Citizenship and Immigration Committee on March 19th, 2013

[Col François Bariteau]

Unfortunately, I don't have those numbers. This is a responsibility of the commander of the Canadian Forces recruiting group. I don't have those details. What I can tell you, again based on my experience, is that for one Canadian citizen enrollee, there are normally 3 to 3.2 applicants for each enrolment.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

All right. So we don't have a problem in terms of filling the vacancies today in our Canadian Forces.

[Col François Bariteau]

At this time, no, sir.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

There's no problem. Given that this is the case, then the likelihood of a landed resident, unless they have a real special skill, is not good at all....

[Col François Bariteau]

That is correct.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Is it a directive from the Minister of National Defence that this is the way in which the recruitment is supposed to work?

[Col François Bariteau]

This is part of the National Defence Act, part of the Queen's Regulations and Orders, and also part of our internal policy, which we call the Defence Administrative Orders and Directives on enrolment. It clearly states that Canadian citizens are being given the priority, and that permanent residents, those non-Canadian citizens with permanent resident status, can be enrolled if there is a special need, if they provide service that satisfies a special need, and whose enrolment, in the opinion of the commander of the Canadian Forces recruiting group, would not prejudice the national interest. This is only when those two factors are met.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Okay. The legislation, for all intents and purposes, is fairly restrictive, in the sense that even if I'm a landed immigrant, my chances of being recruited are negligible at best, unless of course there's a specific skill that I bring or there's a fairly high demand.

[Col François Bariteau]

This is where we're saying that 15 per year is a good average of enrolling permanent residents.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Lamoureux.

Mr. Opitz, please.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Colonel Bariteau, what trades, for example, will a PR never be admitted to? What would be prejudicial to Canada? Would it be something like intelligence, sensitive jobs like that?

[Col François Bariteau]

I don't have specific examples, but I can tell you that there are some occupations within the Canadian Forces right now that are not meeting their preferred manning number. The pilot is one of them. The social worker is one of them. The pharmacist is one of them. We're competing, very much so, with the civilian community and the private sector.

Those are some of the occupations for which we've traditionally had difficulty filling positions and vacancies. Those are the occupations, if you wish, that would be given some sort of consideration for permanent residents to join the forces if we are unable to recruit within the Canadian population.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Now, social workers I can see as well.

[Col François Bariteau]

Yes.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

That's a high-demand area for a lot of reasons in society, but of course also to help our Canadian soldiers who are suffering from some post-traumatic stress issues and some other social issues themselves. That's a very important position to fill—that I understand—as is the position of pharmacist and the others that you mentioned.

I know that back in the day, permanent residents were at one point allowed to join the Canadian Forces, but clearly we don't have a big issue in recruiting right now, based on some of the numbers you've said already.

Can you talk about CF-18 pilots, for example? I know we do recruit them from Commonwealth countries. At CFC, when I worked there, there were a couple of examples of CF-18 pilots who were recruited by Canada. Now you're saying that we have a manning shortage for pilots for that kind of aircraft.

How would we go about recruiting that kind of an individual from Australia, let's say?

[Col François Bariteau]

It's a very good question, but we're not short of people who want to join and become a pilot. It seems that in the Canadian population everybody wants to fly. There's no shortage in the number of applicants to join the pilot trade.

That said, there are some very severe selection criteria that prevent many from joining the forces in this specific occupation. Because the training is so long and so demanding, it's another factor that we have to take into consideration. We have many right now on the basic training list who are undergoing the training to become a pilot, but because the training takes over two years, obviously there is a gap that we need to fill at a specific rank with individuals who have highly developed skills.

This is where we will consider, for instance, the U.K. pilots who have permanent residency here in Canada. We would consider them because the training we have is very similar to what they do. There are some qualifications in fact that are the same. I'm thinking about the instructor qualification. It's basically the same as for our Canadian pilots who are giving the training.

It's an added value for us to employ them. We can fill specific vacancies at a specific rank. We can continue to train the new enrollees in the Canadian armed forces, and they can become pilots. They're not put on the side to wait until such time as we have sufficient instructors to conduct a course.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Would you agree, then, that this plugs an important security hole, where we may find a gap at the particular point where guys are going through the system in training but are just not qualified yet, and it's in the nation's best interest to have people filling those positions where there are no gaps in, say, air defence?

[Col François Bariteau]

Well, we consider permanent residents, but we also consider those who left the forces, went into the private sector, and decided to come back for different reasons. We are also considering what we call the component transfer, which is basically individuals from the reserve force who now want to join the regular force and who have some skills. They will be given priority over permanent residents to enrol in the forces.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay.

Colonel Gibson, we were talking about armed conflict and the definition of that and a declaration of war and so forth. From a military law perspective in relation to Mr. Shory's bill, how would the Canadian Forces respond in military law to anyone who was caught in an armed conflict against Canadian Forces on foreign soil?

[Col Michael R. Gibson]

Mr. Chair, could I ask Mr. Opitz just to clarify slightly, please?

Is it how we would respond in terms of a military justice response, do you mean, or a criminal response?

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Military justice or a criminal response. For example, if Canadian Forces are overseas conducting operations and an individual turns on the Canadian Forces, whether that individual is a civilian or even from within our own ranks, how is that dealt with? Or you could take both scenarios, one with the civilian and one within our own system.

[Col Michael R. Gibson]

Mr. Chair, clearly, if a member of the Canadian Forces were to engage in hostilities against the Canadian Forces, that would be an act of treason. They could potentially be charged with the offence of treason, or mutiny, or a variety of other offences, and they would be dealt with under the military justice system.

In respect of other people who weren't members, if they were a spy, Parliament has created an offence of being a spy, under section 78 of the National Defence Act. We would have jurisdiction under paragraph 60(1)(h) to try that person.

Otherwise, it would depend on whether or not the person was a lawful combatant. If they were not a lawful combatant, they might be detained pending the conclusion of hostilities. If they were a lawful combatant, they would be taken as a prisoner of war.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

That's it, Mr. Opitz.

All of those definitions are different. In other words, the bill talks about an “act of war”. Is that different from an act of treason, from an act of terrorism, from an act of something else?

[Col Michael R. Gibson]

Mr. Chair, I think it might be of some assistance to members of the committee for me to amplify a little bit what I was saying earlier about an act of war. “Act of war” is problematic because of its imprecision. That's why one would suggest that the term “armed conflict” would be far preferable, because it has much more rigour and much more content, both domestically and internationally. In terms of what might be preferable to consider for the bill, it might be substituting the term “armed conflict” for “act of war”.

In terms of the other acts you're describing, treason is an offence under the Criminal Code, and spying is an offence under the National Defence Act, so they're in a sort of different category. In terms of action against the Canadian Forces, what we're really looking at there is somebody who, in an armed conflict, acted in such a manner as to injure the Canadian Forces.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Is “conflict” defined anywhere?