Evidence of meeting #60 for National Defence in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was deschamps.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
—I'll put in another question to give you some time to answer it. Do you believe there should be an absolute right of the victim of a sexual assault—and I'm not talking about harassment here, because that may be a different matter—to have a case pursued in a civilian court without repercussions from the chain of command or to their career?
I know you've said that this exists in France, and in Australia most cases go to a civilian court. You seem to indicate in your report that ultimately the chain of command gets to decide whether you can go to civil court or not. Do you think there should be an absolute right for a victim to go outside of the military without repercussions and have the case dealt with in civil court?
External Review Authority, As an Individual
There are many questions in your question.
First of all, the chain of command does not always get to decide. Presently, when it's the National Investigation Service, these police—
External Review Authority, As an Individual
—they can decide, so not always.
When you say “an absolute right”, there might be a question of discretion. I did not want to go that far. Maybe in the long run it will be found to be advisable, but I found that it might be more prudent for the time being to give the choice, and to request that some explanation or justification be given when the desires of the victim are not respected.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Peter Kent
That is your time, Mr. Harris.
Ms. Gallant, you have five minutes, please.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
General Whitecross, as you're looking at how best to implement these recommendations from the report, can you elaborate on what timeline you're working with for issuing updates to the public, given all the interest in this issue?
Commander, Canadian Armed Forces Strategic Response Team on Sexual Misconduct, Department of National Defence
Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.
I can't provide you with a time. We're still in the “understand” line of effort, so I cannot actually give you a timeline in terms of when certain recommendations will be fully addressed. I can say that we have promised to have quarterly reporting starting this fall both to the Canadian Forces leadership and to government and the media as well.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
How do you intend to measure successful outcomes?
Commander, Canadian Armed Forces Strategic Response Team on Sexual Misconduct, Department of National Defence
That's a great question. Thank you.
Right now, we are trying to learn from the Americans and from the Australians, but probably more particularly from some organizations here in Canada, in regard to how they are measuring success in this area. That's one of our main lines of effort. It's to identify those performance measurements. I don't have those right now. We're working on them and hopefully we'll have something for our first update.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Based on the feedback you've received from the bases and the wings you've visited, what have you heard elsewhere from the Canadian Armed Forces at all levels? How optimistic are you that the meaningful change can be achieved in a timely manner through this action plan you're working on?
Commander, Canadian Armed Forces Strategic Response Team on Sexual Misconduct, Department of National Defence
I have the full commitment of the Canadian Armed Forces leadership and their engagement on this issue. I think there are some fundamental differences between today and, say, the 1998 scenario. One of them is that we have a team that is completely dedicated to this issue, which has never been done before, a team dedicated to sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces and to eliminating it as best we can. The second thing is, as we've just mentioned, the identification of performance measurements, which will not only be identified and measured, but reported on. Again, that hasn't happened.
I think the third part, if I can say it, is that the team is completely dedicated. I am absolutely dedicated and committed to this mission and to seeing effective change for the men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Madame Deschamps, in dealing with this correspondence and the people you've spoken to from the independent centres, and dealing with sexual assault in these other nations, was there ever an issue or a reporting of false allegations in this reporting system?
External Review Authority, As an Individual
Indeed, I have discussed this issue with Dr. Galbreath from SAPRO. He provided me with references to studies where there were numbers indicating that the number of false allegations is not any higher for this kind of problem than it is for other kinds of problems.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
In your discussions with the other nations, did they mention whether or not recruitment of women in the military increased after the changes had been implemented?
External Review Authority, As an Individual
No, I did not have that discussion.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Okay.
You mentioned that you had interviewed approximately 700, or more than 700 people. How much time did you spend with them?
External Review Authority, As an Individual
Initially our sessions were one hour and a half, but we became a little more experienced and we were able to get to the topic more quickly and we reduced it to one hour to be able to see more people. Sometimes it lasted less than one hour because the person didn't have the appropriate experience, and these shorter sessions were with professionals. When we realized that they were not the right person, we did not spend too much time with them, but the average time from our third visit, I would say, was an hour.
Conservative
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
It's been said that nobody who signs up for the Canadian Armed Forces to stand on guard for our great nation signed up to be subjected to sexual misconduct.
Madame Deschamps, on the interviews that you conducted, you said you talked to veterans, you talked to serving members, you talked to leadership, and you talked to civilians as well. I'm wondering if you found that the ones who were no longer enlisted were freer to talk and provided more details than those who were still serving.
External Review Authority, As an Individual
Obviously, those who were no longer within the military contacted me because they had something to say. Sometimes they had positive experiences to convey and sometimes it was much less positive, but those were people who wanted to speak, so there was no question about their feeling free to speak. For the others, at times during the interviews we had to use kinds of techniques to put them at ease and to comfort them that this would be confidential. We asked people, as I mentioned, to use pseudonyms. I was accompanied by a lawyer who had particular experience with victims. He had done pro bono for years to support victims, so he was very good at making sure that the stories came out, and we usually succeeded.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
General Whitecross, in your presentation you made the comment that trying to deal with the issue and raising awareness was similar to what we've gone through with mental health within the Canadian Armed Forces and how we changed the stigma, how we shifted the culture.
During this parliamentary session this committee spent quite a bit of time studying the care of our ill and injured within the Canadian Armed Forces. One thing that we came across is that we saw change happening for sure at the top end of management within the Canadian Armed Forces, but there were still some problems sometimes with middle management and even among the ranks themselves in how we deal with someone who was suffering from mental health issues.
Do you feel that's going to be a barrier in how we view awareness, education, and training with members of the Canadian Armed Forces as we move forward on sexual misconduct?
Commander, Canadian Armed Forces Strategic Response Team on Sexual Misconduct, Department of National Defence
The first phase of our approach right now is obviously the town halls, because we have had some success, as you alluded to, in the past—and it's certainly not a similar situation; I'd like to say that first off—with PTSD and OSI, where there was a stigma, there was being afraid to speak to your chain of command, being afraid to speak to your buddies. On that thing, a lot of it, we managed to effect some change based on grassroots and a leadership down, so a bottom-up and top-down approach, to start the discussion to make sure that people are aware that these exist and that we need to be able to be free and open about the discussion. This is one of the ways we are hoping to effect change on this sexualized culture that Madame Deschamps reports.
I would just like to add that there are a number of other areas that we need to also address. One of them is that as we're trying to reinstate trust and confidence in those chains of command where it does not exist, we ensure that people are aware of the policies that they must address. Granted, we're looking at all those policies to see where they need to change, but we need to have a similar address of policies regardless of where they are in the Canadian Armed Forces. That includes the procedures that the chain of command need to deal with. In the discussions, in the identifying of a comprehensive approach in terms of an independent centre, we're also looking at a number of other areas where we're trying to instill confidence back into the chain of command where it's required.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
Major-General Whitecross, you've been to the United States. You've been to Australia. You looked at SAPRO and SeMPRO. One thing that the Canadian Armed Forces has always done, and most militaries do, is adopt best practices. What is your one take-away from both of those organizations? What do you feel they were doing that really stuck in your mind that has applicability here in Canada?