National Defence Committee on March 27th, 2013

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

What are your goals, what do you want to accomplish when you take command of the branch?

[Col John Fletcher]

We have a chaplain strategy that was signed off, approved by Armed Forces Council in 2008, and the follow-on campaign plan was approved in 2010. Our goal is laid out to prosecute that plan moving forward. It's about ensuring that we have an operationally effective chaplaincy, a learning chaplaincy, and a calling of choice.

There are about 22 different projects in that campaign plan. As parting gifts, we brought each of you a copy of our road map for how we want to continue to make our chaplaincy one that is noted for excellence in multi-faith work and in operational effectiveness.

As chaplain general, it will be my intent to continue to resource and prosecute that plan to make a strong chaplaincy for our Canadian Forces.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. The time is up.

Mr. McKay.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I learned something from Mr. Opitz' question. I thought that godlessness and soullessness were limited to the legal profession.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You have company now.

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

It's frequently said, or at least it used to be said, that there are no atheists in foxholes, yet our society is coming to have a far greater percentage of non-believers or of those simply not interested in matters religious.

I'll ask this question in a provocative way in a sense. Is there a percentage of our soldiers who see you as a chaplain, a religious person, as a barrier as opposed to assistance?

[Col John Fletcher]

I would think that there probably is a percentage of folks who might see that as a barrier.

Anecdotally, when I was a seagoing chaplain there was a tradition in the Canadian navy and in the Royal Navy where chaplains didn't wear rank at sea because it was seen that the rank itself might become a barrier for the sailors to seek the chaplain out as somebody who could be of support to them. I never felt any concern about taking the rank down because in our professional military there is a great rapport and working relationship among all ranks. There is a team approach.

There are obviously differences in responsibility, and job, and so forth, but I never saw the rank as the barrier. I saw the cross that I wore and the collar that I wore.... Because, you're right, there are a good number of folks in our culture and society for whom religious leaders, people who have a leadership role within organized religion, are seen somehow as distant or out of touch or even worse. There might be pain or injury that was caused in an individual's life by organized religion, judgment felt, and so forth.

Trying to overcome those barriers is an important part of what every chaplain needs to do when they're assigned to a unit, and it really does start by meeting them on their turf, journeying with them, getting to know them, and developing a relationship. I can honestly say that while not every soldier, sailor, airman, or airwoman in the forces.... In fact, the vast majority of them do not go to church or synagogue or mosque on any kind of regular basis, but they know who their padre is. They know how their padre can be a source of help to them, an encouragement to them, and the issues that they might identify they would never identify as being religious issues. They might not even use the term “spiritual issues”, but there is a spiritual dimension to those concerns.

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

I noticed the warmth with which Mr. Opitz greeted you. It is true that everybody knows the padre even if they think he's from some wacko religious place.

In some respects, you transcend rank, whether it's taking off the rank and mixing with sailors on a ship, which is probably the most obvious way, but I would imagine, though I don't know, that from time to time that creates its own level of difficulties. You see the chain of command ordering so-and-so to do whatever so-and-so is supposed to do and you know the story behind so-and-so. How do you handle that? To me, that seems a unique challenge of a military chaplain.

[Col John Fletcher]

Command is a lonely place. The CO of a unit is often the loneliest person in the unit because they're the one at the top of that pyramid making the decisions. They have a strong team of advisers around them and usually a senior NCM who is very close in that command team relationship, but it can be a lonely place.

A chaplain needs to figure out a way to establish a relationship with the commander as well as with the lowest rank. One of the difficult things that new chaplains in a unit sometimes fall into the trap of doing is believing that the job is somehow to save the poor soldier from the evil chain of command, and they will try to convince us that's our role, but what you learn as you begin to work with the leadership at every level, from the master corporal right on up to the colonel, is that they actually do care about the well-being of those they are leading and you're one of the resources who helps them to do that even more effectively because you become a barometer, in some senses, for how the unit is doing. You can become a trusted confidante of people at different rank levels, but it takes work and it takes time, and everyone will stumble and fall once or twice.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. Time has expired.

Mr. Chisu, I'll give you a chance to defend yourself from Mr. Opitz.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you very much.

I will not use the same kind of qualification. As an infantry officer, he's doing his job very well. We are opening the way for him to be able to fight.

Thank you very much, Padre, for coming to our committee. I appreciate it.

First of all, I would like to commend you on the work you are doing in the forces. From my experience in setting up Meaford base, I saw that for a lot of young soldiers, if they had a problem they went first to the padre. That is a very important thing. Before going to anybody else, they went with their problems, with their issues, to the padre. So I think the padre has a very important role in serving the men and women in uniform.

With respect to your providing spiritual and multi-faith religious support to Canadian Forces personnel and their families, what would you say are the main needs of forces personnel and their families? I am putting this in two contexts. First, on the base, young military members go through the training phase, and they can have familial problems, etc., on the base. As well, what are the problems they can face when they are deployed overseas?

I note that especially Kandahar, in Afghanistan, was giving a specific new dimension to the conflict and also to your role in terms of the loss of soldiers' lives. The soldiers were losing their buddies, the families were losing people, and so on.

Here I just want to commend somebody from your branch, someone I know very well, and that's Captain Phil Ralph. He is one of the founders of Wounded Warriors. I need to mention this, because he didn't stop only at one side in providing counselling; he went a step forward in providing assistance after injuries, taking care of the wounded warriors.

[Col John Fletcher]

Thank you very much.

One of the things I think we need most, in order to tackle the challenges that are before us as a military community, is a sense of community. It's hard to achieve that. It's harder today, perhaps, than when we had bases where everybody was posted. There were some downsides to that, too. You had no privacy, in a sense.

I think the biggest risk, whether you're a soldier who's deployed or a family member on the home front, is isolation, isolating yourself from resources that are there to support you. I think it needs to be the full suite—the family, other members of the unit, the family resource centre, faith communities, etc. I think whatever problem we're facing becomes less daunting when we engage with others to tackle it together.

How do you build community when people are naturally separating themselves from one another and living in a more isolated and perhaps more virtual context? Maybe we need to focus on how to leverage virtual technology to bind people together even more powerfully than we've done in the past.

Community—togetherness—is the most essential element, I believe, to tackling the challenges that the military will face moving forward.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Do chaplains have a mandate to assist family members who are suffering mostly from mental illness and so on? Perhaps you can elaborate on that.

[Col John Fletcher]

Yes, we do. We're the only military occupation that actually has a mandated role to provide services to family members. There are some unique differences with families who are posted to Europe or outside of the country, where other occupations also have a mandate to provide services, but universally it is a dimension of the chaplain's role to provide services to family members.

It's a big percentage of the effort that we bring, both in terms of the rear party work during a deployment and in terms of our chapel communities, participating in supporting programs of the family resource centres, etc. It's an important part of what we do, and a part of our calling that we value and believe is part of strengthening the Canadian Forces as a whole.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. Time has expired.

Ms. Moore, you're up.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I would like to begin with a question about recruitment. We know that it's generally very difficult to recruit priests, even in the civilian world. They are aging. We had to resort to immigration in my riding. Oddly enough, the Congo helped us out by sending us priests for a three-year period.

How is recruitment done? Generally, it's difficult to recruit new blood in that profession.

Could you tell us more specifically about the role women play in the Canadian Forces chaplaincy? In some religious faiths, women cannot play the same role as men. What specific role do they play? Are they limited? How are they perceived in those services?

[Col John Fletcher]

Thank you very much.

Recruitment remains one of our biggest challenges. It's not necessarily a matter of available candidates in Canada; it's a matter of age.

We are finding that in most of the seminaries, for example, across Canada, the average age of theological students is much higher today than it was two decades ago. So having folks who would be available and able to come and have a career as a military chaplain is a challenge.

There are certainly difficulties when it comes to finding Roman Catholic priests. You're absolutely right: we have a real shortage everywhere in Canada. One of the things our chaplaincy has done to address that is to employ Roman Catholic pastoral associates. Padre Gauthier who is with us here today is now ordained as a deacon. He started as a pastoral associate and is now a deacon. We employ lay chaplains in the Roman Catholic chaplaincy, and a good number of our lay chaplains in the Roman Catholic chaplaincy are women.

We have women chaplains from many different denominations, and we even had a female rabbi serving with us for a period of time. She's reached retirement age and is no longer in the service. There are no limitations to their employment. Our female chaplains can serve in any unit, in any place, and at any rank level, just as the other chaplains.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Are their limitations only those imposed by their religion?

[Col John Fletcher]

That's correct. Certainly every one of our chaplains belongs to a faith group and we are accountable to that faith group for our mandate and our licence to exercise ministry. So while a female chaplain from the Roman Catholic church can exercise the military role of a chaplain in providing care and counsel, and in deploying and providing spiritual support to military members, the church does not permit a female member of the Roman Catholic church to be ordained or to exercise the sacraments of the church. So any limitation that would be imposed upon them by virtue of their gender is imposed by the limitations of their faith community and not by the chaplaincy.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

If my understanding is correct, chaplains are supposed to follow the rules imposed by the Canadian Forces and those imposed by their faith.

[Col John Fletcher]

That's correct. It's written somewhere in a holy book that you can't serve two masters, but every one of our chaplains needs to. They belong to a religious tradition that has licensed them to serve in this capacity, and they remain accountable to that religious authority. But they also belong in the military. The vast majority of the work that chaplains do can be done by any chaplain. It's about accompaniment and care and counsel.

We do perform sacramental ministries and those sorts of things for the families who wish to have those, but the lion's share, the largest part of what the role of a chaplain is, can be done by any one of our chaplains.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Before I give the last question to Mr. Alexander, I want to ask one question myself.

Can you talk a little, Colonel, about the grief counselling and the bereavement services offered by the chaplains in theatre and also back in the units? Often parts of units are deployed. If a fatality has occurred, what happens with the members of that unit in theatre and in offering chaplaincy services, and also what happens back home for the families but also for all the other members in the unit?

[Col John Fletcher]

Certainly in theatre a multidisciplinary care team is deployed. In addition to chaplain counsel there would be other resources as well, mental health nurses, etc. We do have resources in theatre that can be brought to bear to address whatever counselling needs might present themselves for the peers, for soldiers who have lost their mates.

On the home front, clearly the chaplain assigned to a family at the time will remain with that family and journey with them for weeks and maybe even months and get them to a point where we can bridge that care maybe to a civilian parish and other long-term counselling services that may be available in their community or through the Family Resource Centre.

One of the initiatives the Canadian Forces have adopted is something called Shoulder to Shoulder, which is about our enduring commitment to provide ongoing grief counselling to the families of our fallen. That involves the director of quality of life, and the military family services program. There is a 1-800 number. Essentially we want to ensure that none of those families is left without someone to call and to care and to respond to their need. You'll never take away the pain from that loss, but ideally you get them to a point where they can bear that pain with the support that's around them, and move forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Alexander, the last question is for you.