National Defence Committee on Feb. 7th, 2019

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

That's very disappointing, because I know the Canadian Forces have said they want to remove barriers to seeking mental health treatment. Your story illustrates two problems: the discriminatory problem, as well as the access to mental health treatment problem. Thus, it's doubly important to this committee, so thank you for being here today.

I want to turn to Ms. Deschamps. There are a whole lot of things I'd like to ask about here, but I want to focus on one thing. The Office of the Auditor General in its fall 2018 report talked about the problems they found with the duty to report. Therefore, I'm following up a bit on something Ms. Gallant was asking about.

They said that the approach of the Canadian Forces in establishing a duty to report any incidents of sexual harassment or sexual assault has led to lower reporting rather than increased reporting. I'd like to know your reaction to that finding of the report.

[Marie Deschamps]

I'm not surprised, because in imposing a duty to report, they're not taking a victim-focused approach. It's very good to make sure that the perpetrator, if I can use that word, is prosecuted and they can sanction the person; however, there has to be a balance, and the first person you have to look to is the victim, because the victim needs to be taken care of and sometimes the victim is not ready to report.

That's the reason I discussed the restricted report. You take care of the victim. You comfort her, and when she is ready, then you go to the sanctioning approach.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

What you're really arguing is if the proper supports for victims are in place, this will ultimately not be a barrier to reporting, that eventually you will get official reports and complaints.

[Marie Deschamps]

That's correct.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I believe the response of the chief of the defence staff was that he had no intention of changing the duty to report, so I think we have some things to pursue here as a committee, given the Auditor General's report and your testimony.

[Marie Deschamps]

Well, it may just be a way to express it. If they keep the duty to report but they put as a prerequisite to take care of the victim and to ensure that she is comfortable with the way things are evolving, I would ask you to do a parallel to my recommendation that the victim be consulted as to which system of justice would be used for the prosecution.

In some cases, the victim might be more comfortable in the civilian system. In other instances, it might be the military system. However, this is an example of the victim-focused approach. In the duty to report, at the very outset, this has to be put in their mind, to look at the victim first.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Great. Thank you.

I want to ask you another question. You mentioned the diversity report and the diversity goals of the Canadian military. Right now, that is to increase female recruitment by 1% a year from the current 15%. By my count, that means we wait about 35 years for full equality in the recruiting.

I know it's not necessarily what you studied or your field of expertise here, but the goal seems quite low to me at an increase of 1% a year.

[Marie Deschamps]

I've lived through this increase. I'll give you the example of the judiciary, because this is the example that I went through.

When I was appointed in 1990, the first time, at the superior court, then prime minister Brian Mulroney had decided to increase the number of women in the judiciary. He made a very conscious approach and looked for women to be appointed. Over the years, we increased to a little over 25%, I think, but you have to look at which court.

It takes time. What is important is to achieve a critical mass.

To have a very visual image of what a critical mass can do in terms of an impact, just remember what happened at the speech which many of us watched on Monday, where there were more than 100 women dressed in white. Remember how long it took to get there. I looked at the number in 1917, and there was one woman in Congress. Then I added the U.S. Senate with the House of Representatives. There are now 131 women, and they are making an impact.

You don't need to go up to 50% to have that impact where you can achieve something.

I again go back to the example in the commercial environment. Even with the incentive of the Ontario Securities Commission, they're struggling to go beyond 15% and 20%.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Madam Deschamps, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to interrupt you. I hate to do that, but I have to move to the next person.

I'm going to yield the floor to MP Dzerowicz.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Madam Deschamps and Ms. Nash, for your important contributions today.

Ms. Nash, I'll start off with you.

In your ideal world, what would you have wanted the response to be when you said, “You know, I have a child. I'd like to change jobs. I want to be more flexible”? I know you said that you would have taken anything, but what would you have wanted to see?

[Laura Nash]

I would have liked to see the navy have a schedule that works better for parents, as the Coast Guard has, something such as three months on and three months off. That is something I can do. I can fly my son back and forth with that.

The way the navy works, you sail for one day and come back for 10. You sail for a month and come back for three months. You sail for 10 days and come back for a year. It's just all over the place, so it's nearly impossible without having a husband or a lot of money to have a live-in nanny, which some people did.

That's something that would have certainly worked. If not, then when I had to hand in my “I'm sorry, I just can't do this because of my son”, I would have liked there to be a policy in the military for women such that when they go to the BPSO and say they have a baby and no other option, there is a way for the BPSO to say, “Sure, we'll switch your trade. Let's look at what you're good at.” Then I would have been able to stay in, because there are so many jobs I could have done in the military.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you. That's important.

I've only worked in male-dominated professions my entire life. The Canadian Armed Forces, for lack of better words, is definitely a male-dominated environment.

We have to engage. Part of the change has to be from all of us. We can't order men to respect women or to change.

From your perspective, how do we get them involved to be part of the change?

[Laura Nash]

Do you mean to be part of the change in respecting women more?

[Julie Dzerowicz]

No, I mean just in terms of being a lot more open to different options. From your perspective, there was a very clear line in terms of what could be done. How can we engage more?

Maybe it's an unfair question for you. If you don't have a response, I have another question for you.

[Laura Nash]

I think there is a loss of focus on the family and children are a problem to people in the military. I think that's unfair. There was a lot of grumbling on the ships about parents because they got to leave an hour early to go get their kids from school or whatever. You have people without kids who work the longer hours, sail more and fly more, and who also get the postings that nobody else wants. You can say that you're married and you want to stay with your wife or husband. That's a consideration to stay in Trenton, or a more desirable post. Then it's the single people without kids who typically get posted somewhere else.

I think that where the navy pays sea pay, it's a good start, because it rewards those people who do go to sea and work more. I would have liked to take less pay if that's what it took so that I could have my kid and work as much as I could.

It would be nice to see some sort of way of having more respect for families and parents but also respecting the people who do the extra work, because they're there too.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you.

I have another couple of questions and I have limited time.

I have one last question for you. I do this, too, and I have done it, in that I often go to women and automatically think that they're going to be more helpful, and that's often not the case. It's not that it's never the case—I don't want to say that—but it often isn't what I anticipated. I wonder if you have any other thoughts about how we can create a more supportive environment for women to support women within the Canadian Armed Forces.

[Laura Nash]

Absolutely. That is a very good point, because you may have noticed in my story that it was mostly women who I went to for help and I didn't get it.

When I walked into the cafeteria at CFB Esquimalt, I noticed something, which was that you don't see five women sitting together having lunch. You see four men and a woman sitting together, or you see a man and a woman, or two men and a woman. I thought that was very strange, because when I was a professional athlete along with a lot of men, when you would see a woman, you would just flock to each other and be friends. I thought that's how the military would be, too, but it's not.

I think that if there were some sort of training or something that helped women get along, it would be very helpful, because women can be very mean to each other. I think that maybe some women aren't taught how to get along with others. If there were something to help with that, I think that would go a long way.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you.

Madam Deschamps, I felt anxious when you were saying that there were some immediate things you wanted to see happen right away after the report was launched. It's years later now and much of it still hasn't necessarily happened, or a lot of things have been much slower. Part of me almost feels like we have to leapfrog now.

Is there something that we can do as a government to help incentivize leadership to move faster? Is it just additional resources? Is it particular incentives? Is it that we provide bonuses? Do we put in quotas? What is it that we can do to get them on the fast train to start implementing these recommendations?

[Marie Deschamps]

One thing that is often mentioned [Technical difficulty—Editor]

There is a problem with the sound. On my side I hear an echo, but I will continue.

I have often heard that a big problem is that the policies are shared with other departments, so that they cannot do what they want for the policies. The very first thing that I thought could be done quickly was to change the policy and then prosecute on that new policy, so that you would get things going and so, for example, the hostile environment is not still in the DOD. In my view, if there were support from the legislative side, this could be solved. That would be something that could be done quickly.

[Julie Dzerowicz]

It's to move faster on implementing the policy and the legislative changes that were recommended in your report. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

I don't think we'll need 15 minutes, but we will need some minutes. We have enough time, given how little time we've had, for one more question. By order of precedence, that five-minute question goes to Mr. Spengemann.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Madam Justice Deschamps and Ms. Nash, thanks to both of you for being here and for your service to our nation.

I want to circle back to you, Madam Nash, and an issue that my colleague just raised with you. It's the fact that you mentioned in your testimony three officers, I believe, or three women in the Canadian Forces, who were not supportive. This is an important issue for us, because we receive a lot of testimony on numbers, statistics, data and the logistics of recruiting more women. We have not reached a tipping point where the sheer number of women is going to help us change the culture, and I'll get to the word “culture” in a moment.

First of all, do you have any reason to believe that if those three Canadian Forces members you mentioned had been men, the result would have been any different or potentially even better than what you received?

[Laura Nash]

It's possible, but I don't know. I can tell you that I couldn't find any women mentors, though. As a former athlete, I always look for women mentors, and male mentors too—any gender—but particularly, for some reason, if there's a woman I look up to, she's a role model. I was in the forces for almost eight years, and I looked very hard, and I couldn't find one who was nice to me and also successful. Okay, maybe there was one.

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

This might be a hard question to answer just off the cuff. To what extent do you think that is a factor of simply the lack of numbers? In other words, if we had 30%, 40% or 50% female officers or female Canadian Forces members, would that be different in itself just because of the numbers?

[Laura Nash]

It's just speculation, but I would hope so, and I would certainly think so.