Rangers not accessing healthcare and benefits, and not knowing what they were entitled to, was the central theme to a report released by the military ombudsman last week.
“We are committed to ensuring the long-term health and wellness of our members,” said Brig. Gen. Rob Roy MacKenzie, chief of staff of the Army Reserve, in response to the report. “(We) will implement a number of concrete actions to improve the assistance, services, and care we provide (Rangers) and their families.”
Military ombudsman Gary Walbourne says the response from the department has been excellent, and that Rangers should start seeing positive changes take place within their operations soon.
“I think you’re going to see some focus on the staffing to get those ratios (of instructors to Rangers, which can be as low as one to 53 in some cases) in line,” says Walbourne. “I think you’re going to see the introduction of more training for the Rangers, especially along the lines of their benefits that are available throughout the Canadian Armed Forces. We also touch upon the Rangers when it comes to considerations of Veterans Affairs Canada and their programs which their knowledge of was abysmal, to say the least.”
Some work has already been done, as the army’s Reserve Force has been undertaking its own review of the Ranger program since 2015.
“We’ve been working in parallel lanes but exchanging information,” he says. “They’ve done some things but moving forward I think some of the things that are underlying the issues, one of them is the staffing ratios that we talk a little bit about in the report, and they’re aggressively moving forward on that.”
The report makes four main recommendations. The first is that the military eliminate ambiguity and inconsistency in its policies for the Rangers, which fall under the Reserve Forces, but are sometimes viewed as separate and sometimes viewed as part of the Reserves in the wording, with a focus on health care and benefits.
The second is that the military ensure Rangers are instructed to report illnesses and injury so they can access their benefits.
The third is to work with Rangers to identify barriers to accessing military health care in remote communities, and to then implement a service delivery model that works with these circumstances.
The fourth is to ensure that information on reporting illness and injury, the health care and benefits to which the Rangers are entitled, and what they may be entitled to under Veterans’ Services, is all implemented into Rangers training.
Many injuries happen while Rangers are going about their own personal business, hunting or working their traplines, says Walbourne, but compared to other reservists, the line between personal business and Rangers business is blurred.
“We call the Rangers the eyes and ears of the North,” he says. “Someone might be out on their trapline doing their own personal business, notice suspicious behaviours – I have a concern about, when is that person on duty? When does the health care and benefits kick in?”
Walbourne says many things work differently among Rangers than other Reserves. There isn’t the same sort of health and fitness test pre-enrolment that takes place in other ares of the army, but instead admissions can take place differently from community to community, looking at other things such as bush skills and experience.
While this can pose administrative challenges, Walbourne says the system should adapt itself to the way things work in the North, not the other way around.
“The Rangers have been around since 1947,” said Walbourne. “And if you go back and look at how the Rangers were developed and how they came to be, what we needed was the experience, the knowledge of the land, the abilities of these people, so there were some different rules and regs put around the rangers, and I think it works extremely well.”
He says the Rangers were extremely cooperative, welcoming and open as he and his team visited each patrol group in the North over the last year and a half.
“I just want to make sure that we take into consideration that things are a little bit different north of 60,” he said. “Maybe sometimes the rules that apply to all the reserves won’t work as well for the Rangers.”