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.
11:35 a.m.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
The other question here is about retention. One thing I've heard from multiple women who have left the armed forces is that part of their challenge with retention was that they were not given opportunities to be promoted, even though they felt that they were working just as hard as the men, if not harder, in some cases. I'm curious about the retention aspect.
Diversity is broad. If you have any specifics on any of those different communities, I think it's important to have it on the record.
11:35 a.m.
Professor, Canadian Forces College, As an Individual
Certainly there are issues of geographic mobility. The requirements for individuals to move from one location to another can have different impacts on men and women serving in the military. I think that is an issue, and I think it's one that needs to be considered.
The challenge here is that those who prefer to have geographic stability are not getting the breadth of experience needed to prepare them for future ranks and roles. These are internal challenges that people have, and on some occasions it leads to individuals self-selecting out of career advancement and career promotion.
There are also other issues that we recognize. For some individuals, and certainly for some communities, there's a strong desire to be closely connected to their community, and when military service requires them to move long distances away, it becomes a challenge for them. It's part of what I would suggest is the reason the reserves are being much more successful than the regular forces with many of the representatives you're talking about, because the geographic stability issue does not become an impediment for them.
11:35 a.m.
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
A lot of times for promotion you also need to have ticks in the box. In certain occupations, without a deployment overseas it's very hard to go beyond, say, the rank of major. The other factor is specific training, specific professional military qualifications that one might need.
As long as the system is set up so that you need those ticks in the box and it's not easy for every female officer or female NCM to get those ticks in the box, it is going to be more difficult for them to be promoted by a promotion board when it's all about points at the end of the day.
Is the system perfect? Probably not, but if you have no deployments, if you don't have the ticks in the box for your PME, your professional military education and other training, it's going to be very hard for you as a female to be moved upward, in addition to the geographic issues that Dr. Okros talked about.
As a way to offset that, there are some professional military education qualifications that can be obtained through distance learning. That's one way, so that a woman who has young children doesn't have to spend, say, one year at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto to complete a qualification in order to go from major to lieutenant-colonel.
Those kinds of things need to be looked at: What are the criteria for promotion, and do they need to stay like that?
11:40 a.m.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Yes, and it's important that we always look at ways that doors are closed to people and look at it differently.
I have only a few seconds left, but there's another thing that I have a quick question about. I've heard from indigenous communities in more remote northern communities that they're seeing less and less outreach and recruitment happening in those communities. Some of the communities are actually asking for it. I'm just curious as to whether you could speak to what's changing.
11:40 a.m.
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
I'll touch briefly on it, and then I'll leave it to Dr. Okros.
Around 2013, there was a strategic review on defence. There was a lot of workforce adjustment as well. To be fair to them, there have been fewer positions and fewer resources for recruiting. They just have fewer people and fewer resources.
In addition, again I don't mean to compare us always to the United States, but their advertising is much more aggressive. Their recruiters are much more aggressive than ours. There are a lot of lessons that we could learn about how they are able to recruit so many African-Americans, for example, and we're not.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
I'm going to have to leave it there for time, but there will be additional questions at the end, and we could maybe continue on that item.
I yield the floor to MP Gerretsen.
October 18th, 2018 / 11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Thank you very much, Chair; and thank you to the two of you for coming to speak to the committee today. We have a real opportunity here to make recommendations to the government in relation to diversity, and I want you to know that the comments you make today will be taken with that in mind.
Ms. Scoppio, when I served on Kingston City Council, I served with an individual who was in the first class when females graduated from RMC. She was one of five females in that first year. We used to talk quite a bit about it, and I would ask her, “What was it like? It must have been so challenging.” The interesting thing is that her response always was, “Actually, it wasn't, because they were watching over us so closely because they were worried.” Her response was, “I would actually be more worried about people who came along years later, because the scrutiny wasn't there.” I wonder if you can provide your thoughts on that.
11:40 a.m.
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
It would only be anecdotal.
11:40 a.m.
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
I'm not going to go into details, but based on people I have talked to who did come after her, she was right.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I know RMC is currently pursuing an aggressive policy or strategy towards increasing recruitment of females into RMC. The last time I spoke with the principal of RMC was probably about a year ago, and they were talking about where they wanted the percentages to be. Do you have any information that you can provide the committee on that?
11:40 a.m.
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
That was a reason for our study. They observed over the last 10 years, up until 2016, that there was a decrease in female recruiting. What was interesting was that this decrease could not be explained by the number of applicants. For all intents and purposes, there were just fewer women being recruited.
As the numbers were trending downwards, the study was requested. It's sponsored by the director general of military personnel research and analysis, and we are in our third year. The first report is available to you, should you wish to look at it, and then you can actually see the statistics we crunched, based on data from the registrar's office of both military colleges.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Do you know what the current enrolment of women at RMC represents as a percentage?
11:45 a.m.
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
They are now at about 22% or 23%, so it has definitely gone up. The approach they've used in the last couple of years was what they called a “women first” approach. If you have a male candidate who has a 90% average coming out of high school and a female candidate who has, say, an 85% average, all other things being equal, that female might get an offer before the male.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Roughly 77% or 78% are men, yet in our regular forces 85% are men, and more important or perhaps significant to mention is that 98% of the senior leadership roles are filled by men. Do you see a discrepancy there? Are we seeing women come through RMC, but then more women proportionate to men are choosing not to continue after they have fulfilled their commitment?
11:45 a.m.
Professor, Dean of Continuing Studies, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
I wouldn't have the statistics. Once they're in the college, their academic success is higher than men's, so there is no issue with their being successful academically.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Students or cadets through RMC need to fulfill five years afterwards to have their tuition paid for. Do we have any exit surveys as to what happens after that five years? Are more women proportionately leaving than men? Do we know that?
11:45 a.m.
Professor, Canadian Forces College, As an Individual
The data would suggest that the decisions come at the pension point, and at either 20 years, or now 25 years, there is a higher exit of women at that point when they are eligible to draw a pension. Individuals serve for a period of time, and that, of course, becomes a strong motivator to retain in service, but at that point individuals are making choices about what they want to do.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Dr. Okros, how do you feel about recruitment targets as a policy to encourage diversity? Do you think putting actual numbers, such saying we need to have 30% women in RMC or in the military by such-and-such a date, is an appropriate approach? It seems to be the way we have been doing it, setting targets so that we can quantify it down the road, but is that the best way to be doing it?
11:45 a.m.
Professor, Canadian Forces College, As an Individual
There is a value to setting goals and objectives. It clearly signals the priorities that the Canadian Armed Forces has made. It does have consequences internally.
11:45 a.m.
Professor, Canadian Forces College, As an Individual
One of the levels at which it has consequences is challenging the status quo, as Dr. Scoppio mentioned, the concept of first among equals. When you have individuals who are equally qualified, they have equal chances of success in the future. These kinds of goals cause people to question who, then, of those equally qualified is getting the chance, who is given the opportunity.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
I think what you're saying is you want to see as many people as possible apply from as many diverse backgrounds as possible—gender, race, whatever it might be—and then pick the best people from that pool.