National Defence Committee on Jan. 31st, 2019

[Sandra Perron]

I do.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

So you'll know that, of the seven Paw Patrol characters, only one is a female. The rest are male puppies. At such a very young age, there is already this idea that these fields are male-dominated. But can we blame the people who make these cartoons, or are we already contributing to a norm that has existed and that parents might support? Where does that line come?

[Sandra Perron]

I'm not sure about the word “blame”, but I think it's rampant in society. It's where we are right now. Things like the #MeToo movement are rapidly giving us awareness of what's going on.

It's the responsibility of us all, not just the military or the political side of things. It's everybody's responsibility to open their eyes and see the gender stereotyping and to talk to their kids about it, to buy books that are more gender-neutral or have female heroes.

I got a brochure about a week ago from CAA, and it's all pictures of men saving the lives of women who are stuck on the side of the road and can't change a tire. It's offensive to me, but most people would look at it and not think twice. I think we just need awareness about those things.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

It starts with organizations such as the CAA in making sure that they're taking the right approach to that.

Earlier, in a reply to a question, you said, “You cannot order soldiers to respect”. I really liked that comment, because I totally agree with you. You then went on to use an anecdotal example of a role that a woman might play in Afghanistan that's different from that of a man, in order to highlight the skills that the woman has. Can you give us an example of what kind of role that would be?

[Sandra Perron]

Don't get me wrong. Women are fierce warriors, and they can do the role of soldiering and commanding troops. In a country where women have been abused and oppressed and will not talk to men or will not be in a room with men, we can use women platoon commanders to address them, to have conversations with them to build that trust, and to go into villages, as they did in Haiti. They are an intelligence-gathering force that we can use.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

On that line, the last time we had a meeting on this, we had a witness come forward—as the chair said, it was back in the fall, so I can't remember which witness it was—who said not to paint women as though their strength is going to be the maternal instinct that they can have, because all you're doing is putting them in a totally different category and you're continuing to enforce that. How much of that statement do you agree with, and how does that impact what you're saying right now?

[Sandra Perron]

This is why I said not to underestimate the power of women to be fierce warriors. We have to create situations where they get to do both, and not just always be the ones we go to when we want them to access a village of abused women. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that every soldier has a specific gift to the unit. We don't want them all to be Rambos. We need the sprinter, and the person who can carry a lot of weight, and the one who speaks a different language or the local language, and the one who navigates really well. We need all these skills in a platoon. Women have certain skills that we can tap into.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I think what you mean is that women have the ability for all the skills, as do men, because women can be Rambos, too.

[Sandra Perron]

Oh, yes.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Okay. That's all I have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I'm going to have to hold you there, Rambo.

The last formal question will be a three-minute question going to MP Blaney, and then I have taken note of a couple of people who wanted some more time. If you want some, just flag me or the clerk and we'll get you on a list.

MP Blaney.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much, Chair.

I am really captivated by the idea of an exit interview. I think that's such a great idea. I'm just curious. What are the questions we need to be asking women when we do the exit interview?

[Sandra Perron]

What are we doing right? What should we keep doing? What should we stop doing? Why are you leaving?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

You talked about mentoring, and then we had sponsorship added to that. You said that it exists but it's not being used. Can you tell us why it's not being used, and is there any way that we could provide a recommendation on how to encourage the use of it?

[Sandra Perron]

Mentorship takes time. To do it really well you have to implement ways of doing it and to formalize it. That takes time. The forces wrote a beautiful book on mentoring—a thick policy book—and they never implemented it. It's ad hoc, a little bit everywhere, and it's left up to the units to do any mentoring they can. Ask any military person, and probably 80% of them will tell you they've never had a mentor or mentored others in a formal way. Why? Corporations do this all the time, and it works.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Do you have any thoughts about how we could...? I understand there is a book that's been written about it that's not being used, but are there recommendations on how to encourage...?

[Sandra Perron]

Even though I said you can't tell soldiers to respect their colleagues, you can't force them to, you can certainly force a program like mentoring onto a unit and measure it.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

With better data collection.... Of course, data is always so powerful, and it really allows us to measure. One of the things that were said is that you do better when you can measure it. What do we need to be measuring? I ask both of you.

[Sandra Perron]

Let's measure the good stuff too, the success rates of women, the number of women and DGMs who are being mentored, the number of graduations and promotions of these DGMs and representation. Let's measure the good stuff.

Then let's measure the not-so-good stuff. We measure the number of accidents they have or the deaths in a unit. Let's also measure the number of complaints and the number of complaints that were addressed in the correct fashion.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

Do you have anything to add?

[Kristine St-Pierre]

I think it would also be important to measure the ability of women to actually voice their opinions, to speak out. I think there's a specific way in which that could be measured. Certainly that would be quantity—how many come in, how many move up, and things like that—but also qualitatively. What are they able to achieve? What can they contribute? We have to talk about meaningful participation as well—not just that they are present there, but how can they really contribute?

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

Given the time we have left on the clock, I have MPs Gallant, Dzerowicz, Bezan and Spengemann who would like more questions. That means we can give everybody here five more minutes each.

I will start with MP Gallant. The floor is yours.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

I will pick up where we left off with Ms. Perron. That is, if we had a chance to have the Auditor General in here right now and you could pose questions, what would those questions be?

[Sandra Perron]

Why are we not measuring the success of women at every single level, including all the other DGMs as well? I speak mostly about women, but I would add the DGMs in there. Why aren't we doing that?