National Defence Committee on Feb. 4th, 2013

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

You mentioned Treasury Board policy. Treasury Board also has guidelines. It sounded to me like you're making some assumptions about what Treasury Board would do based on worst case or based on, perhaps justified, pessimism. Are you not making assumptions about what Treasury Board will do?

[Pierre Daigle]

All I'm saying is the Treasury Board directive on claims and ex gratia payments states very clearly that the directive is not used to fill perceived gaps or compensate for the apparent limitations in any act, order, regulation, policy, agreement, or other governing instruments.

All I'm saying is if the CDS is to compensate someone who has been wronged in any financial grievance that has a tie directly to Treasury Board or not, at the end of the day it will be subject to this condition. Therefore, if it's perceived he wanted to give money to redress a grievance, if it's perceived that it's to fill a gap in law, it will not be approved. That's Treasury Board conditions.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Treasury Board does use discretion on each one of these cases as it comes before them. I sit there. There are Treasury Board directives which really are guidelines. Treasury Board does have discretion to go one way or the other. I understand your sentiment on that, but I think you're being a little bit too positive about what Treasury Board will do.

I'd like to switch to the home equity assistance program. Mr. Harris quoted some numbers about claims that were denied. The numbers we have are that less than 2% of Canadian Forces personnel request housing equity assistance. In the last six years, 2006 to 2012, there were about 113,000 who were relocated and there were only 30 claims that were actually denied, which is three one-hundredths of one per cent. I don't know whether that jives with your numbers. If there's one unsatisfied customer, obviously somebody has a concern with that, but considering the number we're talking about, that number seems quite small.

[Pierre Daigle]

I'm not sure what number we're using here. If we're talking about the 19,000 to 20,000 people who are moving in this country every year and you add a few to that, it's still a large number of people who are dissatisfied by this financial aspect.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

We're talking 30 claims out of 113,000 military in six years. Anybody can make their own judgment on that, I guess.

Let's talk about the history of cost moves. Obviously, people move a lot less. In the last 25 years of my service I had 12 cost moves which means moves of dependants, furniture, and effects. Have you been tracking the decrease in the number of cost moves over the last 10 or 20 years?

[Pierre Daigle]

A decrease in cost moves?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes, a decrease in cost moves or a decrease in relocation.

[Pierre Daigle]

I don't have that number.

When I took this function I saw a presentation that was given to a defence management committee in which in discussing this cost move budget, I remember the number being about 19,000 people who were moving per year. This is where I draw the conclusion that if everybody was moving, every five years people would move again, and within a 30-year career, people would probably move six times. I didn't really look at the trending to the cost move.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I'm not sure of your personal experience, but certainly in mine I don't think it's unusual that the moves today are a lot less frequent than they were in the past. Would you agree that's part of the sensitivity of the Canadian Forces to aid personal family disruption and obviously cost?

[Pierre Daigle]

We are doing a major investigation on the impact of military life on military families. Moving is definitely an important subject. We will be looking at the mobility policy, why people are moving so often, and so on. Right now what we know is that on those 16 bases I visited since I took this function this cost move and integrated relocation policy across the country have a very high dissatisfaction rate and frustration among the families.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

I agree.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I'm sorry, but time has expired. We're going to continue on.

Mr. McKay, you have the last of the seven-minute round.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you both for coming in. We appreciate it.

Just going back on this thing, I've seen a number of case summaries. One person lost $76,000; another person claimed $101,500; another person claimed $53,000, another claimed $53,000; another person claimed $29,000, and another claimed $45,000. These are pretty unhappy people, and it doesn't really much matter that 98% of the people who moved are not making any claim. What matters is the pool. The pool is the people who don't feel they've been properly compensated.

I have a letter from somebody in Bracebridge whose son-in-law was moved from Petawawa to Afghanistan and back to Petawawa, then to Borden, then to Edmonton, and then to Halifax, all within —well they don't actually say the period of time—and then they just got blown away. They are not happy campers.

It is no answer to say there are ex gratia payments if the person making the ex gratia payment can't actually write the cheque. That seems to me to be the issue.

You have limitations on your ex gratia payment, which you've articulated well. Treasury Board has this policy, which the government wishes to argue is a good first step, but it strikes me as no step at all. If the CDS, during the period of time since the June guidelines have been out, hasn't actually written one cheque, then this is not a step; it is the appearance of a step.

You can't sue. The government has presented Bill C-15 as a piece of legislation in which they could have rectified it. This appears to be going in circles for a bunch of people—maybe not a huge bunch of people, but a bunch of people—who have taken significant hits on their family situations. I'm sure you're pretty frustrated at this point.

What's the cheap and cheerful solution here? Do we simply allocate an authority to the CDS and be done with it?

[Pierre Daigle]

If I may, before going there, I'll go back to some of the questions.

I just remembered the last statistics I saw. From 2009 until 2012 there were 111 claims through Treasury Board about home equity assistance which is for people who have lost more than $15,000 on their home, with $15,000 being the maximum they will get.

I would agree that it seems we are turning in circles. The grievance system is not a military justice system. It's a system to help people to get better quality of life, to look after the well-being of the people. This is a leadership responsibility.

When people do not get fully compensated for a situation in which they've been wronged, the system tells them that they can sue the government. We know that court has decided in the past that you cannot sue, because there is no employment contract between the crown and the service member. At the end of the day even if you go to the ex gratia there is a condition attached to it, to fill a gap, and you will not get redress.

Turning to home equity assistance, Treasury Board has said that if there's a depressed market, you will be fully reimbursed on the loss of your house, but at this stage within Canada there has been no declaration of a depressed market. If there is no depressed market, all you will get is 80% of your loss to a maximum of $15,000. This is what some of those numbers are: 111 of them have lost more than $15,000 and some have lost probably $75,000, but because this is home equity assistance and is a policy established by Treasury Board, I would argue that the condition that you cannot fill the gap and give it back will apply.

Having said all this, I'm not a lawyer, but looking at what a chief justice of the Supreme Court and another chief justice mentioned, I believe that giving the Chief of the Defence Staff authority within the National Defence Act should solve this issue. Then once and for all we'll know who the final authority on redress of grievances is.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thus far the minister has not been able to persuade his cabinet colleagues that the CDS should be able to have, to put it in colloquial terms, cheque-writing ability. Given that this legislation doesn't contain any redress to these suggestions by Supreme Court justices and given that the guideline set out by Privy Council in June is an appearance of a step rather than the reality of a step, we're left with a situation in which people are unnecessarily aggravated: “The good news is that we're moving to Moose Jaw; the bad news is that we just lost $100,000.” It's hard to retain a sense of fairness if you can't even sue and the grievance process goes nowhere.

Within your experience what stories, if you will, have affected you the most when people have come to you as the ombudsman and have expected you to fix the situation?

[Pierre Daigle]

Within this particular...?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Within this particular realm of file.

[Pierre Daigle]

I'm not sure.... I'm sorry.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I'm assuming people are coming to you as the ombudsman.

[Pierre Daigle]

Yes.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

And you're powerless.

[Pierre Daigle]

Well, the ombudsman cannot order any change. All we can do is make recommendations. Obviously, when we do make recommendations, we make them being fully accountable to the Minister of National Defence. Our recommendations are based on facts and not allegations. We have to be very credible in what we do.

When I go around the country and tell them what I can do for them, that I can help the system, individual people, individual complaints, but also systemic investigations, I sense that people have a sense that they've been abandoned.

Abandoned to a certain extent, as far as their loyalty and confidence in the system go.

They feel very frustrated, particularly with an issue like this one. The grievance system has been streamlined and improved since 1998 in order to come to two different layers and so on, which is, as Chief Justice Lamer mentioned, contrary to the military justice system, which is more of an adversarial system. Redress of grievance is a cooperative process between chain of command people to help them resolve their issues. Most of the issues are of a human resource nature within the system.

Obviously we will continue; my office is to serve all our constituents. We're there not to take sides but to really advocate for fairness. It is unfair when someone who is in charge of the control administration of the armed forces of this country tells someone, “I agree with what you are saying; you've been wronged, but there is nothing I can do for you.” By saying in the books that the CDS has final and binding authority...I would say he doesn't have final authority.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. Time has expired.

We are going to move to our five-minute round, and leading us off is Mr. Opitz.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome, gentlemen.

Mr. Daigle, welcome.

I heard what you had to say earlier about grievances, especially being sold at the lowest level. I know I've had success with that in my own time. Things have improved a lot over a few decades. I remember they were pretty grim at the beginning, back in the 1970s, and throughout the years they have improved significantly.

Although we are talking about some of the issues we face today, there have been massive improvements over the last 10 or 20 years, in particular to the grievance system and other related parts of that.

I want to follow up on what Mr. Hawn was talking about, just to finish off something.

Sir, can you identify some of the types of grievances that are filed due to relocations? In addition to that, would any of those grievances be solved with the authorities being granted in this bill and with order in council authority? Could you comment on that?

[Pierre Daigle]

Do you mean some of the examples for relocation?