National Defence Committee on April 10th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I call this meeting to order.

I see that we have quorum. I thank you for your attendance after the votes.

Colleagues, our first hour is devoted to our witness, Laurie Ogilvie. I anticipate doing some work with the committee in the second hour.

I take note that there are three motions that are potentially debatable today. Before you introduce your motion, I would ask you to do a courtesy to the clerk and to the chair by waiting until we advise you what is currently on the agenda with the committee. That way, when we have debate on the motions—if we have debate on the motions—it will at least be informed by what our commitments and our opportunities are at this point.

Could you do that, as a courtesy? The clerk works very hard to try to get us all together.

I just want to offer an apology, which might even be sincere.

[An hon. member]

That's so unlike you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Yes. It's so unlike me. That's right.

As you know, I hate to cancel meetings, but I've had to cancel two in a row. For the last one, we had witnesses lined up on Thursday afternoon, and by Friday afternoon we didn't, so we had no ability to replace the witnesses. I think the one before that was on votes, and we ran out of time on the votes, so that went sideways as well.

All of this is to say that we're already starting to run out of runway in this committee. In the context not only of the outstanding motions but also of the opportunities and scheduling issues we have, I'll ask you for the courtesy of sharing with you what we have at this point.

Meanwhile, we'll turn to our witness, Ms. Ogilvie.

I appreciate your patience and your attendance. I'm sure the clerk has briefed you on the five minutes of presentation. After that, members will ask questions.

We look forward to what you have to say.

[Laurie Ogilvie, Senior Vice President, Military Family Services, Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Good afternoon. My name is Laurie Ogilvie, and I am the senior vice-president of military family services. Thank you for this invitation to come back to address this committee.

As I've mentioned in previous appearances, military family services is an operational division of Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services. We contribute to the well-being of the Canadian Armed Forces community directly through the military family services program, the veteran family program and Support Our Troops. Family-centric programs and services are delivered directly by military family services or through not-for-profit provincially incorporated charitable and non-defence organizations, namely military family resource centres.

In addressing the topic for today—housing and relocation—I can speak only to the relocation supports that are provided through military family services.

While Canadian research findings suggest that the majority of military families are supported and resilient within a healthy Canadian Armed Forces community, relocation is a challenge faced by military families more than by most Canadians. It is estimated that around 10,000 families relocate every year, with the average posting duration being about three to five years. We have analyzed extensive research into issues facing military families. These include frequent absences of the Canadian Armed Forces member, transitions through the military journey and, of course—the reason I'm here today—relocations.

In 2020, the military family services program was modernized to reflect a more contemporary understanding of the composition of families and their needs. Within this process, emphasis was placed on going beyond the three known military lifestyle challenges to include three familial or personal challenges, namely, mental wellness, financial health and interpersonal connection.

When a Canadian Armed Forces member relocates, their family can be impacted financially and often feel disconnected from their established social support networks.

Today we deliver programming for military families in the areas of relocation preparedness, financial resilience, personal and family health, and community involvement. To do so, we engage with and steward military family resource centres in Canada for the delivery of the military family services program, including through service outlets in Europe, the United States and the rest of the world; tailored programming for our special operations families; and a virtual military family resource centre.

Some programming examples include emergency family care assistance, mental health counselling in person and virtually, family and intimate partner violence support, a 24-7 crisis and referral line, emergency grants and loans, telemedicine, children and youth mental health counselling, augmented educational supports and counselling, employment initiatives, extended outreach to remote families and non-clinical psychosocial supports.

Beyond providing direct delivery, military family services engages with national stakeholders to expand our capacity for access to services to enhance family resilience throughout relocation. These include a spousal employment network; virtual career fairs and the recently released Career Coach+; health care provided virtually through Maple telemedicine; a relocation family guide, which is a consolidation of an information package to prepare families for relocation, the Military Family Doctor Network through Calian; a dedicated crisis text service with Kids Help Phone; and Support our Troops summer camps and scholarship programs.

Although a number of initiatives have been put in place over the past few years to provide more robust support to military families, the reality is that several of the most significant challenges that military families face as a result of frequent relocations are beyond the control and jurisdiction of the Department of National Defence and the federal government.

The transferability of professional credentials, access to child care and health care, and children's educational continuity, to name a few, remain of great concern for military families when relocating.

My organization works closely with Seamless Canada to raise awareness by provinces and territories to the unique challenges military families face, especially when relocating. Families often need additional support accessing community and provincial systems of care to develop their resilience in order to manage the transition within Canadian Armed Forces operational requirements.

We work to leverage all resources, especially as they continually evolve to improve their innovative support programs.

Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to answering your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to the six-minute round.

Mrs. Gallant, you have six minutes.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Actually, I'll take it.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'm looking at the wrong side. There we go.

Go ahead, Mrs. Kramp-Neuman.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Ogilvie, for being here today.

I think there's no question that our military families are facing unique and intense challenges. I have a number of questions, and we'll try to get through them as expeditiously as we can.

Have you been hearing from CAF members about the government's PLD, CFHD and PPLD changes to the housing benefit with regard to the post-living differential, etc.? How have these affected members—both those starting off in their careers and those in the middle to later stages of their careers?

[Laurie Ogilvie]

In my role, I do not hear from members around any of those items. What we have conducted in the past is research around military families and the impact of relocation on the military families themselves. The points you have raised do not get raised to us during the research we do with families.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Do you believe it's realistic for the government to expect that someone starting off in the CAF at 18, for example, making way less than $100,000 a year, would be able to afford a house in Halifax or Esquimalt by the age of 25?

[Laurie Ogilvie]

Again, that's outside of the scope of my responsibility.

We do hear from families that there is a financial strain during relocation, especially around seeking and securing accommodations that are appropriate. That does impact their interest or their ability to relocate, so families will go to an imposed restriction to offset it.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

Further to that, are you concerned about the abysmal lack of upfront funding that has been shared for this program, with only $7 million going into CAF housing over the next five years and zero funding over the next two years?

I'm trying to figure out how struggling CAF members can afford to wait five years before there's meaningful action on housing.

[Laurie Ogilvie]

Again, it's outside of the scope of my responsibility, as housing does not fall anywhere in my portfolio.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

You did touch on this in your opening remarks: We have heard numerous times at this committee that one of the biggest quality-of-life issues facing our troops, especially when they move from area to area, is access to medical care, like getting a doctor, for example. Unfortunately, this was very much absent in the DPU, the defence policy update .

Can you speak to what steps can be taken to ensure that troops moving across provincial boundaries can get timely access to medical care?

[Laurie Ogilvie]

I cannot speak to military members accessing health care. I can speak to families accessing health care during relocation, which is why we introduced the telemedicine service for relocating military families.

In the last year, over 7,300 patients accessed the telemedicine service. That is providing a level of support so military families can re-establish or establish health care when they move to a new community.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Excellent. Thank you.

Additionally, one thing the DPU did mention was access to child care. You mentioned this in your opening remarks as well.

Do you have any concerns that access to child care may fall victim to the same issue that interprovincially relocated troops are currently experiencing with medical care? What can we do to avoid the same mistakes happening again?

[Laurie Ogilvie]

As I mentioned in my remarks, there are a number of concerns or situations that military families face because of going through different provincial jurisdictions that are outside the scope of the Department of National Defence and outside the scope of the federal government.

What we try to do in military family services is put programs in place to support the families within the communities that they're moving to.

For example, with child care, we work closely with the military family resource centres, which do provide child care for military families in some communities. As well, we have a product called emergency family care assistance, so that if a family is in need of child care, they can come to us and we will provide either support or funding to offset an emergency they may be having around child care.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Perfect.

Do you track or are you able to estimate approximately how many CAF members or their families have used food banks in the last year?

[Laurie Ogilvie]

No, I do not have any of that information. I'm sorry.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

It's a staggering number. We're hearing every day different reports and different testimonies of people accessing and needing to use food banks. It's not just military members themselves, but their families. It's extraordinarily disturbing.

Next, aside from digitizing medical records, what other steps can be taken to improve the quality, efficacy and efficiency of medical care being delivered to our troops and their families?

[Laurie Ogilvie]

Again, I can't speak to medical care access or provision to military members.

Family members are receiving their medical care in the provincial system of care, so we don't have any jurisdiction over the medical care provided to families in the provincial system. What we try to do is provide those bridges for families to access services as they're relocating to new jurisdictions.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

Could you speak about how the lack of CAF members and families in related trades is affecting the ability of the CAF to effectively administer and deliver programs under bodies such as yours? I recognize that the military families.... You do a tremendous amount of work, and obviously we're grateful for that.

If you could speak about that, it would be appreciated.

[Laurie Ogilvie]

Again, I can't speak on the lack of Canadian Armed Forces members. What I can speak about is engagement with military families as they're moving across the country, the supports we're providing, what we're hearing back from them about what their needs are and the continued evolution of our programming to support what the modern military family looks like versus what the military family looked like 25 years ago.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

It certainly has changed.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mrs. Kramp-Neuman.

Mr. Collins, you have six minutes.