Four and a half years after her husband was killed while trying to arrest a criminal, Shelly MacInnis Wynn has finally won her battle to have the federal government cover the costs of her family's therapy – and the therapies of all RCMP families who have lost a loved one in the line of duty.
MacInnis Wynn, an activist for police safety and the wife of slain St. Albert RCMP officer Const. David Wynn, has been paying out of pocket for years. She estimates it has cost her tens of thousands of dollars to cover the therapy she and their three sons needed following the traumatic death of her husband. Now, she and Angela Gevaudan – the widow of Codiac Regional RCMP Const. Fabrice Gevaudan, who was one of three officers gunned down in Moncton in 2014 – have helped to secure unlimited government coverage for families who have experienced a similar loss.
The day MacInnis Wynn found out the funding had come through was an emotional one.
"That day was a good day," she said.
"We both cried. It was a very proud moment."
MacInnis Wynn said she and Gevaudan were determined that no other families would have to fight for funding to cover the costs of their therapy.
"Both Angela and I, when we would advocate or we would fight for this issue, we wanted this to be not just for us but we wanted it to be for everyone – for all surviving spouses. And then, Lord forbid, any surviving spouses and their children after the fact," she said.
Gevaudan said days after her husband was shot and killed, the former RCMP Commissioner of Canada, Bob Paulson, came to Moncton and promised her the spouses and children of the slain officers would be taken care of.
"It was something that he promised to us, that we would always have the therapy coverage we required and it was never something we would have to worry about," Gevaudan said.
MacInnis Wynn was told the same, but neither of the families got the coverage they were promised. Gevaudan's coverage through Veterans Affairs lasted less than a year, ending before the first anniversary of her husband's death went by. She began paying out-of-pocket for her therapy, despite the expense.
"I knew that I needed it, and thankfully I was able to pay for it, which isn't the case for a lot of people," she said.
"When you have to make a choice between going to get groceries for yourself or your kids, or going to get therapy, you're not going to go to therapy."
MacInnis Wynn said she had to purchase the RCMP benefits plan, which she was using for free when her husband was alive, and was given $1,600 in therapy funding per year.
The activist and mother of three said that money would get used up in one month, leaving the family to pay out-of-pocket for the rest of the year. Paying so much for therapy took a mental toll as well, with both of the mothers burdened by guilt at the expense.
"I think we still feel guilty. There's always that guilt of, should I be spending this much money on myself? We try to justify it and we shouldn't have to justify spending that money on ourselves," MacInnis Wynn said.
The two friends knew even though they could afford the cost, there were other families out there who couldn't – especially when the death of their loved one impacted their income.
The fight for funding
Both women began their fight for therapy coverage separately, slowly working their respective ways up the RCMP chain of command without success. The roadblocks mounted as their designated RCMP liaisons were reposted, moved on or just weren't sure how to navigate the system to get them benefits.
"My liaison was trying to help and trying to find avenues, but they are ... not trained in all of these things," MacInnis Wynn said. "This is not something that happens every day, so there's no real guidelines for how to go about this."
The fight continued as the families dealt with court cases, memorials, media appearances, awards ceremonies, incident reviews and recommendations, each trying to manage their own grief.
In the fall of 2018, MacInnis Wynn and Gevaudan began comparing notes. They learned they had been receiving different benefits, and that other families in the same position of them were also receiving different levels of support. They discovered there was no standard coverage for family members, with each family being dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Some received no coverage.
Gevaudan was granted unlimited and ongoing coverage for her family in the summer of 2018 after meeting with the new RCMP commissioner, Brenda Lucki. MacInnis Wynn was still without coverage.
The friends couldn't figure out why coverage was given in such a piecemeal way.
As the two women became determined to standardize the system for all families, MacInnis Wynn reached out to St. Albert MP Michael Cooper to ask him for help. The St. Albert politician said he was upset to find out the promises the two families had been given had never come to fruition.
"It was quite disturbing that representations had been made to Shelly and Angela and both representations were not followed up on," he said.
Cooper hit the ground running, sending letters out to Ralph Goodale, the federal Minister of Public Safety, and Ginette Petitpas Taylor, the Minister of Health, who happens to be Gevaudan's MP in Moncton. Petitpas Taylor met with Gevaudan several times, becoming the backbone of their advocacy at the beginning of 2019.
On June 18, both MacInnis Wynn and Gevaudan received couriered letters from the federal government officially stating all families of slain RCMP members, as well as the families of RCMP members who had taken their own lives, would be given unlimited and ongoing coverage. They are now part of a bereavement program funded through Veterans Affairs, the RCMP and Health Canada.
"Family members have access to step care approach, which includes standard counselling, long term counselling, and complex longer term intervention. These services continue to be available to you and your dependent children for as long as needed, and are fully covered by the RCMP," the letter read.
"It was a pretty emotional day, because we fought hard," MacInnis Wynn said.
"It took a lot out of us and it wasn't easy to go through the channels. The frustration level was just enormous."
Gevaudan estimates around 30 families will now be on the new bereavement plan.
"I think that both (of us) have been very concerned about not wanting future families to have to go through things that are unnecessary for them to go through," she said.
Cooper said they are now working on getting the costs MacInnis Wynn and Gevaudan have incurred over the past several years covered.
Canadian Police Family Alliance
With one victory under her belt, MacInnis Wynn is turning her attention to another cause she is passionate about.
As she fought for funding, she realized just how few resources there are to support RCMP families.
"I had a lot of spouses reach out to me through the years, and I've talked to a lot of people and officers and their families, where I realized that this doesn't just stop with the spouse or the surviving spouses. This is an issue with the active families right now," she said.
The St. Albert activist said families have no real resource centre to go through for support, whether that be for mental health issues officers are experiencing, frequent transfers across the country or transitioning out of the RCMP as they enter retirement.
"Every little step of the way, I discovered that there was such a communication breakdown, that it was such a struggle, everything had to be a struggle with the RCMP. Some of it should be easy, things that we as spouses should be able to find on our own, and that information isn't available," she said.
Once she realized these services were needed, she was put in touch with Val Connell, who has been wanting to create a resource centre for families since her husband first joined the RCMP 12 years ago.
Connell learned soon after her husband joined that families faced major struggles with relocations, and she saw many officers facing mental health struggles that impacted their entire families.
Connell's husband suffered from PTSD from his time with the RCMP and she realized they had nowhere to go for support. On top of a lack of resources, she noticed the stigma around mental health forced some RCMP families to hide their struggles and not share their experiences with the rest of the RCMP community.
"In my early years, I recognized that mask that we all wear to not only protect the image of our family or uphold some kind of 'we are OK' status, or to protect our husbands and wives," she said.
"I just knew that we couldn't talk about the difficulties that we had, because as soon as we would say something ... in a lot of ways that outed or potentially outed our husbands in terms of their mental health."
The wife and teacher decided to start Stronger Together, a Facebook group dedicated to connecting with RCMP spouses and families across the country to find out what they might need from a support group. With that group launched, her idea for an internal family support service began to get off the ground.
"I needed to hear the experiences of other spouses in our community so that could kind of guide my decisions around the nonprofit that I had wanted to build and just kind of exchange energy with my community so that I could get to know them in that way," Connell said.
She and MacInnis Wynn began working together to build what is now known as the Canadian Police Family Alliance, and they modelled the organization after the Canadian Forces military family resource centres.
"There's not too much there for spouses (of RCMP members) as compared to Military Family Resource, which is thousands of pages deep and includes all kinds of relevant research and all kinds of resource access," Connell said.
"There's a huge disparity and I think that's something that the (Canadian Police Family Alliance) is really excited to tackle."
Connell said the nonprofit's goal is to "empower and strengthen RCMP families with the end game of, in turn, strengthening the RCMP as a Canadian institution."
The organization is just getting started. Last month, during its first annual general meeting, Connell was elected president and MacInnis Wynn was elected vice-president. It is now in the process of becoming a registered non-profit, functioning outside the RCMP instead of as part of it.
"I think that for us, it's important to maintain a third-party status, because we really feel that the voice that spouses do have is extremely minimal," Connell said.
The mother said she wants spouses to be able to speak freely without being worried about the family's employer.
Wynn For Foundation
Along with her work on the Canadian Police Family Alliance, MacInnis Wynn is working to expand the St. Albert-based Wynn For Hunger campaign by creating the Wynn For Foundation, with the goal of raising money to help kids who may not have enough family support.
"It will be empowering the lives of children, letting them know there is somebody in their corner," she said.
She hopes one day to establish an after-school program for kids so they never feel alone.
MacInnis Wynn was inspired by both her husband's life and death. During his life, David was a dedicated supporter of community programs and loved supporting kids, a legacy she wants to continue.
"It kind of has come full circle, so we're kind of picking up where Dave left off," she said, adding David worked for the DARE program in schools and loved coaching his kids' sports groups.
After he died, MacInnis Wynn began wondering what had happened in the life of her husband's killer, Shawn Rehn, that brought him to the point of murder.
She began to learn about Rehn's childhood, which involved very little stability and support from a very young age. She was determined to create a program that would prevent kids like Rehn from slipping through the cracks and would give them the support they need to succeed.
A community's support
With so much work to do, MacInnis Wynn says she couldn't have accomplished all she has without the wellspring of support from St. Albertans.
She still remembers coming home from the hospital the day David died and seeing the city blanketed in white ribbons.
"That was probably one of the most amazing things I could have ever experienced, coming home that morning from the hospital and seeing all those white ribbons," she said.
"I think it's important people know how thankful not just myself but the whole family is with all the support from the community of St. Albert."
Some of her strength also comes from a group called Survivors of Law Enforcement (SOLE), which brings together bereaved spouses to support each other after they lose a loved one.
For more information about the Canadian Police Family Alliance, you can visit their Facebook page or their website at www.cpfalliance.ca.
