National Defence Committee on Jan. 31st, 2019

[Kristine St-Pierre]

That is a very good question.

I haven't studied all the countries. I've looked at Australia a little bit and Sweden in terms of diversity and equality. In Australia, they have certainly put some measures in place to improve that. That would be something to look at, but I can't give you specific data on that.

I do believe Canada has a lot of initiatives—even in the women, peace and security agenda, or the Canadian national action plan—where it says that the Canadian military should mentor other countries and should support the capacity-building of other countries. That is great, but again, just as you mention, I think it's also important, before we do that, to look at our own structures and make sure that our house is in order before we go and mentor other countries in terms of diversity and equality.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I agree.

Major Perron.

[Sandra Perron]

I would suggest that Israel is one of the benchmarks in the industry for women serving in combat. We could learn a lot from them. I don't know about other countries—

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

They also use the draft, or conscription.

[Sandra Perron]

I know. I don't think there is anybody out there who is in the forefront of embracing diversity as much as Canada. We are 25 years in front of the U.S. and many other countries, but there are best practices out there.

I would say that we need to go outside of the military and look at corporations—they've done really well. Some universities are excelling in that area. Why are they excelling and not our military colleges? What makes it so different?

That's my comment.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

You've deployed; you've served. I'm also interested to know, in terms of the obstacles you faced here in Canada, did they decrease or increase when you were deployed? When you were actually standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder, brothers and sisters in arms in theatre, were you treated differently? Were you treated better?

[Sandra Perron]

Quite frankly, it depends on the tour. There was progression.

My last tour in Croatia, the three myths around women with regard to physical fitness, group cohesion and operational effectiveness were debunked. My platoon hit three anti-tank mines, and we survived a lot of attacks. We accomplished a lot of missions, and my gender had no impact whatsoever on any of those.

I can't say the same for my first tour. I was locked up in a duty room and not allowed out of the camp. I guess it depends on the leadership, the opportunities and time.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

In some of the coalitions we were in when you were deployed, how were you received by some of our allies?

[Sandra Perron]

Again, it depends. A Spanish battalion was a little different from a British battalion, and the Dutch were very welcoming of women. In terms of scale, I saw a range. My presence was polarizing in most situations.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

I appreciate your sharing your experience with us today.

[Sandra Perron]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

I have MP Spengemann, and then MP Blaney.

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

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you again for the conversation this afternoon. We're hitting some really fertile ground in terms of transitioning and transforming.

I want to go back to what you both, or one of you, described as the light-bulb conversations and how you pull men into the issue and get them invested. Madam St-Pierre, I think you mentioned in the beginning that this is a moral issue, that it should be about the right to serve in the Canadian Forces.

On other fronts, including the conversation about gender equality and its economic benefit, there's some research that we like to point to. The Royal Bank did some research saying that if we had pay equity tomorrow, we would have a global benefit in excess of $10 trillion U.S. When you say that to a bunch of investment bankers, all of a sudden the light bulb goes on, but that's not the right way to go at it. As you pointed out, this is instrumentalization.

Can those two streams move in parallel until we reach a breakthrough where men are engaged, and then move them over to the right-spaced paradigm? Should we never use the instrumental dialogue, or is there some other option? The fundamental starting point is that this is Canada, and this is 2019 now. This is a human rights question, in a way, and it should always be anchored as such, but to actually get the breakthroughs and the light bulbs, do we need to mobilize other avenues of starting the conversation?

[Kristine St-Pierre]

You pose a really great question, and with what Major Perron was saying about how you can't force a soldier to respect, those are very hard questions.

The operational effectiveness is not a new thing. The UN has been using it throughout the 2000s to push for gender equality and say, this is why we need more women in UN peacekeeping missions, because they will do this; they will be able to attend to victims of gender-based violence; they will be able to talk to women and be a role model for women in these countries. Many organizations have been using that argument, and part of it is because we're trying to convince people of the value. Just using the human rights argument, or saying that because we're 50% of the population we have a right, is not translating. It's not hard dollars or financial arguments.

In terms of the UN, you see a change. It is moving away from focusing solely on the operational effectiveness, because we've also seen that it's pigeonholing women. Women are being deployed and then being put only in certain positions and not allowed to do the full range of activities.

It's a very delicate situation and it's about understanding the real context of this institution, the CAF, and what they are able to do and how far they can push. You need to be cautious, but you also need to use the measures that you think will bring you to that change.

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

Major Perron.

[Sandra Perron]

I have two points with regard to what you were saying.

The first one is that I think people need to understand that we are recruiting our soldiers from 26% of the population when we recruit mostly white men. That's economic data.

The other point is that I think men hold most of the power when it comes to moving things and propelling change forward. Imagine a classroom where that same sergeant tells everybody that he doesn't want to teach the Operation Honour crap, and a male corporal stands up and says, “Hey, wait a minute. I think this is really important, and I'm all in. I want to hear this. I don't want to just check the box and be inoculated. I really want to learn from this.”

That would make a whole lot of difference, rather than the woman in the room saying, “Hey, wait a minute. We need to do this.” Men hold the power. They need to be the champions.

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

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

The last question goes to Rachel Blaney.

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

I guess the one thing that really stands out for me in the report from the Auditor General is that the timeliness in resolving cases of abuse is very slow. One of the things that you know when the process doesn't work, when it's slow, is that victims don't believe in it anymore. This silences them even more, which means that we continue this cycle that never gets better.

I'm wondering if you could share your thoughts on a couple of things. First, what are the preventatives to women in the force speaking out? Second, why do you think the process right now is so slow?

[Sandra Perron]

Again, I'm going to speak only anecdotally because I don't know all of the data.

I know for certain that the process is slow because of language. The process is slow because of a lack of investigators.

I think some of the main reasons women are not coming forward are backlash, the loss of their careers, and the retribution from speaking out—still today. That's what I'm hearing.

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

Thank you.

Do you have anything to add, Ms. St-Pierre?

[Kristine St-Pierre]

That's what I've heard as well. I think it's quite similar to the rest of society. There's retribution and backlash, but certainly in the military, where it's very close-knit....

What we've seen in the media, as well, is the loss of career. When you've worked extremely hard within that unit to achieve that career, to have it end like that is quite hard.

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

Yes. It's a testament to the strength of those women.

That's all I have. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I did indicate that this was going to be the last question, but we still have some time. A member wanted another question.

Ms. Dzerowicz, the floor is yours.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you.

I kind of blame it on both of you. You give such wonderful testimony that it's kind of triggering some other things in me.

There was a comment that legitimate standards are good, but we do have to question many of the current ones. It got me thinking that, through time, how we organize our armed forces has changed because we want to win and do well at our objectives. I'm wondering to what extent the very structure of our military right now, the way we've set up to win, is actually stopping us, women, from joining, progressing and changing the culture.

To be honest, when I think of the military, I think, “Oh, my God, it's so regimented. It would be nothing that I would even remotely want to join.” It's not from a safety perspective or because I don't think I could. It's just even thinking....

I wonder to what extent we need a new way of organizing ourselves so that we have a new way of winning in the world. It's a different world. We almost have to evolve that whole way of being so that when we're actually thinking about the army, it's different.

It just came to mind, and again, it's the fault of both of you because you have such intelligent answers. I wonder if you could respond to that.