The federal government is asking provinces and territories to find ways to ease the adjustment of military families when they are moved from one part of Canada to another.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan met on Tuesday in Toronto with provincial and territorial representatives, as well as members of the Armed Forces and their spouses to talk about the difficulties experienced when military families are reassigned to new locations.

A 2013 report by Pierre Daigle, who was the military ombudsman at the time, found that relocation and the “relentless upheaval of military life” are the major cause of strain for the spouses and children of Canada’s soldiers, sailors and aviators.

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“Imagine families having to be posted every two to three years. Their kids are then having to go into another school. It’s not just finding friends, the curriculum can change. And they are having to find new doctors when [Canadians] are already having difficulties finding doctors,” Mr. Sajjan said in a telephone interview with The Globe and Mail.

Military personnel can expect to be transferred three times more often than the average Canadian civilian throughout the course of their career.

Most of the services that change when a family moves, such as education and health, fall within provincial jurisdiction. So Mr. Sajjan says he is opening a discussion with the provinces and territories, in an initiative the government calls Seamless Canada, to make things easier for those members of the Armed Forces who are relocated.

It can be as simple as helping military families get new health cards and drivers licences, or offering a list of doctors who are willing to take the families of military members, the ,inister said.

But the problems can also be more complex.

Mr. Sajjan told the story of a five-year-old girl who experienced anxiety and learning difficulties while her father was deployed to Afghanistan. She started seeing a therapist, he said, but then the family was moved to another province and all the progress she made was lost. The girl went back on a wait list for therapy in the new community and had to redo all of the assessments that had been done previously.

Then, a couple months later, her family was posted again and she had to restart the same process, said Mr. Sajjan. “The daughter, now a bright, young 11-year-old, is thriving now, but it took longer that it should have. We must do better for her and other military families.”

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Some provinces have already taken steps to deal with the constant reassignment, he said, commending the work done in Alberta and New Brunswick where there are large military bases.

In Alberta, for instance, MLA Nicole Goehring, the provincial government’s liaison to the Canadian Armed Forces, said a working group has been created to look at ways that all of the different ministries can enhance program delivery to military families.

“When we talk about our military members who are training in very difficult circumstances, being deployed overseas, dealing with million-dollar equipment, and making life-saving decisions,” Mr. Sajjan said, “we want to make sure they are at the top of their game, and to be at the top of their game we need to make sure that their families are looked after.”