Yes.
Evidence of meeting #126 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 diversity.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #126 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 diversity.
A video is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
LCol (Ret'd) John Selkirk
Yes.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
I'm wondering if you have the numbers. Do those units have a lower percentage of women? I'd like to get the statistical data to see whether or not some of the testimony we've heard bears out what people have said.
3:50 p.m.
LCol (Ret'd) John Selkirk
If we go back to what I mentioned earlier, from March 2018, the department has published those percentages. The overall percentage in the Canadian Armed Forces is 15.3%. In the reserve, the overall percentage is whatever I said earlier on, about 16%. It's a little bit smaller in the regular force, 14.9% or something. However, within the combat arms, there are not very many women. The total percentage of combat arms and supporting arms—infantry, armoured artillery, engineers and signals—is only 2.7%. That's in the total of the Canadian Armed Forces.
That tells me that a lot of woman don't necessarily want to be in the combat arms. You probably have to be a bit crazy, like me, to want to be an infantryman. It's a tough job. At any rate, I'm joking a bit, but I think there are a lot of women who just don't want to do that. What those numbers also tell me is that the combat service support, the air force and the navy, all have a lot more women than we're going to get in the army reserve. I'm not sure that we're going to increase those numbers in the army reserve combat arms very fast.
If I still have a moment—
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
You have about 15 seconds left. Perhaps you could wrap up. I think there will be more time after for us to continue on that point.
3:55 p.m.
LCol (Ret'd) John Selkirk
Here's our concern within Reserves 2000. If somebody says every unit has to be 15% this year, 16% next year, and so on, it isn't going to happen in the combat arms. We have to accept that. If you start issuing quotas to get to those numbers, it just isn't going to work. Those units are then going to go down in strength. That's our fear.
February 7th, 2019 / 3:55 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thanks very much, Mr. Chair, and welcome back, Colonel Selkirk.
3:55 p.m.
LCol (Ret'd) John Selkirk
Thank you.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
I would like to echo Mr. Bezan's comments on the effective work that you and your organization do promoting the profile of reserves and maybe helping to keep the government's attention on reserves. I know we still have a lot of work to do. I think the reserves are very important.
I was going to go a different way. I want to go back to what you and Mr. Bezan were talking about, because I think you're falling into a bit of a trap, called essentialism, in saying that the reason you don't see women in certain places is that they don't want to be there. Throughout society, when you examine and study that, you find that they're not there because of the barriers, not because of the differences of opinion. When you say not many women want to be infantrymen, neither do many men. There's something differential operating there. I think you have to be careful of making the assumption that women don't want to do things—
3:55 p.m.
LCol (Ret'd) John Selkirk
Yes.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
—because that's not borne out in most other places in society.
When you said you're not in favour of quotas, and you stated that several times, how about targets? I think what we're seeing here is a lot of positive statements, and a few positive initiatives, but not much progress.
If you look at visible minorities in Canada, probably at least one in five Canadians belongs to a visible minority now. It's probably just about half that in the Canadian Forces. Of course, we're talking about women. Obviously, they are 50% of the population and only 15% in the Canadian Armed Forces, so we have very modest figures here and no real targets. For women, I would say there's a target of 1% a year, but it's so modest it would get us to 25% by 2026.
Again, all the studies in society show that a critical mass of women in an organization is something over 30%. Until you get to 30%, it doesn't change the culture of the organization. It doesn't have those impacts you were talking about, where things would actually multiply.
If you're not in favour of quotas, are you in favour of stronger targets, with measures to actually achieve those targets?
3:55 p.m.
LCol (Ret'd) John Selkirk
Yes, and as I said, we're delighted that “Strong, Secure, Engaged” talks about goals, not quotas. If you want to call them targets, or goals, yes, the targets should be set. I don't know how you know the ethnic makeup of the Canadian Forces, because I don't think anybody really knows that. Do you have statistics on that?
3:55 p.m.
LCol (Ret'd) John Selkirk
What percentage do they say come...?
3:55 p.m.
LCol (Ret'd) John Selkirk
That's 11% from non—
3:55 p.m.
NDP
3:55 p.m.
LCol (Ret'd) John Selkirk
Okay.
In both cases, gender and ethnic, targets are the way to go. I still don't necessarily think the armed forces or the Department of National Defence know enough about the populations where units are located, or even—I don't know—about breakdowns within units, to say, “Okay, how are you guys doing?” That will vary across the country.
4 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
I certainly do take your point that better data will certainly lead to better policy. That's always the case.
4 p.m.
LCol (Ret'd) John Selkirk
Yes.
4 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
I guess the reason I'm choosing the word “targets” rather than “goals” is that targets usually have specified ways of getting there, whereas goals are just goals. I think we're still suffering from that: good intentions but lack of specific plans.
You say that the reserve units have been more successful when they've decentralized recruiting, and they're doing slightly better. I'm not disputing that at all. I think that is true. I certainly know that locally.
4 p.m.
LCol (Ret'd) John Selkirk
Yes.
4 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
What other than decentralization do you accredit that to? How is it that people locally managing recruiting are doing better?
4 p.m.
LCol (Ret'd) John Selkirk
First of all, they know their audience better.
Most importantly, the over-centralized policies of two years ago meant that, for example, on Vancouver Island, you would have had people in your riding who would have had to travel some distance to be processed and that would have turned them off. Doing it all within the local armoury is much more efficient for one thing.
Another problem with the over-centralization, and this problem still exists, is that the medical people need to see every file. I find it a bit ironic that with doctors, who have a pretty strong professional organization, we couldn't say to a doctor, “Can't we accept your opinion on this from Victoria, in Halifax, instead of every file having to go to Borden for central processing?” This is something that I know the army is working on, maybe not desperately but at least hard, to change, but so far, that hasn't changed. However, because of those pressures, the time that the medical people have had working on files has been shortened considerably. That's another factor.
The security clearances have been shortened considerably.
Two years ago, from the time a potential army reserve recruit walked in the door of the army and said, “Gee, I might like to do this” until they could get enrolled, the average time was six months. This is for a part-time job. That has been reduced. I don't know what the figure would be today, but the last time I heard much about it, it had been reduced by probably half anyway. I think that shows the surge.
4 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
I don't mean to be hard on you this afternoon, because you've been a very effective advocate for more efficient recruiting.
Those were all good things to increase recruiting overall, but how do those changes differentially impact women, visible minorities or aboriginal people in getting into the reserves? I see how it does good things generally, and I'm totally supportive, but I wonder how it does have that differential impact.