much managing the Region, but on setting it up, meeting with Command Teams, outreach, VAC town-halls and staffing (something that is still underway). To try and extract Performance Management data at this juncture would in effect be like timing a sprinter while he was still in the change room and unaware of the type of contest he was to compete in. Secondly, while stating that while our mission is critically important and high priority, it was also stated that the positions we currently have are under the microscope and new positions are an absolute non-starter, (even as the numbers of those we serve continue to grow). Compounding this was the acknowledgement that our job was very emotionally and psychologically demanding and there was a need to protect ourselves from burnout and this would be especially acute as our ratio of injured-to-staff increases. This email was not intended to be a whistleblower type of document, nor do I have any intention of doing some sort of media interview; the reason Im bringing this to your attention is that our new direction comes across as being a tad conflicted and that perhaps some wires got crossed on the way down from the MND to, well, to me! I could write for pages on the positive aspects of the JPSU and the equally positive ramifications that can be felt for not only in those who served in Afghanistan, but to those who served UN Ops (Rwanda, Croatia, Cambodia) in the Korean War and as far back as WW II, as they too are coming to our doorstep for assistance and in fact make up the bulk of our posted in personnel (around 80% of the people we have posted to us are not from Afghanistan but from other engagements). Given this I don't believe the JPSU should be burdened with the extra challenges of trying to "make it work", "make it happen" or "make due", however I realize that everyone has an opinion and perhaps I'm right out of it and the current course the JPSU is undertaking is the best (or only) one available. The purpose of this email is just to ensure that you, as my elected MP and members of my government, have an idea what's going on and that you are on the same page. If you would like more thoughts on this subject I would be very honoured to provide them. Regards... Barry Westholm 613-587-4203