National Defence Committee on Nov. 26th, 2009

[MGen W. Semianiw]

I will get back to you on which one is correct and which one isn't.

Second, to come back to les cadets, that falls under the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Double-dipping?

[MGen W. Semianiw]

No, le program avec les cadets falls under the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff. You'll want to pose him the questions.

I could answer questions about the program, but that would only be my view. He actually runs the program.

He is responsible for the Cadet Program.

You referenced double-dipping. I'll give you a long answer to a short question.

First, does it happen? Yes. Second, I think we have to put this all into a broader perspective. It's just not for senior people; it's actually for wherever there is a position across the Canadian Forces that we're having a difficulty in bringing folks in. We have the caporal chef involved in the same issue. What came out in the press was the senior folks, but it actually happens at almost every rank level throughout the Canadian Forces in some way.

What it speaks to--just to make sure we have the context--is someone who leaves the Canadian Forces, draws a pension...

I would just make the point here that drawing a pension is a right. I cannot turn to anyone and say they're not entitled to draw their pension. It is a right.

So they draw their pension, and then a job opportunity comes up that actually goes out on the street. It's important that I speak to that. The job opportunity is a very open, transparent process. If I need to have a driver, I will send out, for any reservist, a job opportunity letter saying I'm looking for a driver, caporal chef, master corporal, sergeant or corporal, and someone will come forward.

In the end, what I can tell you in that context is that I have no idea, until we interview them, if that person has already come from the Canadian Forces or is a part-time reservist. In the end, if you look at the process to hire people, it's very open and transparent. What it speaks to, and we talked about it, is that there has been an experience gap between the age group of 19 and 24 years in the last three, four or five years with people leaving.

In many cases, those have been filled. Most of them are at the senior level by senior people who have come back.

On the one hand, the question would be: So what do you do? Do you not bring someone back who's already been in the forces, to bring back the knowledge for a short period of time? This is the other piece that didn't come out. The contract is a three-year contract, it's not another 20 years. C'est seulement pour trois ans. After three years the contract ends, or after one year, and then the job offer has to go out, if it's needed. That's the context.

We are looking at all of this from a class B perspective--you have already heard it, the question was posed—as perhaps reducing some of the class B job offers or opportunities. We're looking at the entire program and actually, perhaps, bringing it down.

As we move ahead, here's the issue. As I always remind people, how many years does it take to get 20 years of experience? It takes 20 years.

When I have everyone who leaves between 19 and 24, even though I can recruit 7,000 a year, I'm not going to see those folks for another 15 or 16 years. This is why I now have a knowledge gap and is why we went out with the letters to bring people in. That's what you saw. It was this thing we call double-dipping.

I want to remind members of the committee, Mr. Chair, that it is no different on the public service side. You can still leave the military with a pension and get a job as a public servant, particularly if you're an injured person who has been wounded. You have priority in hiring. It's not a phenomenon to just the military. It happens across the public service.

It's the same with contractors. I can't tell you if any of the contractors used to be in the Canadian Forces or not. Many have. In essence, you would say they're also double-dipping. It comes back to one issue, which is, who has the job knowledge and the experience to meet the need for the short term, 19 to 24? It's starting to come down. We'll see that here in the next while.

But it does happen. That is the policy. It has been a policy. It is actually driven out of Treasury Board. There are very clear regulations—three years and there has to be a break every year. I won't get into the details, but it has allowed us in the end to meet that job gap that we're missing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you, sir.

[Mgén W. Semianiw]

Once again, I apologize for the figures. I made the mistake.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

I will give the floor to Mr. Hawn.

I know that you share your time with Mr. Payne.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I only have a quick point to make. Then I'll turn it over to Mr. Payne, if he's next.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

That's fine.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Just to drive that last point home--I don't need a long answer--these are the people who are double-dipping who have earned their pension and met their obligations to the Canadian Forces. The Canadian Forces still has a personnel hole to fill and money in the budget. It occurs across all ranks and it is not an extra budget burden on the CF.

[MGen W. Semianiw]

Check--plus you need to add a couple of pieces, too, in that the process is open and transparent. I don't go and hire this person or that person. It actually gets posted for 30 days.

We can't find folks any more. Reservists are being used across the country to a great degree. That has to be added, I would say.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes. Good.

Thank you much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Monsieur Payne.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I appreciate you being here, General, Commodore, and Mr. Wenek. I certainly have a lot of appreciation for our military, and admiration as well. My son is a reservist.

There is a question around reservists. You talked about class B and regular forces. Could you briefly give us a description of how a part-time reservist can become a class B or even move into regular forces?

[Mgén W. Semianiw]

It is quite simple, Mr. Chair.

We have three different categories of reservist: class A, class B, and class C. Class B is what we all talk about as the part-time reservist. They show up twice a week, they work in their—

[A voice]

Class A.

[MGen W. Semianiw]

Yes, class A; sorry.

So the class As show up once or twice a week and they work in their local armouries, as probably your son does, and actually receive some money and are ready to go, if called out. Right now the focus is more on the Canada First defence strategy.

At the same time, if the Canadian Forces is short for whatever reason, operational deployments and the like, of personnel across its system, it can then go out and ask reservists in Canada if they'd like to step up and actually work full time. But here's the other point we need to remember on the whole class Bs double-dipping. They only get paid 85% of what a regular force person gets paid. It still can be a lot of money, but it's only 85%.

I have many class B staff who work in my organization getting paid 85% of what a regular force person would get paid--for good reasons. They're not deployed. I can't send them here or send them there in the current construct. They actually help us fill a hole for a three-year period. Contracts were one-year in many cases, so it was year to year, but they go for three years.

The last is the class C. If we need you for operational reasons, we then put you in class C. You get everything that a regular force individual would get. It's not just about money. Health care is provided, and there's a benefits program during that term of service.

What we did put in place for injured reservists—because reservists in many cases go class C, class A, and class C, class B--is that if people come off operations and they are injured, s'il y a des blessés, on les laisse dans la classe C until their wounds are healed and they're stabilized. So once they come back from Afghanistan, for example, we keep them in the forces as long as it takes for them to get the health care they actually require.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you for that.

My son has actually just moved into a class B position with Sally Horse.

[MGen W. Semianiw]

Are you charging him rent now?

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

No. Actually, he lives on his own, fortunately.

The other thing I wanted to mention briefly is that I had the privilege of being a parliamentary member at Canadian Maple Defender in Wainwright this past summer. It was a very excellent opportunity to live in with the military, the reservists in particular. While I was there, Bold Eagle was happening. It was graduation.

I have to tell the committee that it was extremely impressive, with the elders, the parents, the families who came and were so proud of their individuals who had taken part in that program. We did have an opportunity to talk to a number of the military and certainly a lot of them have an interest in moving into the regular forces. I just thought I would also mention that.

The other thing you talked about was in terms of graduation. From the moment the individual signs up, how long is it from recruitment to graduation?

[Karol Wenek]

Mr. Chair, it depends really on the occupation in which the individual is enrolled, but basic recruit training is standard. It's 13 weeks for a private and I think about 11 or 12 weeks for an officer candidate.

After that, there are a number of factors that determine how long it takes to get qualified. First is the length of occupational training. Normally it's about six months or so, but in some occupations, highly technical ones, the training can last as much as a year or more. In certain officer occupations, for example, to become fully qualified as a maritime surface officer, it will take several years. Essentially you have to be capable of running the ship on the watch.

The other factor that determines how long it takes to complete training is training capacity and scheduling. To give you an example, at present the air force has a small shortage in its pilot occupation, trained pilots--about 300 or so, 250 approximately. But there are over 500 pilot trainees in the training pipeline. We can't just push them through any faster. There's a training capacity constraint there.

So it is variable, but in many cases people are fully qualified about a year after they've joined, usually, or a year and a half after they've joined.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

I understand my time is up, but I do have a bunch of more questions around that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you very much.

We'll have to give the floor to Mr. Wilfert.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Well, you don't have to, but I'd appreciate it.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was going to ask about training capacity, and you talked about improving it over time. But something that I'm particularly interested in is investment in personnel. No organization lasts very long unless it invests in its personnel. I'm in the same business as you are. I have to retain my personnel, hopefully. And one of the ways to do that, obviously, is about providing challenges, opportunities.

Through you, Mr. Chairman, could you elaborate, gentlemen, on the approach you take in terms of ensuring that people reach their capacity insofar as the challenges they seek? Sometimes they may seek challenges that are not realistic. But how do you do that? And how much of the outside--from the business world or from other institutions--do you draw on to look at the techniques they use in terms of applying that to the forces?