National Defence Committee on May 25th, 2015

[MGen Christine Whitecross]

I like the victim support centric approach that they both have, because fundamentally they're looking at the needs of the victims first and foremost.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

Thank you, and that's time, Mr. Bezan.

Madame Michaud, for five minutes please.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Major-General Whitecross, I would like to ask you a few questions.

Can you give us a few more details on how you chose the people who make up your multidisciplinary team? What are their particular skills? Are some of them from the social services field? Did you ensure that these people be very representative of the population that is most affected by issues of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the Canadian Forces?

[MGen Christine Whitecross]

Mr. Chair, because we wanted to put a team together fairly quickly, we first of all identified those who wanted to be volunteers on the team. Even in so doing, we interviewed every one of them to ensure that they had the competencies that we require to move Madame Deschamps' recommendations forward. I'll give you an example.

We have members of the team who have a better understanding of the performance measurements that we really need to incorporate as we're moving forward. We also have members of the team who are currently dealing with policy issues when it comes to sexual harassment, or harassment at large. They have a background in that. Men and women, military and civilian, all come with different backgrounds. We have members from the medical field. We have members from ADR, alternate dispute resolution. They're actually all multi-faceted. Each one of them brings a capability to the team that we can use today.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you.

About how many women are a part of your committee?

[MGen Christine Whitecross]

We're about 25 members, and almost half are women.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you.

There has been a lot of talk about women victimized by sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the Canadian Forces, and talking about that is important. However, members of the LGBT community are also victims of sexual harassment or misconduct in the Canadian Forces.

Do you think it would be necessary to devise a particular strategy to help the LGBT community, or do you think a general strategy will be sufficient? The question is addressed both to Ms. Deschamps and Major-General Whitecross.

[MGen Christine Whitecross]

Perhaps I can start.

The policy of an environment of dignity and respect extends to you regardless of your gender or sexual orientation. We have made that very clear in every one of our town halls and every one of our discussions. The idea is that regardless of where you come from in the military, you should be treated the same.

I have one other small anecdote. I have heard from the LGBTQ community and many of them have had positive reactions in the military as well.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Ms. Deschamps, did you want to add something on that or do you think the answer is complete?

[Marie Deschamps]

The reply is quite complete, but I would simply add that in our interviews, there were members of the LGBT community, both male and female homosexuals. These people told us some very sad stories about their environment. However, in the context of our meetings, they spoke out freely.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you very much.

Major-General Whitecross, you are in the process of determining how best to assess the success of what is going to be put in place by the Canadian Forces. However, we have very little information on cases that have been settled via a summary process. The sanctions imposed were in fact in connection with other types of offences.

Have you begun to think about ways to compensate for the lack of prior information that may make progress difficult?

[MGen Christine Whitecross]

You are absolutely correct. We do not have comprehensive data on many of the issues. One of our priorities is to identify a database that we can implement, and we've learned some good points from both the Americans and the Australians in that.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

But we must focus on the situation in Canada. It is difficult to have an overall perspective when the statistics on this type of incident, which occurs frequently in the Canadian Forces, are not clear.

Have you thought of a way to obtain conclusive data on the current situation?

[MGen Christine Whitecross]

As Madame Deschamps has identified in her recommendation, there are a number of areas, including ensuring that all of the data resides within the independent centre, and that's one of the things we're looking at. The Americans have a fairly consistent database that we're also looking at.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

That's time, Madame Michaud.

Mr. Chisu, for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much Madam Justice Deschamps and General Whitecross for your great work in addressing an issue in the Canadian Forces that might influence and might affect the operational readiness. That is very important new work and I commend you for it.

As you know, I served for 24 years in the Canadian Forces. There's a front end of the Canadian Forces and a back end. The front end is recruiting. Did you visit any recruiting centres? All the issues start with the recruiting and it is very important that these issues are addressed before we get into problems when the service begins. On the back end, you have people who are not constrained, who are not afraid of the progression in their career and who come forward.

It is very important if you have seen anything in the recruiting centres, because your recommendation number two is to establish a strategy to effect cultural change to eliminate these issues. Can both of you address this?

[Marie Deschamps]

As a matter of fact, I have not visited recruitment centres. I asked myself to what extent recruitment could be improved. However, this discussion was difficult to address not only because at present there did not seem to be a peak, as I heard there was in the period when Canada was very much involved in Afghanistan.... I heard comments about that period and there were criticisms about the way the recruitment was done at the time, but the comments did not seem to be aimed at the present recruitment, and in a way, I had to circumscribe my energy to focus on what goes on on the ground.

I agree that recruitment is a very important element, and good screening is important. I asked Dr. Galbreath at SAPRO to find out whether they would recommend any methods to do this kind of screening, and the answer I got was there is no actual test, no method that is currently used, at least in the United States, to improve recruitment.

I agree with you that it's an important issue, but I did not have the time or the possibility to explore it in more detail.

[MGen Christine Whitecross]

I would just like to add, Mr. Chair, that one of the first areas we went to on our town halls was the recruiting school in Saint-Jean for that very reason, and one of the objectives we have in education and training is education and training that starts from the moment they put on the uniform until the day they take it off.

Thank you.

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

Another issue that I would like to raise is in recommendation seven. You are making a recommendation to simplify the harassment process by directing formal complaints to COs acting as adjudicators in a grievance. A grievance can take a very long time.

The effective way is to deal with these issues as quickly as possible.

[Marie Deschamps]

Currently, there is a process that already takes a lot of time, and then it is followed by the grievance process, so to reduce the amount of procedure, my recommendation is to go directly to the grievance process with a simplified process. We're not talking about the grievance process with pages 1, 2, 3 as in the collective agreement, but to go directly to the CO to act as an adjudicator.

[The Chair, Conservative, Peter Kent]

That's time, Mr. Chisu.

Ms. Murray, please, for five minutes.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I really appreciate the expressions of heartfelt commitment by both of our witnesses to change this culture and bring in a positive culture of trust and confidence. As a woman with a daughter and a granddaughter and a great respect for the Canadian Armed Forces, I share that commitment as well.

The questions I am going to ask are about process, because I think good people cannot always overcome a bad process, so process is important.

To follow up on the discussions that have been happening around measuring and reporting, that structure to measure and report has to be created. Madame Deschamps, are you confident if those are created in-house in National Defence that will be sufficient, or should there be an external independent component to the measuring and reporting and/or an independent component to delivering the reports?

[Marie Deschamps]

First of all, if it's located in National Defence as opposed to the Canadian Armed Forces, to me it would qualify as an independent process. I didn't suggest that it is like in the civilian system or by contractors because there has to be some means of communication. If a perpetrator is to be prosecuted, there has to be some kind of communication between the two.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Okay.

[Marie Deschamps]

It has to be located somewhere as far as possible from the Canadian Armed Forces, but I would not say that giving it to a contractor with allocation of contracts and.... I'm not sure this would be.... But this is a personal opinion at present.