National Defence Committee on Feb. 9th, 2011

[Bruno Hamel]

That's the position the board has always defended. The board's powers are set out in the National Defence Act. There is a section in that act on the obligation to file an annual report. The terms and conditions respecting board members are also set out in the National Defence Act. None of those sections confers any discretionary authority that, in my view, would make it possible to use regulations to extend that. Since these three sections are part of the act, I believe a change should be made to the bill. I'm not a legal expert; it's Ms. Maynard who—

[Caroline Maynard]

That's correct. If we want to put these three recommendations in place, we need an amendment to the act.

[Pascal-Pierre Paillé, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Could that be added to Bill C-41?

[Caroline Maynard]

I'm sure it can.

[Pascal-Pierre Paillé, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Perfect, thank you. That answers my question.

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

I'm going to continue for two minutes.

Do the three recommendations not included in this bill originate in the Lamer Report?

[Bruno Hamel]

Absolutely. They are Recommendations 85, 86 and 87 of Chief Justice Lamer's Report.

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

Now I have a few brief questions. Perhaps we could ask them one after the other.

How big is your annual budget?

[Bruno Hamel]

It's approximately $6.4 million.

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

Your board consists of six members: a chairperson and one full-time vice-chairperson, as well as four part-time directors.

[Bruno Hamel]

They are four part-time members.

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

You have an infrastructure. Who drafts the decisions?

[Bruno Hamel]

We have a business infrastructure because with institutional independence, come all the obligations. Our board has the same obligations. Although our agency is small, it has the same obligations toward the central agencies as the Department of National Defence. Half the board's staff, more or less, is assigned to postponed tasks and to the obligations that are the price to be paid for institutional independence. The other half are support staff for the six members. Those people do research and draft—

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

—the recommendations.

[Bruno Hamel]

In fact, the member issues his instructions, his directives, and then the writing as such is done in accordance with the internal, legal review process, and so on.

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

Is there a grievance case law? In the civilian field, can one consult a data base where all decisions rendered are filed so that any possible changes in doctrine and jurisprudence can be detected?

Can one access all the decisions?

[Caroline Maynard]

All the board findings are confidential because the names of the complainants cannot be disclosed. However, all the summaries of our recommendations and findings are on-line. You can even do a search by subject. That's also how we can detect subjects that repeat. There's also a list of all our systemic recommendations. For example, earlier we were talking about

trends or recommendations on systemic issues. We have a list of all of those on our website.

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

All right.

As the Chairman is busy, I'm going to continue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

No, Mr. Bachand, your time is up.

We will now go to Mr. Braid.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you very much to the witnesses for being here today.

If I have some time remaining, I will share it with Mr. Boughen.

I want to continue the thread of discussion with respect to the board members themselves, the experience they have, their background, and the makeup of the board.

Are there any current members of the board who were not formerly in the military?

[Bruno Hamel]

Currently the six board members all have, to some degree, previous military experience.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Was that In uniform? Do all six have experience in uniform?

[Bruno Hamel]

Yes, it was in uniform.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Okay.

With respect to those board members, do they come directly from their uniformed military experience to serve on the board, or is there a span of some civilian experience so they end up bringing a mix of military and civilian experience anyway?

[Bruno Hamel]

Mr. Chair, I would say it's a combination of both. You will have some members who will retire in order to be appointed.

You have to understand the process by which the Governor in Council puts offers of employment on the Governor in Council's website. The criteria are there. If military members are entitled to apply in a certain competition, and if they meet the criteria as set out by PCO and meet the different thresholds, they may get interviewed, and that may lead to an offer of employment. Some of them may well have to retire in order to apply; others will have been retired for some years. They will apply for the same job postings available on the Governor in Council's site.

One of the important things that Madame Maynard raised is that there is a provision in the National Defence Act for the Governor in Council to appoint a serving member to serve on the board while in uniform. That, for us, would have a clear and direct impact on its independence. Although I admit that this issue was not raised by the board in 2003 when Justice Lamer went around, it will be the next time around. This is an issue that I'm concerned with. This is an issue the board is concerned with. We will recommend that subsection 29.16(10) be removed from the act.