National Defence Committee on Sept. 25th, 2018

[MGen Stephen M. Cadden]

When we're looking to deploy a soldier, we've gone past regular and reserve force. We're deploying a properly trained soldier. Personally, I've gone to six different families to notify them of a soldier's death overseas. Our leadership is absolutely committed to giving training to prevent deaths. So we are past that. We are looking at skill sets.

Our reserve forces possess skill sets that our regular force does not, and we absolutely seek them out. As an example, when we were looking at the Guatemala mission, we were plumbing our reserve forces extensively for Spanish speakers to be able to participate when we were preparing to go. They're absolutely on the radar.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Brilliant. Thank you very much.

I want to zoom in just for a moment on what you term “civilian-military co-operation”. Is it fair to take that further and to talk about coordination and civilian-military planning? Co-operation seems to be “we're each doing our own thing and we don't want to conflict”. Coordination and planning would be joint civilian-military planning in the form of training modules or on-the-ground tactical operations.

[MGen Stephen M. Cadden]

Yes, sir, I can't say I have a huge experience of having seen effective, coordinated planning occurring between civilian and military populations. It happens often at a level above me, but when we get onto the ground the execution still is lacking, so the more we can teach that and instill it, the better off we'd be.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

For the purposes of this committee, it may well be an area that we would want to look at in the form of recommendations or even asking more questions about it.

[MGen Stephen M. Cadden]

An emphasis on recognizing that there are many tools needed to bring peace and stability to a country, not just civilian, not just military, not just police...the more people recognize that the better off we will be.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Is the civilian intersection limited to police work and security work, or does it go into areas like economics, for example? One of the drivers of conflict is the economic dependence on the perpetuation of conflict. Businesses may be disadvantaged in a conflict zone depending on the ethnicity of the business owner. She or he may lose a licence because the ruling party or rebel force is now in command. Are you extending your thinking into those areas of civilian life or are you confining them to security aspects?

[MGen Stephen M. Cadden]

I would say we're well past that, sir. Our first reach out is often to the non-governmental organizations that are first on the ground, that have often been there for decades before we've come in, that know the population, that know the flows and rhythms, and they allow us to get past our own cultural biases that this is wrong and shouldn't be done, that it must be done our way. We're absolutely expanding beyond police and military.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Excellent. Thank you for that.

I want to give the remaining minute to you to talk about women and peace and security, your perceptions of how this has changed and what we can do to do better in terms of encouraging women to join not only the Canadian Forces but actually peace operations and peace support operations.

[MGen Stephen M. Cadden]

We have recognized, sir, the diversity and the strength of diversity in the military. There are parts of the world where a female soldier will just have a different level of credibility than a male soldier will, and vice-versa. We need to have a really diverse and talented team so we can pick and choose the best people for a given theatre of operation. If it's appropriate, we might want to have a mission that's 80% women because that will be more effective on the ground.

What we're really trying to do is build that skill set and that critical mass within the military so that we're not just sending the person who is trained for it, but we're sending the best qualified person to go in.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

We're going to go to five-minute questions.

MP Dzerowicz.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Davenport, Lib.]

Thank you to both of you for being here today; and thank you, Major-General, for your excellent presentation.

I'm actually going to begin where Mr. Spengemann left off.

We have a feminist foreign policy now that's been put in place. How has that impacted the type of training that's under way right now, or has nothing changed?

[MGen Stephen M. Cadden]

I would say, Madam, that it's put an impetus on us to increase our recruiting drives. We've been trying for well over a decade to increase the number of female recruits into the Canadian Armed Forces. We're trying to make sure that we're bringing in as many...because we recognize the value of diversity. However, we're not able to cash in on it yet because we don't have the critical mass and the numbers where we are.

In terms of what Colonel Allain and I do, we're really focused on making sure that all soldiers, male or female, are able to meet the standards required and are trained to the point that they cannot just survive, but thrive and accomplish the mission. We've had great success in ensuring that we have our training standard, which brings everyone up to where they need to be, as opposed to adjusting standards to meet different targets. I think we've embodied it and we've found great ways to exploit it. I believe the government's policy has just put an emphasis on us to redouble our efforts and increase our recruiting for a critical mass of females.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you.

In your presentation you mentioned that at this point, the Peace Support Training Centre is providing the first two rotations of gender awareness advisers to the commander of Task Force Mali.

Could you elaborate on that?

[MGen Stephen M. Cadden]

A few years ago we put in place a program called gender-based awareness plus. It strove to allow commanders and staff to realize that there are different segments of the populations we'll be operating within, and we need to recognize they will all have a different perception of what's going on. If we're in a given country, just addressing issues that deal with a predominantly male hierarchical structure will ignore large portions of the population that we need to support us for our mission to succeed.

We want to understand, for example, if we have a significant population of displaced personnel, single mothers or people whose male family members have been killed in 10 years of fighting, how they will perceive our actions and our plans as we come into a different area. Do we need to tailor the soldiers they'll interact with on the ground? Do we need to set up specific programs, shelters, assistance for these elements of the population to convince the local population that we're here to help them entirely and not to reinforce an existing structure?

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you.

There also have been cases of sexual harassment on various different missions.

What part of the training helps to make sure we talk about safety and how to be, whether it's within Canada or on our missions abroad?

[MGen Stephen M. Cadden]

Within the military we have a professional military ethos. We have a written code of ethics. We incorporate into all of our training...and most recently, have implemented Operation Honour, which has a focus on ensuring that every member of the military treats others with respect and dignity, appropriately.

We've extended that concept into vignettes, into everyday interactions, so that people understand that it's not just about treating your peers with respect and dignity. It's about everyone you interact with. We've encapsulated the responsibility to report infractions. People can call out anyone regardless of rank, structure or position to denounce inappropriate action. I think we've shown we're willing to take appropriate disciplinary action once we've fully investigated and move forward.

I view this as the professional training of our army, our navy, and our air force by extension, that we incorporate into operations. We don't have specific peace support training modules on inappropriate sexual behaviour or harassment. We teach that as part of what our soldiers need to do, need to live and model every day, and we ensure they enforce it when they deploy.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

I have about 45 seconds left.

It sounds as though we're fairly best in class in terms of our training. What's the process that ensures that we're constantly revising to make sure each of these modules continue to be best in class?

[MGen Stephen M. Cadden]

That is a result of our lessons learned process. With every mission coming back, we have somebody assigned to go out to talk to people. What did we do well? What did we not do well? How can we improve our training?

We have constant feedback into our cycle to ensure that if somebody went over not as well prepared as they would have liked, we ask what we need to do. That's my responsibility, to make sure we incorporate that into the training system for the next rotation.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

MP Martel.

[Richard Martel, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, CPC]

Good morning. I'm very happy to have you here today.

Could our troops be caught in crossfire when they do a medical evacuation?

[MGen Stephen M. Cadden]

I would say that that is a strong possibility.

[Richard Martel]

Are the soldiers' training adequate to deal with such an event?

[MGen Stephen M. Cadden]

Those who pilot helicopters during an evacuation are members of the Air Force.

Who will man those helicopters? We have a fully trained medical staff from our medical system to perform the medical operations. Having seen the first rotation go through, I can say we have a group of fully trained, highly lethal soldiers who are tactically proficient and able to protect the crews and anybody who might come into them.

We also have an element of armed support provided by escort helicopters. I believe we're at a point where we can overmatch any sort of firepower that is brought to bear on our troops.

We've taken that very seriously, sir, and accounted for the protection of soldiers we've deployed.