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Stories of veteran service and sacrifice straight from the people driving today’s most important veterans causes and veterans organizations around the world. The show shines a spotlight on their inspiring projects making a real difference for veterans and their families, and along the way we'll hear the stories that drive them to do their best every day as they work to support veterans and their memory.
00:00:06:03 - 00:00:32:08
Speaker 1
Hey, it's Matthew Cudmore and welcome to Story Behind the Stone, a show where we talk service sacrifice story. Today we're joined by someone who spent over two decades on the frontlines of service veterans, advocacy and public policy. The Honourable Erin O'Toole. As a veteran of the Royal Canadian Air Force, former Minister of Veterans Affairs Canada, longtime public servant, nonprofit leader, and now president of ADIT at North America, Erin brings a deeply personal and knowledgeable perspective to the show.
00:00:32:12 - 00:00:48:11
Speaker 1
Today will be covering veteran mental health, Traumatic brain injury, Afghanistan commemoration, campaign for a Victoria Cross for Private Jess Larochelle and closing out with the challenges of civic engagement in 2026 and beyond. Erin, welcome to Story Behind the Stone.
00:00:48:11 - 00:00:48:22
Speaker 1
Thanks for.
00:00:48:22 - 00:00:50:16
Speaker 2
Having me. And thanks for what you're doing.
00:00:50:20 - 00:00:55:17
Speaker 1
Erin, thank you again for taking the time to join us today. And before we dive into the topics, I wanted to give you the floor.
00:00:55:18 - 00:01:04:10
Speaker 1
When you think about the nature of veterans commemoration and the work of keeping these histories alive. Is there a particular story, a marker or a memory that comes to mind for you?
00:01:04:10 - 00:01:31:17
Speaker 2
I'm fortunate to have literally hundreds of stories, not just from when I was in uniform and started going to Remembrance Week events and parades and meeting where were two vets? When I was in the military, I went to a cenotaph ceremony on November 11th in Bowmanville, Ontario, the last time a World War One veteran. His name was West, I believe last name, and I was a second lieutenant in the Air Force or an officer cadet.
00:01:31:17 - 00:02:11:05
Speaker 2
So I started understanding and appreciating the importance of commemoration. Probably there's two amazing stories I have from World War II veterans that I had the privilege to represent as my constituents. The first was a guy named George Emerson, who was from Port Perry, and he passed away a few years ago. He was in the liberation of the Netherlands, gave chocolate bars to a starving Dutch young man around his age who, as the Nazis retreated, they were letting go a lot of the forced labor Dutch citizens that they basically captured and were forcing to work for them.
00:02:11:05 - 00:02:38:03
Speaker 2
They were malnourished. George cleaned him up, fed him, gave him a map, sent him on his way home. He had to walk home in Holland. And just by chance, 60 years later, in a store in Whitby, and George met that person's daughter. They had moved to Canada for the war because of the compassion of the Canadian soldiers that sent him on his way and gave him two chocolate bars.
00:02:38:09 - 00:03:00:07
Speaker 2
That gentleman's name was Hank Metzler every year until Hank passed away a few years before George. George would visit him on Remembrance Day and bring him to chocolate bars and the seniors home. There was not just a life changed on the battlefield, literally. The family uprooted their lives and moved to Canada because of the kindness shown by one soldier.
00:03:00:09 - 00:03:27:21
Speaker 2
Another favorite one that I share a lot is the Bernard brothers. Fred, Bernard and his brother were members of the Queen's Own, and they landed in first wave of of D-Day. They were brothers. They were in one of the first landing crafts. So some of the first Canadians to come across at Juno Beach, they land, jump out of the the carrier and they went into water and he Fred yelled, give him hell, Dawn!
00:03:27:23 - 00:03:49:07
Speaker 2
And within 100m Fred looked over and his brother was struck, died on the beach and he went over to tend to him. Saw his watch, saw the moment he died, and had to go on and take Juno Beach after having just watched his brother Parrish, and in his later years he was too infirm to go out to Remembrance Day.
00:03:49:07 - 00:04:12:11
Speaker 2
So his regiment from Toronto traveled out to Uxbridge and brought the parades to him. He was the oldest living veteran of the regiment, and he told that story. And you would get goosebumps when he talked about jumping out. I told that in a few radio interviews and whenever and I tell the story about the chocolate bars and speeches and I people would be crying in some cases.
00:04:12:11 - 00:04:35:22
Speaker 2
And you just see the power of memory, the power of commemoration. And what I think, and I know you both agree, the obligation we have to maintain that from failing hands. We pass to you the torch, be yours to hold it high. I think that that pledge in the poem is as much about commemoration and the torch of remembrance, as much as it is in Flanders Fields.
00:04:35:22 - 00:04:40:07
Speaker 2
It's about our commitment to remember those who give the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.
00:04:40:08 - 00:04:40:19
Speaker 1
It just.
00:04:40:19 - 00:04:59:12
Speaker 3
Humanizes the experience of those soldiers. One of the reasons we love asking that question around story is that it's a way for people to connect differently. These are real experiences. And hearing that, you know, I feel that emotion of the brother or the two chocolate bars every Remembrance Day after. It's just how much that meant to those individuals.
00:04:59:12 - 00:05:02:04
Speaker 3
So thanks so much for sharing those with us.
00:05:02:04 - 00:05:25:01
Speaker 2
I consider that one of the highest privileges I have of my public life to be told these stories by the veterans themselves before they passed, and to be able to share them from my platform is special, because how many stories of bravery or kindness didn't even make it home from the battle? Because the soldier maybe died in a in a future battle and never brought the stories home.
00:05:25:01 - 00:05:45:17
Speaker 2
So I think of these stories of heroism, compassion as just a sprinkling of what actually happened with our soldiers. And that's why they're so treasured to me, and why it's so important to have podcasts like yours that really make sure that we tell these stories as a form of active remembrance.
00:05:45:18 - 00:06:03:14
Speaker 3
These stories help give us access to just a tremendous sacrifice going back to the First World War, the Second World War. And I think a lot of people, when they think of commemoration, they tend to go to those big conflicts. But there's other conflicts that have happened. More recently, such as Afghanistan. And it reminds me of Larochelle.
00:06:03:15 - 00:06:16:05
Speaker 3
You have been, I believe, part of the canvasing to have this individual recognized for what happened in Afghanistan with the Victoria Cross. Did you maybe want to help us access that story a little bit for our listeners?
00:06:16:05 - 00:06:41:18
Speaker 2
Sure, absolutely. Well, I'm happy to just be one veteran who has been inspired by the bravery of of our Afghanistan war veterans and helped out my friend Bruce Moncure, who's an Afghan veteran who overcame significant head trauma and wound from the war to really take up the cause of Jess Larochelle through a group called valor in the presence of the enemy.
00:06:41:19 - 00:07:24:17
Speaker 2
And they're on social media through Canada, Canadian Cross or the Canadian Victoria Cross. So Jess Larochelle got the star of Military Valor, which is the next highest form of valor in the presence of the enemy. The only one higher is the Victoria Cross. But if you look at Jess Larochelle's right out holding a position, multiple injuries, not leaving his post, exposing himself, incredible courage and determination, physical and mental injuries from a prolonged engagement where he would not give up his post and position and compare it to some of the VC write ups from World War one or World War Two, particularly World War two.
00:07:24:18 - 00:07:53:02
Speaker 2
It's as equally heroic, impressive, almost remarkable in the presence of the enemy. So certain high gallantry awards there is that active combat requirement. It's not just bravery. We have mental bravery and a range of other things, but it is extreme risk of peril, physical injury. And that's why some of our Victoria Cross winners were posthumous winners. You know, they they died actually giving it all.
00:07:53:02 - 00:08:13:18
Speaker 2
Andrew, the story of, you know, the guy who he was on fire before he bailed out of his aircraft because he was trying to rescue the tail gunner from the bomber. And surprisingly, the tail gunner lived to tell the story. These are extreme peril situations where you're showing complete disregard for your own well-being and you're thinking of others.
00:08:13:18 - 00:08:38:21
Speaker 2
You're thinking of the mission. So Jess Larochelle right up is very, very similar. And what Canada has a tradition of doing is being quite stingy in terms of recognizing valor or even having medals of commemoration and service. You know, there are still World War Two veterans from the Devil's Brigade that probably should have gotten the Pacific Star, for example.
00:08:38:21 - 00:09:18:14
Speaker 2
We've done this to ourselves. It's frustrated me to a point that I brought a unanimous consent motion in the House of Commons to create a review body to try and see if we could reconsider Jess Larochelle's award. Some people have said, you know, you're trying to get Jess Larochelle a VC. No, actually, I'm just trying to make sure his case is looked at with the appropriate degree of seriousness and with a comparison to the historic norm, because Afghanistan is our longest military engagement in Canadian Forces history, 12 years, over 40,000 people.
00:09:18:15 - 00:09:48:20
Speaker 2
Multiple aspects, of course. The heavy combat Kandahar, which the province one of the toughest that Canada agreed to take on and we awarded no Victoria Cross. In fact, we've awarded zero Canadian Victoria Crosses because the Mulroney government sort of took ownership of the Victoria Cross from the United Kingdom, which had created in Queen Victoria's age. And so we're keeping the prestige and the importance of the VC.
00:09:48:20 - 00:10:16:08
Speaker 2
But it's now a Canadian gallantry honor. And so it's never been awarded. And we've had incredible combat and bravery in the years since, including the medic pocket. We saw the horrors of Rwanda. And then, of course, the longest Canadian Armed Forces expeditionary war in history in Afghanistan. We awarded none. The British awarded, some Australians awarded some. So Canada has this habit.
00:10:16:08 - 00:10:41:06
Speaker 2
So my my motion was essentially to have a review body and to shake up Rideau Hall a little bit. Things are too comfortable. We have allowed the bureaucratic sort of mentality to accidentally creep in. I'm not blaming anyone, but we owe it to our men and women to say there's no time limit on recognizing valor and recognizing extraordinary citizens.
00:10:41:06 - 00:11:09:17
Speaker 2
And in the process of working with Bruce and his group and working with historians. I've done a couple of podcasts with David O'Keefe and the curator of the Medal of Honor Museum in the United States. Other countries do now revisit. The Americans have always revisited if they missed someone. Sometimes buddies from Vietnam have pushed for years for their buddy to get proper recognition.
00:11:09:19 - 00:11:36:12
Speaker 2
President Obama awarded a number of of Medals of Honor because they found that racism in the chain of command had prevented somebody from being recognized, or a grudge, or something ridiculous. Australia and the UK have now started looking at this, retroactively reconsidering cases, so why aren't we mature enough to do the same thing? So it may mean that Jess Larochelle is awarded the VC.
00:11:36:12 - 00:12:05:21
Speaker 2
And I think, as I said, if you look at those citations of valor, you kind of say this is certainly worthy, but it's not for Erin O'Toole as a member of Parliament to pass a thing to give someone a Victoria Cross. It's about making sure we have a proper structure to review this. Sorry, that's my rant on this, but I think our country has to grow up a little bit and realize if we ever potentially got it wrong, my God, we owe it to them to at least be able to say, we've got a review mechanism.
00:12:05:23 - 00:12:12:23
Speaker 2
Parliament can trigger it. Maybe the Legion or veterans movement could trigger it, and then that gets done and we make sure we do it right.
00:12:12:23 - 00:12:30:21
Speaker 3
From your perspective, what do you think it means to the soldiers, even though this award would potentially go to Jess. But what do you think that means to the soldiers who are still trying to make meaning and deal with some of the sense making behind their service and the injuries that they hold on.
00:12:30:22 - 00:13:00:23
Speaker 2
To, it sends a message that their gallantry and their service and their sacrifice is a sacred trust. They have with the state and with the country in perpetuity. And that's why we should realize that officials or a department or some body that may have considered things could have made a mistake or didn't have a full picture. So we owe it to them and that respect for their sacrifice and service to be willing to look at this and that we we will always honor it.
00:13:01:00 - 00:13:21:02
Speaker 2
You know, I think it was Walt or General Hillier, one of the two CDs during the Afghanistan war that said it best. They would talk to many of the families of the fallen for the ride on the Highway of Heroes, which went through my community. And we put a large monument in Bowmanville by the Highway of Heroes to commemorate that outpouring of support from Canadians.
00:13:21:03 - 00:13:44:16
Speaker 2
The general said to me, you know, and he said this publicly, that most of the families would ask two things. Do they know my son or daughter and and what they were doing when they paid the ultimate sacrifice? And the second question is, will they remember them? And I think that's what this is all about, right, is showing that there's that eternal connection to people that step up in the in the highest way.
00:13:44:17 - 00:14:14:00
Speaker 2
And I do think like other countries, once we've done this with, say, justice case, this will be something that will allow a couple of older cases where there's a couple of cases from World War two, you know, we have Peter Peggy Pegahmagabow, the indigenous sniper from World War one. It was probably the best sniper of all time. You know, he received a decoration, but probably not as high as he would have if he was a rich kid from Toronto.
00:14:14:02 - 00:14:43:15
Speaker 2
Now, this isn't about rewriting history. It's about telling the stories that were maybe not properly told because of some of the attitudes at the time. So this isn't cancel culture. This is actually uncanny unfairness in our past. And why not tell these stories in a more fulsome and truthful way? And if it means saying, look, this person who's been dead for a century probably should have been recognized in a more significant way by the country, the country that so much.
00:14:43:16 - 00:15:15:00
Speaker 2
We're doing it now. I'll use an example. When I got elected, I represented Uxbridge, and the MP who represented Uxbridge in World War One was a guy named Sam Sharpe. He fought at Vimy Ridge. He was elected reelected to Parliament. While fighting at Passchendaele, Robert Borden went to Uxbridge, who was then called riding of Ontario North, and campaigned for Sam Sharpe because he was fighting for us.
00:15:15:02 - 00:15:40:11
Speaker 2
He died tragically by suicide due to extreme trauma and losing essentially the battalion he had raised of his citizens Post Mimi Post Hill, 70 Post Passchendaele and two MPs died in the Great War. One has a full statue to him in the main lobby of Parliament, and Sam Sharpe was not even mentioned on the website talking about World War One in Parliament.
00:15:40:13 - 00:16:11:04
Speaker 2
So on the 100th anniversary of his death, I rose in the House and sought to remedy this a century later. But if we really think these are eternal bonds, a sacred trust, it doesn't matter if it's a century or two centuries. We got alignment from all MPs to Liberal government supported it. It passed and we erected a statue bust of Sam Sharpe beside the statue of George Baker over 100 years later.
00:16:11:04 - 00:16:32:19
Speaker 2
And it was a way of showing that now we realized that what was called shellshock or battle fatigue, was actually a form of injury. And we were not treating it. We were actually belittling it. And if we taken it more seriously, there probably would have been fewer casualties both during and after the war. So this is what I mean.
00:16:32:19 - 00:16:58:02
Speaker 2
Like, we have this eternal sort of trust that we must take on. And a lot of veterans have found a connection to the Sam Sharpe story. There's still an event every Mental Health Week, a breakfast named in honor that Romeo Dallaire and I started years ago. And now we're both out of Parliament. But Alex Ruff and Senator Rebecca Patterson keep the event going.
00:16:58:03 - 00:17:18:01
Speaker 2
It's a veteran that tells their story of their journey to wellness after war or after trauma exposure. So these are these are ways of writing the past. And I love the fact that most of them are driven by veterans themselves trying to make sure that their body is, is recognized or that people know they're not alone.
00:17:18:01 - 00:17:46:06
Speaker 3
These psychological battlefield injuries are not cowardice in the very least, not at all. It's how the human brain is wired for preservation and to experience these things. It is something that is neurologically being wired into people's brains to keep them safe. And these experiences linger well beyond the battlefield. I'm interested to hear your take. Maybe people don't understand about these injuries, and what do we need to do as native and citizens to be aware of this?
00:17:46:06 - 00:18:32:02
Speaker 2
Great question and great discussion. I think we've come a heck of a long way, and I think that doesn't mean there isn't more treatment and more understanding we need, but I think we've been reducing the stigma around it. As you said, in past wars, it was almost considered equal to cowardice. In fact, for years, even until the 1950s and 60s, the military used the term lack of moral fiber for describing, you know, what we now know as operational stress injury, whether PTSD or anxiety that, as you said, is a natural response to trauma exposure and to often both psychological and physical injury all happening together as if you were morally making a bad choice or
00:18:32:03 - 00:19:07:07
Speaker 2
like you were immoral. These attitudes have finally changed, and a lot of the stigma reduction has made it easier for people to talk about and to serve. Why we do the Sam Sharpe mental health breakfast is we're actually getting veterans and RCMP members to tell the story of their own journey back from injury, because there have been guys that have redeployed to combat after having an OSI, because they got treatment and were able to deal with their injury.
00:19:07:08 - 00:19:28:12
Speaker 2
It meant that not in every case, but in many cases, they can operationally deploy again. They can go back to war or go back to being a good mom or dad or partner or, you know, get assigned something that might not take them to combat, but may help them with the war effort, or let them help their battle buds in different ways.
00:19:28:12 - 00:19:47:10
Speaker 2
The last thing we need to do is to throw them out or cut them off from treatment. So where we are now is, I think, the Canadian Armed Forces, with the Road to mental readiness, created a document that now most major police forces and fire forces in the country have have adopted the culture. And that's about resilience training.
00:19:47:10 - 00:20:30:21
Speaker 2
It's about decompression. It's about critical incident stress response. If you're going to Afghanistan by the end of the war, compared to the beginning, we were preparing people for trauma exposure and for recognizing the signs in both themselves and others. And then we were having a process to decompress after coming back so that you don't go from the battlefield, travel for two days and are at your kitchen table yelling at your kids because you haven't had a chance to sort of rewire your brain from six months of intensity and living in something that was quite profound, and then suddenly just going back to your old life.
00:20:30:21 - 00:20:56:07
Speaker 2
I wrote a piece recently for The Walrus on just how much the Odyssey movie impacted me, not as a veteran that was exposed to trauma and combat. I was not. But I've worked with with veterans, and that movie, Christopher Nolan, made it about the hero's journey back from trauma and back from moral injury in the Battle of Troy.
00:20:56:07 - 00:21:20:14
Speaker 2
I don't know if you've seen it, but the journey for Odysseus was not getting lost. It was actually losing his men and coming to grips with the trauma of of warfare and just what the sacking of Troy meant. So that was really the Odyssey, the journey. And there's a lot of veterans who never really make it back from war, or they make it back and their journeys permanently change.
00:21:20:14 - 00:21:45:14
Speaker 2
Their family and friends have also changed. They don't go into hibernation waiting for you to return. So some people have a hard time transitioning back sometimes takes years. And I think now there's understanding of this a lot more. But conversations like this, Ryan, is part of it. We just have to sort of say, okay, for for centuries we've known what to do if somebody loses a limb in war.
00:21:45:16 - 00:22:07:07
Speaker 2
It's only been for the last few decades that we've started to know what to do with a psychological injury from war or trauma exposure, and we've got to be patient. But we've also got to make sure that these treatment options are there, because generally, the faster you get the supports, the better your outcome will be. If you don't get it, you can spiral into addiction.
00:22:07:07 - 00:22:12:21
Speaker 2
You can, you know, lose your family. So we've made progress. But I always say there's still a long way to go.
00:22:12:22 - 00:22:36:02
Speaker 3
I think one of the most important things I have found is acknowledgment to really witness and acknowledge an individual for their experience can be incredibly healing. And that's why acknowledging stories and listening to stories, I think that's something fundamentally important for us as humans is, you know, we're social creatures. No one's meant to be alone. And I think trauma and stress injuries that can be isolating.
00:22:36:04 - 00:22:49:11
Speaker 3
And so I just appreciate the work you've been doing and continue to do and, and others continue to do to bring awareness to the story of witnessing of it. And I really like that Odyssey's example. You can see why people resonate with that.
00:22:49:11 - 00:23:13:20
Speaker 2
I thought it was a brilliant way for Nolan, you know, for a story that's been told for centuries to tell it with a different context. If you see Matt Damon's character Odysseus in The Sacking of Troy, you actually see him overwhelmed by the violence and trauma. And he then realizes this notion they had a welcoming the stranger into your home, this sort of Zeus's law, they called it.
00:23:13:21 - 00:23:42:01
Speaker 2
He had used a trick to gain entry. And then they were, you know, obviously they were rampaging and it wasn't an orderly battle of just the soldiers. They were killing civilians. And I think that's where he was realizing there was a moral injury from his own plan. And so the journey home as he loses his men, that that becomes as much of the trauma as the giants and the witches and the and the monsters.
00:23:42:03 - 00:24:06:15
Speaker 2
And sometimes, you know, an addiction or PTSD can almost be like a personal monster or demon that seems to have you in the grips. But if you get help, you can be on the right route. I know we were also going to try and talk a little bit about traumatic brain injury, and this is, I think, the latest example of us catching up with veterans needs, much like PTSD.
00:24:06:17 - 00:24:41:14
Speaker 2
OSIs really started getting talked about post-Vietnam War. We're now starting to realize the impact of traumatic brain injury. And it's similar. There's going to be injuries, including head injuries in warfare. But now that we're understanding concussion effect and repetition, we can have protective gear made better. We can have training made better and smarter. Because if you're getting multiple concussions from training for war, that's a mistake.
00:24:41:16 - 00:25:10:01
Speaker 2
You know there's going to be stuff that happens in war. War is chaos, right? But we can improve our training, reprove our understanding, improve our recovery, improve our protective equipment. So I've been working a bit with the Concussion Legacy Foundation on concussion awareness, on their TBI awareness at work. I think it's critically important. I even agreed to to donate my brain as part of their push.
00:25:10:03 - 00:25:35:20
Speaker 2
I like to joke after being in politics, I did it partly to show people I do have one to donate on Twitter. There's a lot of people that think I have nothing to donate, but it's about raising awareness to kind of say, hey, if you're in a artillery or combat arms, you have a, you know, a strong likelihood to have concussive injuries, you know, the firing of large guns.
00:25:35:21 - 00:25:55:01
Speaker 2
You know, we have to make sure we have our best equipment for our, our men and women. We learned that lesson with with hearing damage. We weren't taking hearing seriously. And, you know, most people were leaving the Canadian Armed Forces with some degree of hearing loss, including myself. And so now we're doing a lot smarter training, better equipment.
00:25:55:01 - 00:26:14:22
Speaker 2
So TBI is the latest thing. And I'm glad to work with passionate people like Tim Fleiszer at the Concussion Legacy Foundation. And Bruce Moncur and and his group have brought these injuries and the issues up. So veterans helping veterans is something that inspires me. And now I try and contribute.
00:26:14:23 - 00:26:27:19
Speaker 1
As you look ahead to 2027 and beyond, continue with your veterans cause advocacy and your role president with at ADIT North America. How can we keep up with everything that you're up to? Social media. You have a Substack going.
00:26:27:19 - 00:26:45:08
Speaker 2
Yeah, I have a Substack called Blue Skies. And if you have trouble sleeping at night, I have a podcast called Blue Skies as well. Although I was out an event last night and a woman came over to me. And I love your podcast, so little comments like that make up for everything. Make it worthwhile. So I had the last one was actually on defense with Professor Philippe Lagassé.
00:26:45:08 - 00:27:25:02
Speaker 2
I've had Tim Fleiszer talk about TBI traumatic brain injury on the podcast as well, and that's the way I contribute. I'm on the Prime Minister's Trade Advisory Committee for Canada-U.S. relations. So far, there's no deal and relations are tense. So maybe I'm not doing my volunteer job that well. But and I still advise politicians, certainly of my own party and the conservatives, but Liberal provincially, if it's good for the country and particularly good on issues like veterans or mental health or commemoration, I try and do all this stuff in a nonpartizan fashion now, as I feel too young to be an elder statesman, but that's how I try and act.
00:27:25:03 - 00:27:31:11
Speaker 1
That's the Honourable Erin O'Toole. Thank you again for coming on the show today. We sincerely appreciate your time and your energy and all these causes.
00:27:31:11 - 00:27:36:02
Speaker 2
Thank you for what you're doing. You're holding that torch, remembrance High. So Bravo, Zulu
00:27:36:02 - 00:27:42:01
Speaker 2
to the two of you.
00:27:42:03 - 00:27:55:03
Speaker 1
Thanks so much for tuning in. Story. Behind the Stone is available on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on the Wreaths Across America Radio Network on iHeartRadio. Audacity and tune in to search for wreath.
00:27:55:05 - 00:27:56:06
Speaker 1
Thank you for tuning in.