Evidence of meeting #112 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you, Chair.
This is my first time here on the defence committee. I'm really happy to be here and to know about the study.
It's interesting. We spoke today about recruitment in the colleges of diverse individuals, including women, visible minorities, and LGBTQ2 and indigenous people, hiring and then moving into the armed forces and up and beyond. Is there currently some kind of training or mandatory course that is required within the colleges to provide the sensitivity training piece that individuals can carry from the college all the way through their careers?
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
If this is your question, there's no single diversity sensitivity training course that all cadets have to take to graduate.
Is diversity part of some of the topics that are touched on in different courses, such as in our military leadership and psychology courses? Yes, these are topics that are touched upon.
In addition, everybody in the public service and in the military has to complete a GBA+ course online. It's a good introduction to issues of gender.
To answer your question, there is no single course, which is what I would like, but these topics are touched upon in different parts of their program.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Unconscious bias is something you can't really train out of somebody. It has a lot to do with interaction with diversity and getting to know and understand people to get over those biases.
For me it's kind of a Catch-22. How do you get more people to stay within this field and develop that culture of acceptance and inclusion without having those people accepted and included in the first place? It's very interesting.
You spoke about the training and education piece of it. In your opinion, how should that education occur?
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
It's as you just mentioned. It shouldn't be just for the cadets because, as I said, that's only 25% of the officer corps. The largest population in the forces is actually the non-commissioned members, at 75%. There should be something that is not just a canned PowerPoint for an hour. It should go across the forces and be a bit more encompassing, with all the components you just mentioned.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
You said something about professions or areas that are more female-friendly in terms of opportunities. What are those, and why are some more female-friendly than others?
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
A lot of it comes back to societal values. The military is just a microcosm of society. In our society a lot of women are gravitating towards nursing. One of my daughters is in a nursing program. There are 90-some students in the program, of whom four are males, so there you have it.
We're not taking people out of space. We're taking them from Canadian society, and these are the kinds of occupations that a lot of young women enjoy. However, if we take nursing as an example, it's a very small proportion of our SIP—our strategic intake plan.
Professor, Canadian Forces College, As an Individual
I have a comment that goes back to the discussion with regard to education and programs. The other important component is practical experience.
The Peace Support Training Centre has programs for those who deploy. They get exposure to perspectives and views outside of the Canadian norm. Those tend to be the individuals who return and start looking internally within the military and asking questions.
It comes through experience as well. Given the range of roles and responsibilities that CAF has been assigned and the objectives under SSE, there are going to be more opportunities for that. That is causing people to start changing their world views and their perspectives.
It goes back to the objective of the diversity strategy, which is the realization that there may be somebody on a team who can share some different views or perspectives that can make the entire team stronger. It's self-education and self-awareness as much as it is formal programs.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
One of the things I've heard really clearly from both of you during this presentation is that when we look at recruiting, we need to tell these communities that this is a safe place to be. That isn't always the message they're getting.
I also heard you talk a lot about more proactive recruitment happening in other countries, where people were actively recruiting these groups.
Could you talk a bit about the communication strategy? What is the impact of what we have today and where do we need to go if we're actually going to do the work we need to do and make our Canadian Armed Forces more reflective of the diversity of Canada?
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
As I said, we surveyed officer cadets in the colleges and also applicants to the ROTP, the regular officer training plan.
In the first group, some of the comments we heard were that advertising shouldn't be kinetic, because that is not necessarily appealing to a lot of groups. Looking at males and females, for example, on reasons for joining, we saw that yes, some reasons were similar, but surprisingly, more females joined because of the travel, which kind of goes against the whole issue of geographic mobility once you have a family.
As a mother of two young women, I'm going to tell you that travelling is big for them. Look at what is attractive to these diverse groups and how we can advertise so it's targeting what they are looking for in a career and package that so it's appealing to them. It's not necessarily somebody in combat; that might appeal to some youth, but not all.
Professor, Canadian Forces College, As an Individual
The other comment I would make is that when we compare Canada to other countries, it's important to recognize that different militaries put their emphasis, resources, time and effort into different facets of eventually generating the effective team that deploys. Everybody has that as the objective.
I've served with colleagues in the U.S. Marine Corps. I have a lot of respect for them. They put a lot of effort into recruiting because they have a very high turnover. They don't put as much effort into preparing their individuals subsequent to that, in terms of their entry-level professional development. The CAF tends to put more emphasis on making sure that when troops actually deploy, they're fully effective. Canada has a great reputation for that, but that comes with emphasis on where resources, time, effort and money get spent.
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
May I add one thing, Mr. Chairman?
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
As I said, a lot of youth look for information on the website, and right now it's not working very well. There's a multi-pronged approach. One of the members of the committee was mentioning the ability of recruiters to speak about the different opportunities out there. If there is no officer from RMC talking to potential recruits about RMC, they don't get that interaction.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Thank you.
We do have committee business for the last 15 minutes, but we still have time available. Members have indicated they want to continue with their questions on this very important topic, so I'll go for three minutes per question for members.
I'll start with MP Gallant. The floor is yours.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Professor Scoppio, in your piece looking at recruiting and selection for the Canadian military college through the lens of gender-based analysis plus, you note that the majority of women in the Canadian Armed Forces are clustered into six occupations. In my discussions with female members of our armed forces, most have said that they joined the Canadian Armed Forces for the same reasons men do, yet they're placed in support or traditionally female positions. Why is this the case?
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
Right now, the way the system works is that you select three preferences of occupation. The majority of people who were recruited in the military colleges—again, our study focused on the military colleges' recruiting—were placed in their first choice of occupation. However, we also found that of the minority of folks who did not get their first choice, there were more women than men.
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
Why that happened is a million-dollar question.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Could this trend of placing female recruits in support-operation positions be having a negative effect on female recruitment—women want to join the Canadian Armed Forces, but not knowing they would be placed in a support role? They join, but they don't realize they're just going to be in a support role.
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
I agree.
One of the questions we asked was about what was more important, the degree or the career, the occupation. By and large, it's the occupation.
Conservative
Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON
Is the current diversity policy at DND set up to reverse this trend of clustering women in support occupations, or are we just adding to the current issues?